Florida Court Bars Use of Vouchers The judge, P. Kevin Davey of Leon County Circuit Court, struck down a 1999 Florida law that gives money to students from poorly performing public schools to pay tuition at private schools, including ones run by churches. In his decision, Judge Davey wrote that the Florida Constitution was "clear and unambiguous" in prohibiting public money from being used in any sectarian institution. "There is scant room for interpretation or parsing," he wrote. "While this court recognizes and empathizes with the salutary purpose of this legislation � to enhance the educational opportunity of children caught in the snare of substandard schools � such a purpose does not grant this court the authority to abandon the clear mandate of the people as enunciated in the Constitution." Teachers groups and civil rights organizations called the ruling a victory for public schools. "Vouchers violate the Florida Constitution by taking taxpayer dollars from our struggling public schools and diverts them to private and overwhelmingly religious schools," said a statement from Maureen Dinnen, president of the Florida Education Association, which was a plaintiff in the case. About 9,000 students in 10 Florida schools that had received poor performance ratings were eligible this year for the vouchers under the program that was overturned, the Opportunity Scholarship Program, according to the Florida Board of Education. Parents of 659 students had applied for the vouchers for the school year that begins next week. Gov. Jeb Bush, who instituted the program, said the state would appeal. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/06/national/06VOUC.html

Loophole Lets Lobbyists Hide Clients' Identity It is a fact of life on Capitol Hill that new lobbying coalitions sprout almost every day to try to influence everything from electricity policy to bankruptcy law to health care legislation. But the rising popularity of such coalitions goes beyond simply a desire to influence policy. Thanks to a loophole in the federal lobbying law, some companies and individuals � especially those pursuing controversial or potentially embarrassing causes � are using coalitions to conceal their identities. "You can have unpopular causes such as a tobacco interest or one of these corporations that have renounced its American citizenship hide their interests through this device," said Representative Lloyd Doggett, Democrat of Texas. "You can have foreign interests, if they combine with others, hide their involvement through this device." The Congressional Research Service, a part of the Library of Congress, recently examined lobbyist registration forms, Congressional testimony and media databases and found 135 lobbying coalitions for which it could find only limited information or none at all. One such group, the Section 877 Coalition, has been largely dedicated to keeping Congress from tightening the section of the tax law applying to the estates of wealthy individuals who gave up their American citizenship. The coalition paid more than $760,000 to two firms in 2000 and 2001 to press its case, disclosure forms filed with Congress by the coalition's lobbyists show. But the reports give no clue about precisely who wanted to protect expatriates, and some of the group's lobbyists have hardly been forthcoming. "It is our policy not to comment on client matters, except to note that with respect to the registration of these entities, we are in full compliance with the letter and the spirit of the law," said Steven Silber, a spokesman for PricewaterhouseCoopers, which had been one of the lobbying firms for the Section 877 Coalition. This year, the accounting firm sold its federal tax lobbying operation. Only in recent days, after repeated inquiries from a reporter and a request from a former lobbyist who now is an official at the Treasury Department, did lobbyists say that the coalition was made up of trusts for members of the Arison family. In the 1990's, Congressional Democrats used Ted Arison, the founder of Carnival Cruise lines who saved millions in taxes by renouncing his United States citizenship and returning to Israel, as a case study of why the tax law should be rewritten. Mr. Arison was one of the richest men in the world when he died in 1999. A spokesman for the Carnival Corporation, whose chairman is Micky Arison, a son of Ted Arison's, referred questions about why the Arison family trusts had operated through the Section 877 Coalition to one of the lobbying firms, Alcalde & Fay. At the firm, Hector Alcalde said he had listed the client as the Section 877 Coalition for "simplicity's sake," because PricewaterhouseCoopers had already done so. "There's no hidden agenda," Mr. Alcalde said http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/05/politics/05LOBB.html

In Capitol, Last Names Link Some Leaders and Lobbyists With a pierced tongue, a goatee and previous employment as the owner of a record store and label called Seven Dead Arson, the young man is not a typical buttoned-down Washington lobbyist. But Joshua Hastert, 27, does have something increasingly common in lobbying circles � family ties to a Congressional leader. Mr. Hastert is the eldest son of J. Dennis Hastert, the speaker of the House. Chester T. Lott Jr., the son of the Senate Republican leader, Trent Lott, is a registered lobbyist. Linda Daschle, the wife of the Senate majority leader, Tom Daschle, is a senior public policy adviser at one of Washington's premier lobbying firms, serving aviation interests. Numerous relatives of Congressional and administration officials are employed in lobbying shops around Washington, as they have been for years. Some ethics watchdogs say such arrangements are potentially troublesome, and the fact that relatives of three of the four top members of Congress work as lobbyists illustrates how pervasive and accepted the practice has become. Others say the lobbyists have every right to pursue their line of work as long as they observe ethics rules and keep their professional distance from their powerful relatives. Mr. Hastert and Mrs. Daschle, 47, say that their well-known last names can hurt as well as help, and that they are entitled to pursue their chosen livelihood, especially in a city where so much employment is government-related. "Why should a spouse, just because she is married to a high-profile public official, have to walk away from a career?" asked Mrs. Daschle. No rules prohibit lobbying by relatives, and any effort to regulate it raises free speech concerns. But it has always made ethics groups a little uneasy. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/04/national/04LOBB.html