It’s All About the Timing

Congress has vowed to get tough with financial companies. But not so tough that members won’t eagerly solicit and accept their campaign contributions. While the House and Senate have been wrestling over financial reform legislation, members of the relevant committees have found time to conduct more than 800 fund-raising events.

The tawdry symbiosis is so routine that some members are crying foul about a preliminary investigation by the House’s new independent ethics watchdog. The Office of Congressional Ethics has sent out letters seeking information from heavyweight financial industry and business lobbyists with V.I.P. ties to the Capitol to figure out who may have offered what to whom and got what in the pending financial reform legislation.

It is too early to tell what will come of it, but it is already enlightening that seven lawmakers who proclaim their innocence were blithe enough to hold fund-raisers within 48 hours of a big vote last year on reform, netting donations from finance-industry check writers.

Not all lawmakers are so dense about avoiding at least the appearance of quid pro quo. Representative Barney Frank, chairman of the Financial Services Committee, whose members excel at reaping donations, has canceled three fund-raisers as Congress considers final approval of Wall Street reforms. “I thought it was a mistake to have financial industry-related fund-raisers while this bill was being considered,” he told The Hill, a newspaper that covers Congress.

Ethics rules allow lawmakers to raise money from industries they oversee in committee roles, yet blanch at embarrassing timing. Tom DeLay, when he was House majority leader, was admonished for being brazen enough to host a fund-raiser for energy lobbyists on the eve of a critical energy-bill vote. This “created the appearance that donors were being provided with special access,” members of the House ethics committee declared.

Ah, the appearance of things in the Capitol: Take the money, but not too close to the vote. It’s still the stuff of fantasy to imagine publicly financed election campaigns that keep politicians and moneyed interests apart.