K St. Project has a pulse — but for Dems

The K Street Project is dead. Long live the K Street Project?

After reclaiming the majority, Democrats took aim at the alleged campaign by the GOP to use its policymaking powers to pressure trade associations and corporations to install Republicans in top lobbying jobs.

The ethics bill that Democratic leaders wrote would make such heavy-handed behavior a federal crime, with violators facing up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

But some ethics experts noticed that Democrats introduced a small change to the language during conference that could make a big difference in whether any K Street Project-like prosecution is plausible.

Earlier versions would have prohibited members or staff from using political affiliation as a basis for trying to influence hiring decisions. The language now prohibits members from using political affiliation as the sole basis for trying to influence a hiring decision.

 “The insertion of the word ‘solely’ makes it extremely unlikely someone will be prosecuted for violating the law,” said Brett Kappel, an attorney at Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease who specializes in campaign finance and ethics laws.

Frame-of-mind cases are already notoriously tough to prove, he said. Determining whether a member was thinking of one factor, such as party affiliation, or several factors — party affiliation, committee experience, natural disposition — in trying to influence a hiring decision will be next to impossible, Kappel indicated.

“This is not going to be very high on a prosecutor’s list of priorities,” he said.

The final version “is a much more limiting provision” than the original language, agreed Meredith McGehee, policy director for the Campaign Legal Center.

While such a small change may seem inadvertent, McGehee said legislative language alterations are rarely random. “They have a reason in mind,” she said. In this case, Democrats may, as members of the majority, want to retain some measure of influence on hiring decisions downtown.

Ultimately, though, the genie may be out of the bottle, she said. Democrats would be hurt politically, if not legally, if they were caught doing the same thing they accused Republicans of doing.

“Politics is about appearances,” she said, adding that her group continues to be a strong supporter of the ethics bill Congress passed.

The ethics bill passed in the House included language that prohibits any effort by members to influence hiring decisions of private entities, and made such action a crime. The Senate’s bill did not include similar language. Sen. Bob Casey Jr. (D-Pa.), who was among a group of freshman members pressing leaders to pass a tough reform bill, had intended to introduce a K Street Project amendment to the bill, but the measure was never voted on during the Senate’s debate.

While the final bill language approved by Congress was changed from earlier drafts, Casey spokesman Larry Smar said the ultimate effect would be the same.

“This provision will provide a substantial deterrent to participation in the K Street Project and other efforts to influence hiring decisions,” Smar said in an e-mailed response.

He noted that Senate Republicans have apparently decided not to continue to formally keep track of hires on K Street, a job ex-Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) performed until his election defeat.

“You can attribute that to tough measures to combat the K Street Project or to Santorum’s defeat,” said Smar, whose boss was the one who defeated the conservative Pennsylvania Republican.

“We don’t see the addition of one word changing the intent or strength of the language,” Smar added.