Related Stories Family Ties · Leaders Of The Pack Related Graphics New Rules And Reality Checks · Relative Positioning · The Top 25 Lobbying Firms of 2006 Related Resources On NationalJournal.com National Journal Cover Story: "Potholes On K Street" (3/25/06) · Rules Of The Game: "Senate Disclosure Shuffle" (3/26/07) · Rules Of The Game: "Disclosure And Disinformation" (3/12/07) · Rules Of The Game: "A Two-Front War Over Lobbying" (1/29/07) · Social Studies: "Abramoff And Me: The True Truth" (2/03/06) · PolitiScope: "In the 'Year of Jack,' It's Important to be Earnest" (1/19/06) · Poll Track: National Polling On Lobbyists · Insider's Poll: Lobbyist Influence [PDF] (1/21/06) [an error occurred while processing this directive] Additional Resources On The Web A History of Lobbying Reform By Public Citizen · The Clerk of the House's Lobbying Disclosure Page

By Eliza Newlin Carney and Bara Vaida, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Friday, March 30, 2007

With his party controlling Capitol Hill for the first time in 12 years, Democratic Rep. Martin Meehan of Massachusetts exuded confidence when he stepped to the microphone at a Washington news conference on January 3. As one of its first acts, the Democratic-led House was to vote the following day on new ethics rules.

"Make no mistake about it," Meehan declared. "The laws are very, very clear that will be passed by this House. No more K Street Project. It's illegal. No more taking gifts from lobbyists. It's illegal. No more lobbyists planning junkets and golf tournaments. None of it. It's over."

The new internal rules adopted by the House sailed through on a 430-1 vote. But three months later, the group perhaps most affected by them -- Washington lobbyists -- couldn't be more confused. Democrats pledged to run the most ethical Congress in history, but reform legislation has bogged down on Capitol Hill. That's because the Senate, taking a different tack from the House, opted to incorporate new ethics rules for its chamber into a broader bill that also aims to rein in lobbyists by amending the Lobbying Disclosure Act. The Senate bill has been stalled in the House.

Therefore, the House and the Senate are now operating under different ethics regimes, meaning that lobbyists face a hodgepodge of bewildering rules, some pending and some approved.

Loopholes and exceptions abound. And instead of easing, the pressure on lobbyists to raise campaign money for lawmakers may have intensified.

Nor are new rules the only thing kicking up dust on K Street. The Democratic takeover has knocked some lobbyists off their pedestals, while elevating others to prominence. Labor, environmental, and consumer lobbyists are among those with a new seat at the table. Regulated industries, such as the oil and pharmaceutical sectors, have hired Democrats to help represent them. For some GOP lobbyists who had cultivated a cozy relationship with Republican leaders for a dozen years, the party's over.

All of this change comes amid dramatic shifts within the industry itself. The number of lobbyists continues to expand -- there are 13,595 registered lobbyists, who are actively lobbying, according to Pam Gavin, superintendent of the Senate Office of Public Records. But that figure doesn't include the people involved in so-called grassroots lobbying, which has mushroomed over the past decade and become an increasingly sophisticated and central aspect of the influence game.

Under current disclosure laws, none of the high-dollar direct-mail, phone-bank, or Internet blitzes that help so many interest groups exert constituent pressure on Capitol Hill are made public. A dispute over whether such campaigns should be reported has further complicated the task of enacting lobbying legislation and raised a fundamental question: Who, exactly, is a lobbyist?

Little wonder that so many lobbyists are perplexed, anxious, and even angry. Last year, National Journal's annual State of Lobbying issue described how the corruption and bribery scandals involving Jack Abramoff, former Rep. Randy (Duke) Cunningham, R-Calif., and others had given the industry a black eye. (Abramoff and Cunningham are now serving prison sentences.) This year, lobbyists see those problems compounded by new rules that seek to police personal behavior but are unwieldy, contradictory, and, in some cases, over the top.

