OK, this is more ‘gossipy’ than substantive, but I thought I would share:
Necklace Envy
By Mary Ann Akers
Roll Call Staff
August 2, 2006
House and Senate aides are buzzing about a late-night lobbying incident last week involving Rebecca Cox, the wife of former Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Calif.), who now serves as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
While lobbying for Continental Airlines on the pension bill, Cox wore her Member’s spouse pin, which, of course, gave her access to restricted areas of the Capitol where conferees were meeting until the wee hours of the morning Friday.
Aides saw Cox at 1:15 a.m. standing outside the office of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), where conferees were scheduled to be meeting (though, in reality, they had moved down the hall to another Senator’s hideaway). Cox, they said, was wearing her spouse pin conspicuously on a necklace.
“She had it prominently displayed on her necklace,” a senior Republican aide to one of the Senate conferees told HOH. “No other lobbyist could have gotten into that area.”
The aide said he found Cox’s move “shocking” in this era of ethics and lobbying reform, though he had to acknowledge, grudgingly, that Cox did one heckuva job for Continental by snagging such great access.
“Good lobbying? Maybe,” he said. “Inappropriate? Definitely. The fact that the wife of a former Member — he isn’t even a current Member — is using the privileges given to her as such for personal gain, her business definitely crosses the line.”
On its face, the pin Cox wore was still valid, since her husband was a Member of the current Congress, leaving late last year for the SEC.
Congressional rules do not appear to address the issue of whether the spouses of former Members may use their special pins during the practice of lobbying, said veteran ethics watchdog Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21.
Wertheimer was unaware of the late-night lobbying incident involving Cox, but he said that “from a common-sense standpoint, it shouldn’t have happened. From a rules standpoint, the House and Senate should have clear rules” for registered lobbyists who are married to both current and former Members of Congress.
“As a general proposition, lobbyists ought to all be operating under the same set of rules,” Wertheimer said. “And former Members’ spouses, or anyone else connected to Members who are professional lobbyists, should not have any special privileges that go beyond what lobbyists normally do.”
A spokesman for the House Administration Committee, Jon Brandt, said Members and spouses are allowed to keep their respective pins after the Members’ retirement.
Cox did not return phone calls to her office seeking comment. A spokeswoman for Continental Airlines, Julie King, said she tried to reach Cox “all afternoon” to no avail. She finally sent an e-mail stating, “While I haven’t been able to connect with Rebecca, I have been able to speak with [Vice President of Congressional Affairs] Nancy Van Duyne, who said that ‘this must not have been a restricted area, because there were several other lobbyists in the same area where Rebecca was at the same time.’”
Whatever the case, they certainly didn’t have as nice a necklace as Cox.