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Obama Team Lays Out 'Strictest' Ethics Rules

Lobbyists, corporations banned from contributing to transition

By Rob Quinn, Newser Staff

Posted Nov 12, 2008 2:13 AM CST

(Newser) – Barack Obama's transition team has set out what one official called "the strictest, most far-reaching ethics rules of any transition in history,” the Hill reports. Lobbyists, corporations and PACs will be barred from donating funds to the transition operation, and lobbyists on the team won’t be allowed to work on the same issues they once lobbied. Transition staffers who become lobbyists will be banned from lobbying the administration for a year.

Transition chief John Podesta said the team was working to ensure that the process was more transparent than in previous administrations. Analysts said the ethics rules are a step in the right direction, but fall short of Obama’s original promise to completely excise lobbyists from Washington. One observer called the transition rules mere "atmospherics," and said she was waiting to see Obama make real changes.

[Images (2)]

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Barack Obama talks about the influence of health care lobbyists in crafting health care legislation during the Presidential Leadership Forum in Chicago last year. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

President-elect Obama talks on his cell phone after boarding his plane at Washington's Reagan National Airport after meeting with President Bush at the White House on Monday. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

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We are announcing rules that are the strictest, the most far-reaching ethics rules of any transition team in history. - John Podesta, co-chairman of Obama's transition team

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Obama Team Lays Out 'Strictest' Ethics Rules