Some resent the way that Congress set out to restrain lobbyists while scuttling efforts to rein in lawmakers themselves. Notably, the Senate considered a plan to create a tougher ethics enforcement process, once thought of as the centerpiece of proposed reforms, only to reject the proposal. In the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has appointed a task force to look into the matter. Without better ethics enforcement, critics say, the new rules won't mean much.

At the same time, the practice that fosters most ethics abuses -- lawmakers' unquenchable thirst for private campaign cash -- remains untouched. If anything, the new rules may encourage lobbyists to spend even more time doling out money, because nothing in the new or proposed regulations applies to fundraisers.

"The ethics rules, which now ban most meals and gifts to members and staff, clearly will have the effect of driving social exchanges into fundraising," says Penelope S. Farthing, a partner at Patton Boggs. "If you need to really sit down and explain something to a member, that will now take place at fundraisers."

Who's on First?
Nothing illustrates the curious logic of the new ethics environment better than the tale of two golf junkets.

Junket No. 1 drew Rep. Connie Mack, R-Fla., to a country club near Palm Springs, Calif., in February for the Frank Sinatra Countrywide Celebrity Invitational golf tournament to raise money for abused children. A press release touted the event as "Party Time in the Desert."

Mack paid the airfare but ran into some bad press from Gannett News Service because the weekend event was sponsored by a division of Countrywide Financial, a corporation that employs a lobbyist. Under the new House ethics rules, lawmakers are banned from accepting free attendance at charity events sponsored by a group that employs or retains a lobbyist. Mack's chief of staff says that the House Standards of Official Conduct (Ethics) Committee gave Mack oral approval to attend the tourney, which benefited the Barbara Sinatra Children's Center. Committee staffers declined to comment. A key question: Who really sponsored the tournament? If it was the nonprofit Sinatra center, the rules permit any lawmaker to attend. But a center press release listed Countrywide as "title sponsor."

(Neither Countrywide nor the Sinatra center responded to requests for comment.)

Golf junket No. 2, by contrast, will pose no such problems for Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark. Lobbyists and supporters are scheduled to join Lincoln on June 11 at the exclusive Westfields Golf Club in Clifton, Va., for her sixth annual golf tournament, which raises money for her campaign. Participants pay anywhere from $500 to $5,000 to tee up with the senator. Yet it's all kosher. That's because the Senate's ban on gifts, meals, and trips hasn't taken effect yet -- and even if it does, it will include a crucial exception: campaign and PAC fundraisers. It's the type of contradiction that has Washington lobbyists scratching their heads as Congress struggles, yet again, to clean up Capitol Hill. Last year, Republicans in charge of Congress failed to make good on their pledge to enact sweeping lobbying and ethics rules. Public outrage over ethics abuses, and over Congress's failure to act, helped Democrats regain control in November.

Now Democrats, who promised on the campaign trail to end Washington's "culture of corruption," are having their own problems following through. The rules approved by the House on January 4 do ban members from accepting free gifts, meals, and trips from lobbyists or groups that hire them. They also ban House members from traveling on corporate planes and require disclosure of earmarks, which the new rules define as member-requested projects that fall outside normal budget formulas or contracts.

In an interview, Meehan insisted that the "House set the tone for the 110th Congress by passing the broadest ethics reform changes in a generation." (He has since announced that he will retire from Congress in July.) But those rules, lobbyists grouse, are riddled with ambiguous exceptions. It doesn't help that the House Ethics Committee remains underfunded and has yet to start mandated, House-wide ethics training programs. The panel has issued some guidelines on its Web site, but critics say that those explanations leave plenty of gray areas.

Adding to the confusion, proposed Senate lobbying and ethics rules changes haven't kicked in yet. After the House's quick action on ethics regulations, the Senate on January 18 hustled through the Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act of 2007.

