Obama's Rules for Lobbyists ... during transition ...

Per John Podesta, Transition Co-Chair:

• Federal Lobbyists cannot contribute financially to the transition.


• Federal lobbyists are prohibited from any lobbying during their work with the transition.


• If someone has lobbied in the last 12 months, they are prohibited from working in the fields of policy on which they lobbied.


• If someone becomes a lobbyist after working on the Transition, they are prohibited from lobbying the Administration for 12 months on matters on which they worked.


• A gift ban that is aggressive in reducing the influence of special interests.

Ok, a 'gift ban.' I would take that to mean no gifts except for the qualifier 'aggressive.' So it doesn't mean no gifts, it means what? Aggressive is a pretty meaningless word in the mouths of politicians.

Notice that lobbyist cannot contribute to the transition. Whoop-de-doo. It says nothing about participating in the transition and contributing later. Good grief.

What about "Federal lobbyists are prohibited from any lobbying during their work with the transition.?" So they're not lobbying but will they still be paid by their lobbying firms? Again, this isn't clear to me.

The bottom line seems to be that they will have some rules about gifts (but they aren't telling us what they are) and there will be an attempt to separate any lobbyist work from financial contributions based on time frame and the policy field they did the work in.

All in all, it's nice that they put something out but what about looking to other sources for help. Aren't there knowledgeable Americans that would like to help out. Americans that are NOT paid lobbyists? Americans who don't contribute money based on the acceptance of their writing our laws and policies? Really, I think there are, but I don't know if Obama is looking beyond the Washington initiated and corrupted for his advice. Is he?