Earlier this week Norm Eisen, special counsel to the president for ethics and government reform, wrote a blog post defending President Obama's call for legislation restricting foreign corporations from getting involved in federal elections. As evidence, Eisen references news reports that discuss a lobbying campaign on behalf of subsidiaries of foreign corporations.

On September 14, 2007, President Bush signed the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, a package of lobbying and ethics reforms. However, over two years later, there remains very little enforcement of such rules. According to the Senate's website, there have been a total of 8,281 cases of potential violations of the Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA). Meanwhile, there has been no enforcement on any of the potential LDA violations since 2005, except to send out letters to potential violators.

Last week, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) released a report asserting that the Obama administration's rules covering federally registered lobbyists have "already changed the relationship between lobbyists and covered executive branch officials." The report titled, "Lobbying and the Executive Branch: Current Practices and Options for Change," did not explain how those relationships have changed.

The New York Times found that more than a dozen members of Congress used almost indistinguishable talking points on health care reform ghostwritten by lobbyists. Lobbyists representing a biotech firm drafted separate language for Democrats and for Republicans. "The lobbyists, employed by Genentech and by two Washington law firms, were remarkably successful in getting the statements printed in the Congressional Record under the names of different members of Congress."