That bill, which passed on a 96-2 vote but won't take effect until the House approves a companion measure, includes its own curbs on gifts, meals, travel, and earmarks. It would require lobbyists to file disclosure forms quarterly, not twice a year as they do now, and to report the campaign donations to candidates that they "bundle," or round up from individual contributors. The Senate bill would also bar outgoing members of Congress from engaging in regulated lobbying activities for two years after they leave the Hill. (The current "cooling-off" period is one year.) Despite confusion among Capitol Hill staff members, aides would face only a one-year ban under the bill the Senate approved and the legislation being considered by the House.

As if all of that weren't enough, the House bill is running aground. The dispute over regulating grassroots lobbying has proved emotional and distracting. (Senators dropped that controversial provision from their bill.) New bundling and revolving-door provisions are also in trouble. Reform advocates see bundling disclosure rules as a linchpin of the bill. But some lawmakers grumble that such reports will make them look bad and make it harder for them to raise money.

And raising money, lobbyists note, is the one thing that members of Congress have made sure the new rules won't stop. For all their talk of an ethical Congress, Democrats haven't been shy about rewarding their most generous donors with weekend ski vacations, golf tournaments, and hunting and fishing trips to destinations like Aspen, Colo., and South Beach, Fla. "I've probably received invitations to more Democrat fundraisers in the first few months of this year than I did in the last cycle," says Dan Danner, executive vice president for the National Federation of Independent Business. "So there's no hesitancy to make sure, when it comes to fundraisers, that the business community understands who's in charge."

Some lobbyists find that more than a little ironic.

"Members can't socialize with you, they can't go to dinner with you," says Pete Rose, a founding partner of the Franklin Partnership, a small, bipartisan lobbying shop. "Nobody wants to be seen with a lobbyist right now because of the perception issue. You can't even get a staff member to have lunch with you in the cafeteria. But if I write a check, I can go to a fundraising event and have face time with them. At the end of the day, is that what was intended?"

New Rules And Reality Checks Whenever Congress enacts rules, political players invariably find ways around them. Here are some of the rules that Congress has adopted or is discussing, and the loopholes that could undermine them.

K Street Project, Take 2
All of this has some lobbyists wondering whether Democrats have really killed the K Street Project, as they insist they have. Masterminded by then-Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas, and a small group of GOP allies, the K Street Project set out to increase campaign donations to Republicans while entrenching GOP power. DeLay's now-notorious strategy was to pressure trade groups and lobbying shops to hire only Republicans for key lobbying jobs, or make them pay the consequences.

Some Democrats may face similar temptation but not many, maintains Joel Johnson, a former Capitol Hill and White House aide who is a partner with the Glover Park Group. "There are folks that are motivated by revenge, and by a winner-take-all mentality," Johnson says. "But I don't see it prevailing. And I don't hear a lot of it."

Moreover, Democrats lack the party discipline and united front to intimidate lobbyists. Philosophically, some Democrats are skeptical of K Street, says Mark Irion, CEO of Dutko Worldwide. "Support for business interests isn't axiomatic with all Democrats," he says.

Both the new House rules and the Senate legislation, moreover, explicitly ban members from influencing the hiring decisions of private entities.

Still, Democratic lobbyists are enjoying their own brand of exclusive access. The centrist Third Way think tank runs a twice-monthly meeting that brings together dozens of lobbyists and top Democratic staffers. In a rented room in the Hall of States at the foot of Capitol Hill, House and Senate Democratic leadership aides brief lobbyists on their agendas and listen to concerns from K Street Democrats -- and even a few Republicans.

"It kind of makes you wonder, 'Well, jeez, isn't that kind of the same thing that you [Democrats] were complaining about with Republicans?' " says R. Bruce Josten, executive vice president for government affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "And now you've formalized a structure of it with 80 of your closest friends."

Organizers say that the meetings involve no lobbying, fundraising, or even refreshments, and they insist that there's no comparison with the old GOP effort. "The difference is that these are two-way discussions focused on state of play and what is going on," says Democrat Scott Parven, a founding partner of Parven Pomper Schuyler. "These aren't marching-order meetings. No one is telling us, this is what you need to do to help us pass something."

