The House and Senate have now overwhelmingly passed their respective pieces of lobbying and ethics reform legislation, but a partisan impasse in the Senate has stalled progress. Before the Independence Day recess, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) was unable to reach an agreement with Republicans to go to conference. The House and Senate bills both increase current disclosure requirements for paid lobbying activities under the Lobbying Disclosure Act, but a few discrepancies between the two have to be worked out in conference. Reid promised to complete work on the lobbying and ethics bill before the August recess.

On May 24, the House adopted H.R. 2316, the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007, on a 396-22 vote, and the Senate passed its own version, S. 1, on Jan. 18, 96-2. For weeks, aides from both chambers have been negotiating a final bill in pre-conference meetings.

On June 26, Reid tried to name conferees on the lobbying bill, but Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) blocked the appointment of any Senate conferees. Reid tried again, and Republicans objected at McConnell's request, saying they would allow action on the measure only if promised a vote on a separate bill that would require electronic filing of campaign finance reports, S. 223, as well as an unnamed amendment. Republicans did not disclose the details of their amendment, but Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT) said it relates to election transparency. BNA reported that it likely deals with eliminating the caps on the amount parties can spend in coordination with candidates. Because Democrats had not seen the amendment, they would not agree to vote on it. According to Congressional Quarterly ($), McConnell's first objection was given because Reid moved to go to conference before the GOP was ready to sign off on the motion; McConnell actually has no objections to beginning negotiations with the House.

Two days later, McConnell was getting ready to sign off on the creation of a conference committee without any conditions about the electronic filing bill, when Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) told McConnell he objected to S.1 moving forward until he secures a guarantee that new earmark disclosure rules will remain in the legislation; DeMint renewed his objection July 9. DeMint's action delayed any progress to move to conference. Unlike in the House, which passed a House rule that required disclosure of earmarks, the Senate put its earmark disclosure measures in S.1. Until the bill becomes law, the Senate has no disclosure rules on earmarks.

In the meantime, work is going forward to resolve differences between the two bills. One major obstacle is the "revolving door" provision aimed at preventing members of Congress and senior staff from quickly moving into lobbying jobs after they leave Capitol Hill. Under the Senate bill, senators would be prohibited from engaging in lobbying for two years and senior aides for one year, but the House bill made no changes to the law's current one-year rule. Another contentious issue is a House-passed provision that would extend gift and travel rules to lobbyists for state and local institutions such as universities.

According to Congressional Quarterly ($), a provision that would prohibit law firms that have contracted out services to congressional offices from doing any lobbying will also be controversial. The provision would prohibit the attorney's firm from lobbying Congress while the lawyer is also working for a congressional office.

Both the House and Senate bills would require lobbyists to reveal whether they bundled political contributions, and it would create a new electronic disclosure system for lobbying expenditures and activities. The Senate bill would prohibit lobbyists from sponsoring parties at national conventions, but the House legislation removed that measure. For a more in-depth breakdown of the differences between the chambers' bills, see this comparison chart prepared by the Campaign Legal Center.

With so much deliberation occurring behind the scenes in pre-conference meetings, advocates of reform worry that strong provisions could be weakened. The Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause, Democracy 21, the League of Women Voters, Public Citizen and U.S. PIRG sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Reid calling on them to keep the strong provisions in each of the bills intact. The groups expressed special support for the bundling provision and maintaining lobbyist disclosure of their fundraising events. The letters stated, "Our organizations urge you to ensure that the final conference report on lobbying reform legislation includes strong and effective provisions to provide for the disclosure by lobbyists of the fundraising events they hold and the contributions they 'bundle' for Members. We also urge you to ensure that the strong Senate ethics reforms and earmark reforms passed by the Senate are included in the final conference report."

The lack of action on lobby reform is quite striking. The House and Senate bills passed decisively. The public, in the aftermath of the Jack Abramoff and other scandals, sent a strong message in the last election that reform is necessary. Yet final action has been slow — and it is beginning to take its toll. Just as the president's popularity has plummeted, congressional approval ratings have also decreased significantly. The Democrats are beginning to feel the heat for not getting laws like lobby reform sent to the president for his signature.

Acknowledging the situation, Reid has threatened to take time away from the August recess to force final action. Reid said he was not going to offer any more motions to go to conference on the lobbying bill. Instead, he intends to wait for Republicans to say they want a deal. On the Senate floor June 29, Reid warned, "Everyone should understand that prior to the August recess, we are going to complete ethics and lobbying reform. We are going to do it if we have to spend nights, weekends, take days out of our August recess." If that is true, the promise of acting on lobby and ethics reform will have only taken seven months to complete.