Floor Statement on the Specter-Leahy Presidential Pardon Reform Bill

Disclosure of Certain Lobbying Activities and Gifts to Presidential Libraries

March 29, 2001

Mr. President, I rise today with the senior Senator from Pennsylvania to introduce legislation aimed at making our government more open and accountable to the American people. We are pleased to be joined by six other members of the Judiciary Committee, Senators Hatch, Kohl, Biden, Feinstein, Sessions, Grassley, and by the new junior Senator from New York, Senator Clinton.

Our bill closes two loopholes in the laws governing what government officials and those who lobby them must disclose. First, it amends the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 to require the President to report any gifts or pledges of $5,000 or more to a presidential library during the President’s term in office. Second, it adds to the list of individuals who must register under the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 those who lobby on behalf of a client for a grant of executive clemency.

This legislation builds on a hearing held by the Judiciary Committee on February 14, 2001, relating to the pardons granted by President Clinton in his last days in office. I said then that we needed to view these pardons as a whole and in their historical and constitutional context, not focus exclusively on one or two controversial cases. In this way, we could learn valuable lessons for the future.

The legislation that we introduce today is a pragmatic and forward-looking response to customs and practices that long predate the last Administration. As I have noted before, the controversies surrounding President Clinton’s pardons are not unique.

Other presidents raised substantial funds for their libraries while still in office. The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation opened its doors and began fundraising in February 1985, nearly four years before President Reagan left office. By November 1991, the Foundation had raised between $45 and $65 million. Much of that amount came in large lump sums from big corporations – a source of funding that reportedly dried up when President Reagan returned to private life.

Fund raising for the Bush library also began while the president was still in the White House. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, in an article dated May 25, 1997, quoted former Bush aide Jim Cicconi as saying that fund raising for the library remained "low key"and "very discreet" until the president left office in 1993. Established in 1991, while the president was campaigning for reelection, the George Bush Presidential Library Foundation initially consisted of three people, including Mr. Cicconi and the president’s son, George W. Bush.

I should add that the donor lists for the Reagan and Bush libraries were not and have never been disclosed to the public, a failure of transparency for which President Clinton – but not his predecessors – has been roundly criticized.

President Clinton was also not the first Chief Executive to grant clemency to friends or family members of major contributors. The very first pardon granted by the elder President Bush went to Armand Hammer, the late chairman of Occidental Petroleum Corporation, who pleaded guilty in 1975 to making illegal contributions to Richard Nixon's reelection campaign. Not long before he received his pardon, Hammer gave over $100,000 to the Republican party and another $100,000 to the Bush-Quayle Inaugural Committee. The team of lawyers that won Hammer his pardon included former Reagan Justice Department official, Theodore Olson. While Mr. Olson’s name is well-known now – he was recently nominated to be Solicitor General – it was more important at the time that he was a close friend of C. Boyden Gray, the White House Counsel, and Richard Thornburgh, the Attorney General.

Let me note one more example from the end of the first Bush Administration: In January 1993 – two days before leaving the White House – President Bush pardoned Edwin Cox, Jr., the son of a wealthy Texas oilman. The Cox pardon was lobbied for by Bill Clements, the former governor of Texas, who contacted James Baker, then White House Chief of Staff. Not surprisingly, Mr. Baker mentioned the Cox family largesse in a note to the White House Counsel, referencing Edwin Cox Sr. as a "longtime supporter of the president’s." The Cox family had in fact contributed nearly $200,000 to the Bush family’s political campaigns and to other Republican campaign committees. Shortly after the president pardoned his son, Cox Sr. made a generous contribution to the Bush Presidential Library. His name is now etched in gold on the exterior of the Library alongside the names of other "benefactors" – those contributing between $100,000 and $250,000.

I mention these Bush-era pardons because they demonstrate that pardons which have become controversial and appear improper given the confluence of insider lobbying and financial contributions are not unique to the end of President Clinton’s term in office. The bill we introduce today will bring a greater degree of transparency into the clemency process and so reduce the appearance of impropriety that may otherwise attach to a presidential pardon.

I thank Senator Specter for the thoughtful and even-handed manner in which he conducted the Committee’s hearing last month, and commend him for seeking constructive and bipartisan solutions.