Reply #119: Obama got the provision in that is the strongest action on lobbyists in decades [View All]

[karynnj]

Edwards did NOTHING on this when in the Senate.

"Given the reliance of many lawmakers on lobbyists as fund-raisers, the idea of requiring them to disclose their roles usually meets stiff resistance on Capitol Hill — all of it behind the scenes and almost none of it in public. House passage is far from assured, and its adoption by the Senate by a roll-call vote of 96 to 2 followed some backroom resistance among senators in both parties to allowing the idea to come up for a vote at all.

The Republicans who controlled the Senate last year refused to let it come up. And on Jan. 12, before the details of the proposal had been disclosed, Senator Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat in charge of his party’s fund-raising as head of the senatorial campaign committee, used a run-in on the Senate floor to deliver an angry rebuke to the disclosure idea’s lead sponsor, Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, several people present or briefed on the confrontation said.

In a subsequent conversation, Mr. Schumer said he worried that the proposal could cramp fund-raising by placing an undue burden on potential bundlers, said aides who were briefed and a lawmaker familiar with their talk, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the nature of the talks.

“Senator Obama has not been the most popular person in our caucus in the last couple of weeks,” said a Democratic aide involved in deliberations over the bill. Mr. Obama also this week started a bid for his party’s presidential nomination.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/20/us/politics/20ethics.html?_r=2&scp=3&sq=Senate+ethics+bill&st=nyt&oref=slogin&oref=slogin