Lobbyists Get Ethics Waivers to Join Administration

President Obama has made his first mistake in office with the ethics rules waivers he has given to two lobbyists. The first is William J. Lynn III, a registered lobbyist for Raytheon Co. from 2003 to June of last year, who is to be the number two man at Defense. The second is William Corr, nominated for Deputy Secretary of the Health and Human Services Department. House and Senate records last year show he lobbied the agency on behalf of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. Under the ethics rules set up on Mr. Obama's first day in office, no lobbyist can work on matters for which he lobbied or in any agency that he lobbied in the past.

Naturally, the Obama White House has a defense. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs trotted out to tell the press and the public, "Even the toughest rules require reasonable exceptions. Our waiver provisions are designed to allow uniquely qualified individuals like Bill Corr and Bill Lynn to serve the public interest in these critical times." This journal respectfully disagrees. "Desperate times, desperate measures" isn't really that great a moral and ethical anchor.

Of the two, the Corr waiver is the less worrisome. Lobbying the HHS, as Mr. Corr did, to keep tobacco out of the hands of kids (or anyone else) is unlikely to create financial incentives to subvert the public good. It is difficult to see how he would benefit in any way. Nevertheless, is he absolutely so much better than any other candidate that a waiver should be granted? All other things being equal, a non-lobbyist would be better.

The Lynn waiver, on the other hand, is one vast conflict of interest. Raytheon Co. is a major defense contractor that does billions of dollars of business with the Pentagon each and every year. As Deputy Secretary of Defense, he will be involved in all sorts of procurement decisions. Yet another of the Obama ethics rules says he must, according to Bloomberg, “recuse himself, for a period of one year, from any decisions involving his prior employer, unless specifically authorized to participate by an appropriate ethics official.” If this rule were enforced, Mr. Lynn would effectively have nothing to do until an ethics official approved. That would take weeks, even months, rendering Mr. Lynn ineffective.

To diffuse some of the criticism, Mr. Lynn will sell off his stock in Raytheon and other defense contractors. This will cost him quite a bit of money according to his defenders. Yet that is not the point. Once again, is he really the indispensable man? Is he so valuable to the country at the Pentagon that Mr. Obama can give him an ethics waiver in good conscience? As Charles de Gaulle noted, "The graveyards are full of indispensable men.”

© Copyright 2009 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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