By Peter Sachs / The Bulletin
WASHINGTON - This week's U.S. Senate approval of a lobbying reform bill was also a personal victory for U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.
After trying without success for nearly 10 years to stop what are known as secret holds on the Senate floor, the Senate included his amendment in the bill passed Wednesday. Wyden said his amendment will reduce the power of lobbyists in the lawmaking process.
Any senator can place an anonymous hold on a piece of legislation, indefinitely blocking it from the full Senate for debate or voting. The problem, Wyden said, is not that the holds are bad, but that senators are not held responsible for using them because they don't have to disclose that they were the author of a hold.
"A (secret) hold in a sense is a minifilibuster," said Ross Baker, a political science professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey who specializes in studying the Senate. "It's a much more furtive and a much more elliptical means of blocking something."
Baker said the hold was created as a personal accommodation for senators who wanted more time to negotiate over a piece of legislation.
But it can be a powerful tool. The fact that it can be used secretly, with no way for outsiders or other senators to determine who is using the parliamentary device, is what bothers Wyden the most.
"The average voter wants the public's business done in pubblic," Wyden said.
"A secret hold for a lobbyist is like hitting the jackpot," he added. "The lobbyist goes unidentified. The legislator goes unidentified."
That degree of secrecy can slow the Senate's ability to conduct business. In the past, holds have been applied to pieces of legislation, smaller amendments and even nominees for a range of federal positions.
"We don't know how many of these there are," said Bill Lunch, a political science professor at Oregon State University in Corvallis.
"It's clear that there are a number of senators on both sides of the aisle ... who have used the procedures, some of them more explicitly and some of them under the radar, in an attempt to advance their ideological goals," he said.
Wyden said that lobbyists often use the secrecy of the hold to further their agendas, allowing senators to give a lobbyist what he wants without showing the connection publicly. It is a way for lobbyists to wield power behind the scenes, and there is no way for most people to know what is happening, Wyden said.
While senators have a variety of ways, many of them public, to stall pieces of legislation, many of those tools do not exist in the House. The House doesn't allow secret holds so Wyden's amendment is a non-issue on that side of Capitol Hill, although House members have other ways of stalling legislation, Lunch said.
Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., voted in favor of Wyden's amendment.
"He's called for more reporting on the lobbying end and more disclosure to make information available," said spokesman R.C. Hammond.
The lobbying reform legislation now goes to the House for approval.