Roll Call: Black Caucus’ Institute attempts better ethics in Tunica this year

As we have blogged previously, The New York Times reported on the Congressional Black Caucus 2008 event in Tunica:

House rules, which prohibit lawmakers from taking multiday trips “planned, organized, requested or arranged by a lobbyist.”

It takes a little digging to find the role big companies with lobbyists played in sponsoring the Congressional Black Caucus’s four-day 2008 conference at a casino resort in Tunica, Miss.

Each of the 14 House members submitted a detailed agenda for approval to the ethics committee. It listed social events like a golf outing, but it also included serious topics like health care and global warming.

But there is something missing from the agenda sent to the ethics committee.

A different copy handed out to the caucus members is much the same — except for the line under each event that names a corporate sponsor. A workshop focused on health care included the words “Sponsored by Eli Lily,” the big drug company with a huge stake in health care legislation. Edison Electric Institute, an association of power plant owners, hosted the global warming seminar. Wal-Mart sponsored a clinic to teach lawmakers and other attendees how to skeet shoot; after the lessons came a competition sponsored by the International Longshoremen’s Association.

The NYT then said in an editorial:

Representative Zoe Lofgren, who leads the ethics panel, said that if nonprofit groups are being used “as a pass through” for corporate players, then “that is a fraud.” It looks that way to us.

Without admitting it did wrong, the Congressional Black Caucus and members of Congress were more careful this month in Tunica. Roll Call reports:

The Congressional Black Caucus Political Education & Leadership Institute took extra steps to ensure its annual policy conference in Mississippi last week complied with House ethics rules, according to Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and an institute board member.

The effort comes a year after the nonprofit ran into criticism over corporate sponsorships listed on its itinerary and for giving free space to the American Gaming Association to host an industry forum.

Thompson, chairman of the CBC Institute board, received approval from the ethics committee for the event Aug. 9, two days before the conference started and nearly a month after he submitted forms seeking approval.

Thompson said the ethics approval process has become so arduous it requires Members to seek legal counsel to ensure compliance. And more lawmakers are picking up the tab for their own travel rather than having to interact with the ethics committee. Thompson estimated that about half of the Members who attended the policy conference opted to pay for their own travel.

“More and more Members will say, ‘I’m coming, but I’ll pick up my own expenses. I won’t go through this constant badgering by ethics,’” Thompson said.

Thompson was one of six CBC members who had to reimburse the government for the costs of two trips to the Caribbean. After an investigation, the committee found that the trips were largely paid for by for-profit corporations.

“There’s a reluctance to rely on ethics for advice anymore, and when Members of Congress have reluctance to rely on Congress for advice, that undermines the whole process,” Thompson said.

In order to get the ethics committee’s approval this year, the institute made sure to demonstrate that corporations and trade associations that contributed to the group did not control the agenda of the three-day event.

Roll Call reported in October 2009 on the forms a dozen CBC members filed with the House ethics committee in 2008 and 2009 seeking approval of their travel to the annual conference. The copy of the 2008 itinerary listed corporate sponsors for every aspect of the conference.