No lobbyists for Kerry until Thanksgiving

BOSTON, Sept. 12 (UPI) -- U.S. Sen. John Kerry said he has no time for lobbyists while on a congressional "supercommittee" tasked with cutting the federal budget deficit, a report said.

The Massachusetts Democrat said he also will not do any campaign fundraising during his tenure on the deficit-reduction committee, which has until Thanksgiving to find a way to cut $1.5 billion from the deficit.

The Boston Globe said Kerry is trying to address concerns about the committee's potential to be influenced by lobbyists while making major spending decisions.

"I'm not meeting with a lot of lobbyists; I'm meeting with people I choose to meet with, who can inform me, assist in the process of crunching numbers and dealing with consequences, and so forth," Kerry told the Globe last week.

Kerry said he won't raise any money while the committee is working "because I don't want people to think that I'm being leveraged by contributions. I just don't want the appearance of money being associated with anything I do on this."