K Street Project or no, the shift in party control on Capitol Hill has meant plenty of high-paying jobs for well-connected Democrats. After years of facing hiring obstacles, Democrats are back in demand.

"It's clear to me that it's dead," former Rep. David McCurdy, D-Okla., says of the K Street Project. The prominent Democrat was hired recently to head the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.

After the 2006 election, some companies, law and lobbying firms, and trade associations looked around to discover that their government-affairs teams were lopsidedly Republican. The result has been a mad scramble to find top Democrats. "The people who are most frantic to hire Democrats are the new firms that grew up in the Republican-dominated era," says John Jonas, a Democrat and a partner at Patton Boggs.

Headhunters at top firms Korn/Ferry, Russell Reynolds Associates, and Spencer Stuart say they are being asked to fill senior K Street positions with Democrats far more often than with Republicans. Leslie Hortum, head of Spencer Stuart's D.C. practice, says that her clients are no longer asking: " 'Do we have to hire a Republican?' Rather, now it's just, who is the right person."

For Democratic lobbyists it's been a season of musical chairs, as many have rushed to take advantage of the moment. Some are opening their own firms, while others are jumping to more-lucrative positions within corporations.

Lobbyist John Raffaelli, a veteran Democrat who founded the Washington Group, struck out on his own after the election. Bruce Andrews left Quinn Gillespie & Associates to join the in-house corporate lobbying team at Ford Motor. Other Democrats have returned to Capitol Hill after working on K Street for several years, eager to participate in the new Democratic majority. One is Gregg Rothschild, who left Verizon to become chief counsel to the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Some Democratic lobbyists are getting more business. Jeff Peck, a partner at Johnson, Madigan, Peck, Boland & Stewart, has been fielding a constant stream of phone calls and adding clients.

"Business is great," says the former Senate Democratic aide. "I'm feeling enthusiastically tired."

The party shift isn't so dramatic for all K Street Democrats, to be sure. More-seasoned lobbyists have seen Capitol Hill change hands before and have always pursued a bipartisan strategy. Senate Democrats, moreover, hold only a razor-thin majority, and Republicans retain the White House. Still, Democrats unquestionably dominate the new "in" crowd.

"There's a new sheriff in town," says Scott Reed, a GOP operative and a lobbyist with Chesapeake Enterprises. "Clients that need to see members have to be represented by 'friendlies.' The Democrats were out in the wilderness for years, and they're enjoying the limelight."

Some Democrats say that Republicans are emphasizing their ties to Democrats to help demonstrate their relevancy to clients. "I have noticed some Republicans saying, 'Hey, my best friend is a Democrat,' or, 'I'm always invited to so-and-so prominent Democrat's barbecue,' or even, 'I used to be a Democrat,' " says one Democratic lobbyist.

The legislative agenda, of course, has also changed. Democrats are focused on the Iraq war and on bread-and-butter issues like raising the minimum wage and universal health care. They have heightened scrutiny of the defense, pharmaceutical, and energy industries, whose executives and political action committees have given heavily to Republican candidates.

The new agenda is keeping lobbyists for those industries busy and has meant new business for shops with specialties in oversight and investigations. The Carmen Group; Hogan & Hartson; Holland & Knight; Mayer Browne Rowe & Maw; and Venable all recently announced the creation or expansion of teams of lawyers and lobbyists to help clients facing a congressional probe.

"The dirty little secret is that Democrats in charge actually means more business for everyone on K Street, both Democrats and Republicans," one Republican lobbyist says.

Meanwhile, consumer groups and labor unions that were cut out of many legislative issues over the past decade are enjoying their new status on Capitol Hill. Labor leaders have been regularly attending policy meetings set up by congressional Democratic leaders. Unions can already point to two legislative victories, a minimum-wage increase and the Employee Free Choice Act, which passed the House earlier this year. The bill makes it easier for employees to unionize.

