The claim by John McCain to run a clean campaign has been exposed by the Washington Post as a sham. The top layers of the McCain presidential campaign is chock full of lobbyists.

Rick Davis, the campaign manager for McCain 2008, is a lobbyist for telecommunications corporations Verizon and SBC. In fact, Rick Davis has represented companies with business before the John McCain’s committee in the Senate - the Senate Commerce Committee.

Rick Davis has been working for John McCain’s campaign without being paid. I think we all deserve to know just what kind of compensation Rick Davis is expecting for himself, or for the telecommunications corporations he has been linked with as a lobbyist.

Then there’s Charles Black, top political advisor to John McCain’s campaign. Charles Black is a lobbyist too, and for telecommunications corporation AT&T.

The McCain 2008 campaign’s top fundraiser, Tom Loeffler, is another lobbyist who has represented AT&T. McCain also hired Mark Buse, a lobbyist for telecom giant CableVision, to be his Senate office Chief of Staff.

AT&T, SBC and Verizon are both involved in the warrantless wiretapping scandal, apparently having given over massive amounts of information about their customers’ private communications to the Bush White House, facilitating electronic spying against their customers in violation of the law and the companies’ privacy agreements.

So we come to the FISA Amendments Act, which John McCain just voted for. The FISA Amendments Act gives retroactive legal immunity to corporations like AT&T, SBC and Verizon for their illegal involvement in electronic spying operations by the government against law-abiding American citizens.

With telecommunications lobbyists like Charles Black, Rick Davis, Tom Loeffler and Mark Buse serving as his top aides, why wouldn’t John McCain vote for such special outside-the-law status for telecommunications corporations?

These unethical relationships between John McCain and lobbyists point the way to an aspect of the FISA Amendments Act that has been largely ignored. Yes, a vote for the FISA Amendments Act is a vote for uncontrollable government spying against the American people. Yes, a vote for the FISA Amendments Act is a vote to allow the President and huge corporations to act without regard to the law. Just as important, however, is that a vote for the FISA Amendments Act is a vote to reward the culture of corrupt corporate lobbyist influence in Congress.

When John McCain voted in favor of the FISA Amendments Act, he voted to reward the corporate lobbyists he is connected to. Even more significantly, John McCain voted to strengthen the network of corruption through which corporate lobbyists in Washington D.C. do their work. John McCain actually voted in favor of covering up serious federal crimes committed by the corporations that his lobbyist friends have represented.

It’s too late to stop corrupt senators like John McCain from passing the FISA Amendments Act. It is not too late, however, to stop the FISA Amendments Act from becoming law. The Senate has passed a version of the FISA Amendments Act, and so has the House of Representatives. However, the Senate and the House still have to agree on a single piece of legislation that has common elements of the two versions - a conference bill, and then pass that.

It’s the House of Representatives that is receiving pressure to pass the Senate’s version of the FISA Amendments Act. This is the week that the House of Representatives is likely to vote on whether to do so.

Monday morning, first thing, call the Congressional Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and tell the office of your Representative that you want him or her to vote NO on any version of the FISA Amendments Act. This warped, corrupt piece of legislation should be left to die in conference.