I‘ve spent a lot of ink (here, here, here, and here, for instance) showing that Barack Obama’s talk of standing up to lobbyists and closing the revolving door is hokum. One Democrat whom, it seems, is walking that walk: House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass.
As you might imagine, there are plenty of financial firms who would love to hire Frank’s Financial Services staffers as lobbyists. Goldman Sachs a year ago swooped up former Frank chief of Staff Michael Paese, and the Intercontinental Exchange has nabbed Frank aide Peter Roberson.
But Frank has told these men that if they leave through the revolving door, they should never darken his committee’s doorstep again.
Ryan Grim at the Huffington Post reports on this statement from Frank’s office:
Stories about this correctly noted that there is a one year ban on his interaction with members of the Committee staff, but I do not think that is adequate. I am therefore instructing the staff of the Financial Services Committee to have no contact whatsoever with Mr. Roberson on any matters involving financial regulation for as long as I am in charge of that Committee staff.
That policy strikes me as sound and prudent, but I’m even more impressed by the angry tone of Frank’s statement:
Several people have expressed criticism of the move by Peter Roberson from the staff of the Financial Services Committee to ICE, after he worked on the legislation relevant to derivatives. I completely agree with that criticism. When Mr. Roberson was hired, it never occurred to me that he would jump so quickly from the Committee staff to an industry that was being affected by the Committee’s legislation. When he called me to tell me that he was in conversations with them, I told him that I was disappointed and that I insisted that he take no further action as a member of the Committee staff.
If more members of Congress made it clear to staffers that it’s unacceptable to leverage their public service into private profit on K Street, we’d have cleaner government. The ban on contact with the committee is good, but the public shaming may do even more. If cashing out carried a stigma, we’d be in better shape.
UPDATE: I meant to mention that Frank gave Goldman’s Paese a similar treatment last fall.
