WASHINGTON — Hold the roast beef and pass the cocktail wieners on toothpicks. Eat off paper plates (napkins are even better), and don’t dare sit down.
Those are the guidelines at dozens of holiday receptions around Capitol Hill this year, as lobbyists, lawmakers and their aides accommodate a new ethics law banning gifts.
For some time, various interest groups have feted Congress’ members and staffers with meals, receptions and other treats that, supposedly, cost no more than $50 per person. After a string of lobbying scandals, however, lawmakers passed a law allowing no gifts to members or staffers from lobbyists or groups that employ lobbyists.
Of course, in Washington, every paragraph is parsed to the last period, so lawyers spent weeks deciding what the “no” in “no gifts” means. Their conclusion: food or refreshments “of a nominal value” are OK, but meals are not.
To help guide nervous lawmakers and their aides, the House ethics committee wrote an advisory memo quickly dubbed the toothpick rule. Small eats “such as hors d’oeuvres, appetizers and beverages” are allowed, as are “coffee, juice, pastry or bagels.” But they must not be part of a meal.
Most people hosting and attending Capitol Hill receptions apparently have agreed that, to stay out of trouble, imbibing guests should neither sit down nor use silverware or plates other than flimsy paper or plastic.
“It’s just the goofiest thing,” said Bruce Josten, chief lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a veteran of many Washington receptions. With some reporters cruising receptions in search of violators, he said, many lawmakers may decide a little finger food and chitchat are not worth the trouble.
“Why would you go through this?” Josten said.
But others have embraced the new rules, saying holiday receptions are still popular, just less extravagant.
“We scaled it back so we didn’t have things like sandwiches and a full turkey,” Craig Holman, spokesman for the watchdog group Public Citizen, said of the group’s annual party, held earlier this week. Public Citizen supports the new law, but it still causes confusion, he said.
The ethics committee allows heavier meals at “widely attended events” sponsored by special interests, but only if the event has a clear business-related purpose. That doesn’t include “holiday parties,” Holman said.
Also, lawmakers and aides can accept gifts from individuals who are not lobbyists or represented by lobbyists. But since it’s hard to find someone (in Washington, anyway) who’s not tied somehow to interests that have lobbyists, congressional staffers have been told to play it safe and pay their own way.
“I think it’s nuts,” Josten said of the complex interpretations.
But scores of interest groups are forging ahead, throwing parties this month where the golden rule is: standing room only.
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