Senate holds live on

Life in the Senate was supposed to be very different after the fall of 2007, when the upper chamber passed a lobbying/ethics measure that sought to crack down on anonymous holds.

Nearly three years later, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) on Tuesday blasted both political parties for — yes, you guessed it — anonymous holds.
Secret holds are still alive and well in the Senate, and McCaskill is trying to wage a battle that some had thought was over during the last administration.

{mosads}In a letter to the Senate Ethics Committee late last year, the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) called on the panel to investigate the issue. CREW argued that there are major loopholes in the law.

CREW stated that “the so-called ban on secret holds was nothing more than an empty promise … If the ban is really as meaningless as it seems, the Ethics Committee should admit it and the Senate should repeal it.”

Earlier this month, the Senate Ethics Committee responded it has no jurisdiction on anonymous holds: “[CREW contends] that despite the absence of any Senate rule or regulation, the committee should find that violations of the section constitute ‘improper conduct which may reflect upon the Senate.’ ”

The panel adds that such an action “could effectively turn the committee into a policing agency for alleged departures from Senate parliamentary procedure, a matter which is outside the limited jurisdiction of the committee.”

The panel has a good point in that enforcing secret holds is not within its jurisdiction.

However, CREW’s letter highlights a significant problem. If Congress, or any entity, is going to pass a mandate, there has to be consistent enforcement of it.

This newspaper has not always agreed with CREW on ethics laws, but we do agree that this needs to be addressed in some capacity.

In a release this month, CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan said, “The Senate tried to pawn off this ban to an American public fed up with congressional inaction and secrecy as real change. Now we learn the truth: the ban … is meaningless.”

This is an opportunity for the Senate to revisit secret holds and fix the problem it identified three years ago. While it may not be the jurisdiction of the Ethics panel, the Senate Rules Committee could weigh in with guidance and new procedures on how the secret-hold provision will be enforced.

Having a toothless rule on the books doesn’t make much sense.