Democratic Sen. Jon Tester failed to fulfill multiple promises he made in a public ethics pledge during his first Senate campaign in 2006, including a vow to publicly post meetings between members of his Senate staff and lobbyists.
CNN’s KFile reviewed lofty promises made by the Montana Democrat when he was running against a Republican he successfully painted as a Washington insider tied to lobbyists. On this point and some others, Tester – who is running for reelection in 2024 – failed to follow through on his commitment.
“I’ll end secret meetings with lobbyists. At the end of every business day, I will post a list of every in-office meeting that I or my staff has had with a lobbyist,” Tester pledged in 2006.
But a review of archived versions of Tester’s Senate website shows that while he did post his own meetings, no staff meetings were ever posted – which an expert noted would leave out most of the crucial work being done on legislation by special interest groups.
“The staffers are the ones collecting all the information in the beginning, trying to understand all the issues so that they can brief their boss in the first place, and that requires extensive meetings with the lobbyists, typically,” said Kedric Payne, the vice president of Campaign Legal Center, a non-partisan ethics and campaign watchdog group.
Payne added that the relationships between congressional staffers and lobbyists are “very close” – lobbyists provide expertise to staffers, who give lobbyists a way to advocate for their clients.
Congressional ethics and the fraud and bribery scandal involving GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff were center stage in Tester’s 2006 race against Republican Senator Conrad Burns. Burns found himself under fire for ties to Abramoff, who went to jail over the scandal and was known for providing gifts, trips and campaign…
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