Sponsor
Michael F. Bennet
Senator · D-CO
Senator · D-CO
The bill increases transparency and reduces revolving‑door influence in Congress but does so by imposing broader, longer post‑employment restrictions, larger disclosure requirements, and stiffer penalties that raise legal risks, privacy exposures, administrative burdens, and costs for former officials, employers, and taxpayers.
Taxpayers and the public will face fewer revolving‑door conflicts because former Members, senior staff, and recent lobbyists will face longer or tighter post‑employment limits, reducing private influence on Congress and improving public trust.
Taxpayers, watchdogs, reporters, and citizens gain easier access to lobbying disclosures through a single searchable site and downloadable database/API, improving transparency and enabling better oversight and law‑enforcement review.
Filers and the public will face stronger incentives for accurate disclosures because larger civil penalties (up to $500,000) and sharing filings with law enforcement increase the deterrent against underreporting.
Former Members of Congress and many former congressional staff will face reduced post‑career job opportunities (including lifetime or multi‑year bans) and Congress may lose experienced policy talent, potentially weakening legislative capacity and raising costs for taxpayers.
Former officials and private employers face greater criminal and legal risk because stricter prohibitions and sharing filings with prosecutors could chill lawful informational contacts, deter legitimate hires, and raise the odds of investigations or prosecutions absent clear wrongdoing.
Former lawmakers, senior staff, nonprofits, and firms may suffer privacy, reputational, and security harms because broader, mandatory public disclosures and categorical criteria can expose employment histories and sensitive details, and may overinclude low‑level or long‑ago officials.
Based on analysis of 7 sections of legislative text.
Bars former Members from lobbying Congress for pay for life, extends staff cooling-off to 6 years, creates lobbyists.gov, restricts hiring of recent lobbyists, and sets a $500,000 civil penalty.
Official title: Provide greater controls and restrictions on revolving door lobbying.
Introduced May 21, 2025 by Michael F. Bennet · Last progress May 21, 2025
Prohibits former Senators, Representatives, and senior congressional officials from contacting Members, officers, or employees of either House to influence official legislative action on behalf of anyone else for life; extends staff cooling-off periods from one year to six years; and blocks recent registered lobbyists and agents of foreign principals from being hired into Member or committee positions for six years if they had substantial prior lobbying contacts. It also requires a public joint House–Senate lobbyist disclosure website (lobbyists.gov) with searchable filings, mandates reporting by large lobbying firms about former lawmakers and senior staff they employ, and raises the civil penalty for certain Lobbying Disclosure Act violations to $500,000.