By a vote of 396-22, the House approved new lobbying reform legislation on May 24 when it passed the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007 (H.R. 2316). The bill increases the reporting requirements for registered lobbyists, establishes a new electronic disclosure system, imposes new penalties for violating lobbying laws, and includes the controversial proposal to require registered lobbyists to report their bundled campaign contributions (H.R. 2317). The bill will now go to conference committee with a similar Senate bill that was passed in January.

The bill contains several important reforms including expanding the rules governing registered lobbying and requiring electronically filed quarterly reports, which would be available to the public. Lobbyists and firms that employ them would have to certify they have not provided any gift, including travel, to a member of Congress. It also would amend House rules to bar contact with a member's spouse who serves as a lobbyist and require members and senior staff to disclose job negotiations to the ethics committee after they leave Congress, and create penalties for attempts to influence partisan hiring by outside firms. The House bill also doubles the civil penalties for violating the disclosure rules, from $50,000 to $100,000, and adds criminal penalties of up to five years for those who "knowingly and corruptly" fail to comply.

The Democratic leadership in the House filed two lobby reform bills on May 15, H.R. 2316, and a separate bill to require registered lobbyists to report their bundled campaign contributions, H.R. 2317. Neither bill included grassroots lobbying disclosure, but Rep. Martin Meehan (D-MA) offered it as an amendment during the Judiciary Committee's mark up on May 17. In introducing his amendment, Meehan made important clarifying points. "Many different groups are trying to distort what the amendment will and won't do . . . This bill does not cover groups or individual people. This amendment only covers firms retained by clients to engage in these communication campaigns. This bill will not require average people interested in their government to suddenly register as lobbyists."

However, the amendment faced strong opposition from both Democratic and Republican committee members. Rep. Artur Davis (D-AL) commented during the hearing, "Imposing a reporting requirement does create a burden. My concern is that the individuals, or the entities rather, who will most likely clear that burden, are the well-heeled, those on the corporate side, as opposed to those who may be more on the public interest side." The amendment was rejected by the committee. Given the defeat and strong reaction during mark up, Meehan decided against bringing up the provision again when the bill reached floor debate.

The House Judiciary Committee made slight alterations to the two lobbying reform bills before they went to the floor. The committee approved H.R. 2316 after Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) successfully added a manager's amendment which made three changes to the bill. One of the changes was the removal of the "revolving door" provision that was originally part of H.R. 2316, which would have extended the prohibition on lobbying from one year to two after a lawmaker or senior staff member left Congress. This turned out to be very unpopular among House members who expressed a concern about retaining highly qualified staff and their own future income. The revolving door measure seemed to be voluntarily dropped in return for support of Rep. Chris Van Hollen's (D-MD) bundling bill (H.R.2317).

Retreat on the revolving door provision received negative media attention, especially after many freshman Democrats campaigned on a platform promising to change ethical standards in Congress. For example, a Boston Globe editorial titled "It came from the ethics swamp" lamented that the "revolving door provision was allowed to die ostensibly to clear the way for a more significant reform: a bill that would require disclosure by lobbyists who sponsor 'bundled' campaign contributions."

The manager's amendment changed the details of the provision requiring members and congressional staff to disclose employment negotiations to the Ethics Committee, which does not disclose the information, as opposed to notifying the House Clerk's office, where the information would be public. Additionally, a provision to disclose who is behind various coalitions that lobby was changed to exempt nonprofit coalitions from disclosing. A measure to prohibit lobbyists from sponsoring extravagant events at political party conventions was also resoundingly voted down.

Over forty amendments were submitted to the Rules Committee, but only five were allowed for floor consideration. The House adopted a Republican "motion to recommit" with further reforms. These removed the House gift rules exemption for state and local governments and public universities, placed restrictions on former lobbyists who take jobs on Capitol Hill ("reverse revolving door"), and required more detailed disclosure of lobbying for earmarks. A Republican-sponsored change was also approved that expands the bundling provision to cover contributions lobbyists arrange for outside political action committees.

The bundling provision covers campaign contributions of $200 or more per quarter collected by registered lobbyists and forwarded to candidates or their political committees, and $5,000 or more bundled from all federal political action committees, including independent 527s. The new lobbying disclosure requirements would force lobbyists to disclose on a quarterly basis, instead of semi-annually, and the threshold to trigger reporting would be $10,000 per quarter. The lobbying disclosure information would be made available through a searchable database on the Internet — and the data would be linked with campaign contributions recorded by the Federal Election Commission.

In addition to the bill not addressing grassroots lobbying disclosure and the revolving door, it also did not address ethics enforcement. Advocates have been calling for an independent office to provide enforcement. The House is expected in June to provide a plan for ethics enforcement.