Monday, July 6, 2009 12:39 PM

Senate Sends 1,713 Lobbying Violations to Justice

(Corrects to fix cumulative figure in second graph)

The Secretary of the Senate has sent 1,713 potential violations of the Lobbying Disclosure Act this calendar year to the Justice Department's U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, according to the U.S. Senate Office of Public Records website.

The cumulative number of potential violations sent by the Senate to Justice is 5,596 since January 1996 January 2008, the site says.The office was required, under the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, to publicly update the number of potential violations that it has sent to the U.S. Attorney's office twice a year. (HLOGA was passed and signed into law in 2007, amending the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995)

Though the types of violations that were referred to Justice aren't clear, they could include minor mistakes like failing to fill out a particular line in the disclosure report, to a more major violation such as failing to report spending on lobbying at all. A Senate Office of Public Records official wasn't available for comment.

Under the law, a registrant has 60 days to remedy a violation once notified by the Secretary of the Senate or the Clerk of the House of Representatives. Failure to comply could result in a $200,000 fine and up to 5 years in prison.

Kenneth Gross, a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, said 90 percent of those lobby violations were likely minor errors or misinterpretations of the law and having the U.S. Attorney's office as the agent of enforcement of the law is "unwieldy."

As of March 2008, investigations of lobbying disclosure violations had only resulted in three instances of fines levied on registrants. An official with the U.S. Attorney's office was unavailable for comment to update that number. We will update this story when we get the number.