"Issues that have been largely ignored for a decade now are getting serious attention," says Bill Samuel, the AFL-CIO's legislative director.

The NFIB's small-business lobbyists, by contrast, have yet to sit down with Pelosi, or Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "We feel like our members are much more on the defense than they've been in a while," Danner concedes.

Be Very Afraid
Even as they contend with the power shift, lobbyists are struggling to understand what the new regulations -- both enacted and under consideration -- will mean for their daily lives.

Ethics lawyers have been flooded with questions from interest groups wondering whether they can still invite members and aides to their boat shows and plant tours, and whether they can buy baby gifts for friends. The ban on gifts and meals of even nominal value -- excepting the odd cap or T-shirt -- has kept his phone ringing, ethics lawyer Kenneth A. Gross said in testimony before a House Judiciary subcommittee recently.

"I've dealt with more questions about tuna-fish sandwiches served during plant tours, fact-finding tours, and meetings with editorial boards," Gross, a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, testified. Lawyers such as Gross, who specialize in election law and ethics rules, are suddenly in huge demand.

Some lobbyists take the new rules in stride, and they contend that most K Street shops are behaving ethically in any case.

"My view is, the tougher the rules, the better it is for the best lobbyists," says Johnson of the Glover Park Group. "When you know what you're doing, when you have experience on the legislative and strategic level, you don't need all these bells and whistles that have sprung up over the years, [such as] lunches and dinners. I think it puts a premium on people who are less relationship players and more strategic players."

Lobbying legislation could even help restore the perception of integrity on K Street, says Lanny Griffith, CEO of the all-GOP firm of Barbour Griffith & Rogers. "To the extent that these ethics and lobbying changes can do things to remove the appearance of impropriety, it's a good thing."

Others complain that lobbyists bear the brunt of new rules and regulations even as lawmakers protect their own prerogatives. The new rules criminalize violations and increase fines from $50,000 to $200,000. Stan Brand, an ethics lawyer and defense counsel, foresees some unintended consequences, especially from the new rules on travel. The Justice Department will have a "field day" with travel disclosure filings, Brand predicts, noting that it would leave members vulnerable to false-statement charges. "The peril is much greater in the post-Abramoff world because of the multiplication of forms you have to file. I'm telling people to be careful with the new travel forms."

"I think lobbyists are acutely sensitive right now to the changes in not just the rules but attitudes on Capitol Hill, the public, the press," says Ropes & Gray partner Thomas M. Susman, who has advised both the American Bar Association and the American League of Lobbyists on ethics matters. "And nobody wants to be the first one caught violating the rules. It's not clear whether the members themselves are going to be equally sensitive."

With or without new rules, some lobbyists complain that aides and lawmakers don't even want to be seen in public with them anymore. (Except at fundraisers, of course, which remain private.)

"Staff and lawmakers seem to forget that lobbyists represent employers who employ people and create jobs and products and support communities," one health care lobbyist says. "But because of the overreach and hubris under the Republicans, this 'K Street entity' has become illegitimate in itself."

Yet recent corruption scandals, many lobbyists argue, began on Capitol Hill. Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, who was part of the GOP revolution that swept Republicans to power in 1994, blames DeLay for contributing to the creation of a culture in which those on Capitol Hill expected those on K Street to dole out campaign contributions and pay for entertainment and meals.

"Tom used to say, 'They [K Street] owed us that money; we'll get that money,' " says Armey, now a registered lobbyist for DLA Piper. "It may be one of those old lines: that the fish rots from the head down."

Armey, for one, finds it galling that much of the rhetoric on Capitol Hill targets lobbyists, not lawmakers. During an interview with National Journal, Armey, who as a lawmaker was known for starting his press briefings with a reference to a country music song, couldn't resist quoting from one of his favorite ditties.

"It goes: 'The devil made me do it the first time; the second time I did it on my own,' " he says. "Every member that gets caught up in an ethics thing points to the devil that made them do it. But the fundamental problem is that if members want to find a way to abuse the perks of the office, they will do so no matter what the rules."

DeLay spokeswoman Shannon Flaherty dismisses Armey's accusations: "You need to remember that K Street was entrenched with liberals who by day wanted to meet with Republican leadership and would fight to beat them at night. The only culture DeLay contributed to was that of defeating Democrats."

The bottom line for many lobbyists is their belief that the Constitution protects their work. "Lobbying is a covered First Amendment activity," says Brian Pallasch, president of the American League of Lobbyists and a lobbyist for the American Society of Civil Engineers. "People have a right to have their grievances addressed."

The dispute over grassroots lobbying underscores the tricky questions that the new rules raise. Conservative and civil-liberties activists say that reporting requirements would squelch free-speech rights for ordinary citizens. Advocates of disclosure counter that the old rules aren't keeping pace with industry practices. At the heart of the dispute is a question that confounds the lobbying world these days: Just who is a lobbyist?

Pelosi's statement that the lobbying bill will "break the link between lobbyists and legislation," for example, puzzles some on K Street. Much lobbying these days involves educating constituents on issues, with the expectation that they will contact Capitol Hill. Those citizens should not be subject to regulation, say some civil-rights and conservative activists. A related issue is that as the U.S. government and the world economy grow more complex, the lobbying industry is expanding.

In Washington, people's business lives are often intertwined with their private lives, further complicating efforts to keep K Street and the legislative process separate. Hill aides and lobbyists share neighborhoods. They run into each other at the grocery store, ride trains together to and from work, and even marry. How then does Congress pass legislation governing personal behavior and human interactions, and end the "cozy" relationship between Capitol Hill and downtown?

"What [Congress] is trying to do is create a rules-based system, when what we are talking about is internalizing values," explains Charles Kolb, president of the Committee for Economic Development, a business group that proposes and endorses good-government policies. "The problem in D.C. is that while there are more and more rules and boxes to be checked, we are no more ethical. It's very difficult to regulate behavior."

Attempts to legislate away bad behavior can lead to unintended negative consequences, warns Sandra Stuart, a senior partner at Clark & Weinstock. "The problem with legislation is, you try to take into account the worst-case scenario and legislate to that, and sometimes you sweep in things that shouldn't be," she says.

Many lobbyists single out the travel ban: Trade associations and companies can no longer take lawmakers to see their businesses. McCurdy, of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, worries that the ban will end up "isolating members from the rest of the world."

Gregg Hartley, vice chairman and COO of Cassidy & Associates, suspects that the ban will end up exacerbating partisan differences on the Hill. "One of the collateral benefits of bipartisan travel is, you get to know people in a way you wouldn't otherwise," Hartley says. "It's a way of establishing civility" among Republican and Democratic lawmakers and staff.

And what about all of those trips that aren't junkets but truly are for the purpose of educating a member of Congress? Lobbyist William Kirk of Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston Gates Ellis recalls a trip at the end of 2005 in which he took a lawmaker to see an emergency-response training center in central Washington state. The nonprofit operation is in a rural area that is difficult to reach, and now Kirk worries that he won't be able to take other lawmakers to visit his client.

"This was not a typical tourist destination; it was 25 degrees when we visited," Kirk says. "There was no junket activity."

The More Things Change
When Democrats pledged to change the culture of Washington, nobody expected them to stop raising money or stop talking to lobbyists. But Democrats' unabashed courtship of K Street strikes some lobbyists as jarring, given the party leaders' anti-corruption mantra.

There have been plenty of ironies for lobbyists -- and reporters -- to chew on. Corporations will still underwrite the national party conventions, for example. The Senate lobbying bill does ban lobbyist-funded parties in honor of lawmakers at those events, but it's not clear whether the House will follow suit.

A growing percentage of lobbying activity involves federal marketing and lobbying of the executive branch, yet the Senate bill doesn't address either. Motivated by recent corruption allegations that involved executive branch officials, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., has introduced a bill that would require those in the executive branch to report their contacts with lobbyists. But the measure is controversial and may well die.

Both chambers have backed away from what advocates once called the centerpiece of reform -- a plan to bring outsiders into the ethics process, possibly through a congressional Office of Public Integrity. The Senate rejected that proposal outright. Pelosi tossed the question to a bipartisan task force that won't report back to her until May 1. Yet the House could take up lobbying legislation in April.

"Unless there's some more quasi-independent enforcement mechanism, none of these reforms is going to be as significant as we would have hoped," says Dennis Thompson, a professor of government at Harvard University and the author of Ethics in Congress. The outlook for such a change now appears "pretty slim," he adds.

Most disturbing of all for lobbyists is that members still pressure them constantly to fork over campaign money. And over the years, the firewall between requests for cash and discussions of Hill action has steadily eroded.

It's "unfortunate" that fundraisers are becoming the social venue of choice under the new rules, says Farthing, of Patton Boggs. "You don't really want to raise with a member in a fundraising setting what your legislative needs are. It looks like a quid pro quo."

Griffith, of Barbour Griffith & Rogers, concurs. "What is more pernicious?" he asks rhetorically. "A lunch at Charlie Palmer, or a fundraiser? A fundraiser is likely to have more influence than a $40 steak."

If anything, this year's money chase strikes many as more frenetic than ever. Several senators are running for president, ramping up fundraising on Capitol Hill. House Democrats, too, are pulling in checks aggressively in a bid to maintain their majority in the next election.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, is pushing hard for disclosure rules on bundling. Yet Van Hollen has also asked his colleagues to help him raise an extraordinary $650,000 to $1 million for each newly elected House Democrat by the end of June. The DCCC has raised the so-called dues that it asks House Democrats to pitch in to help the party and its candidates. That has meant a steady stream of invitations to lobbyists.

"From our point of view, things have flipped from a very aggressive GOP fundraising to a very aggressive Democratic fundraising effort," one GOP lobbyist says.

Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., the new chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, pulled in about $80,000 on Valentine's Day at an event hosted by Washington Council Ernst & Young. It was twice what the tax-lobbying giant had netted for Rangel at a fundraiser last summer. Veteran lobbyist Raffaelli, whose firm hosted its own breakfast for Rangel, says: "I think for those lobbyists who need to see members, there will be more pressures to go to political events and more fundraising."

Reform advocates dispute that the rules have boosted fundraising. "Last time I looked, lobbyists were [already] doing an extraordinary amount of socializing in fundraising events," says Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21.

Still, even those pushing for change note that the lobbying and ethics debate throws the campaign finance system's problems into sharp relief. Sens. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., recently introduced legislation that would provide public financing to congressional candidates who agree to limit spending. Some lobbyists, for all their frustration with rules and regulations, say public financing would be a good idea.

"The central issue, to me, is the money chase," says former Rep. Tom Downey, D-N.Y., chairman of the Downey McGrath Group, a lobbying firm. "You want to reduce the influence of lobbyists? Well, reduce the influence of campaign contributions." Downey, who endorses a combination of public and private financing, says that campaign money "is really the centerpiece of what allows the culture of corruption to exist."

Realistically, of course, public financing stands little chance of becoming law anytime soon, because the current system favors sitting lawmakers. Even enacting lobbying legislation may prove too tall an order for this new majority. And if Congress does enact a bill, it will almost certainly lack teeth in the form of tougher ethics enforcement.

That leaves the door wide open for more junkets like the ones that Mack enjoyed earlier this year and that Lincoln has scheduled for June. Given the uncertainties surrounding both current and proposed rules, it may take lobbyists and lawmakers some time to figure out just what forms of fun are permitted.

Mack, for one, might be tempted to get written, not oral, approval from the House Ethics Committee next time. Better yet, he could turn his next golf junket into a fundraiser.

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