XPost: ba.politics, dc.media, soc.penpals   
   XPost: alt.burningman   
   From: leftwing@democrats.org   
      
   A top aide to a Republican congressman from Arizona helped   
   promote a legislative plan to overhaul the nation’s home   
   mortgage finance system. Weeks after leaving his government job,   
   he reappeared on Capitol Hill, now as a lobbyist for a company   
   poised to capitalize on the plan.   
      
   A former counsel to Democrats on the House Financial Services   
   Committee left Capitol Hill a year ago. He, too, returned to the   
   Hill just months later, lobbying committee aides on behalf of   
   Wall Street giants like JPMorgan Chase and Bloomberg L.P.   
      
   And the chief of staff for the Republican chairman of the House   
   Financial Services Committee left his government salary behind   
   in January 2012. Yet for months afterward, he continued to   
   manage his boss’s re-election campaign, even while serving as a   
   lobbyist for financial industry clients.   
      
   The experiences of the three Capitol Hill aides-turned-lobbyists   
   — traced through interviews with political operatives and a   
   review of public records — illustrate in new detail the gaping   
   holes in rules governing Washington’s revolving door.   
      
   Federal ethics rules are intended to limit lobbying by former   
   senior officials within one year after they leave the   
   government. Yet even after the ethics rules were revised in 2007   
   following a lobbying scandal, more than 1,650 congressional   
   aides have registered to lobby within a year of leaving Capitol   
   Hill, according to an analysis by The New York Times of data   
   from LegiStorm, an online database that tracks congressional   
   staff members and lobbying. At least half of those departing   
   aides, the analysis shows, faced no restrictions at all.   
      
   The rules are particularly loose in the House of   
   Representatives, where aides and lawmakers enjoy significant   
   leeway in hopping from job to job — and from government pay to   
   six- and seven-figure private sector salaries.   
      
   In the three cases identified by The Times, the interviews and   
   records suggest, the former House staff members did not violate   
   the rules but rather seized on loopholes to lobby within one   
   year.   
      
   Those examples, and the data analyzed by The Times, offer a   
   playbook of the many ways that former officials can legally   
   circumvent the purpose of the law. While the law’s limitations   
   were known, the data highlight for the first time the extent to   
   which lobbyists routinely capitalize on an array of loopholes.   
      
   Some aides resist pay raises, to keep their salaries just below   
   the cutoff that would prompt lobbying restrictions. More highly   
   paid House aides, simply because their paycheck came from an   
   individual lawmaker or leadership office rather than a committee   
   they worked closely with, are immediately allowed to lobby   
   former committee colleagues. This maneuver would be prohibited   
   in the Senate, where senior aides cannot contact anyone in the   
   Senate for a year.   
      
   In other cases, former House aides can continue socializing with   
   lawmakers, working on campaigns and attending committee hearings   
   while representing private clients as a lobbyist. That loophole   
   exists even though a lobbyist’s presence on campaigns and at   
   committee hearings could serve as a reminder of pending requests   
   by clients.   
      
   The effortless way former staff members avoid the one-year ban   
   raises new concerns about the revolving door. Some critics say   
   it fosters a clubby culture in Washington, where lawmakers and   
   their aides might seek to protect Wall Street and other   
   industries like health care from new rules and legislation.   
      
   When Congress updated the ethics rules in 2007 in the wake of   
   the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, which included illegal   
   influence peddling between a lawmaker and a former aide, it   
   initially drafted tighter restrictions on the revolving door,   
   arguing that a broader ban lasting two years might curb   
   conflicts of interest in Washington. But with protests from some   
   lawmakers — including Representative John Conyers, Democrat of   
   Michigan, and Representative Lamar Smith, Republican of Texas,   
   then the top two members of the House Judiciary Committee — the   
   proposal was watered down to remove the two-year “cooling off”   
   period for the House and other restrictions.   
      
   The resulting widespread use of loopholes is disheartening to   
   former lawmakers who tried, but failed, to enact more radical   
   changes.   
      
   “Is it any wonder that the public holds such a low esteem for   
   Congress?” said Joel M. Hefley, a Republican who served as   
   chairman of the House Ethics Committee before he retired in   
   2007. “You can dance around these rules in so many ways it   
   really does not accomplish much of anything.”   
      
   The continued surge of former congressional staffers to K Street   
   helps explain the fundamental change that is taking place in the   
   lobbying profession in Washington, as former government   
   employees accounted for 44 percent of all registered, active   
   firm lobbyists in 2012, up from 18 percent in 1998, according to   
   a recent study by the Sunlight Foundation.   
      
   On some occasions, former congressional aides crossed a legal   
   line and paid a price. Doug Hampton — a onetime aide to the   
   former senator John Ensign, Republican of Nevada — pleaded   
   guilty in 2012 to violating the one-year ban.   
      
   But such prosecutions are rare. The Justice Department, which is   
   responsible for enforcing the ban, does not actively police   
   compliance with the rules, ethics lawyers who handle such cases   
   said.   
      
   “Unless the violation is brought to our attention, it is hard to   
   enforce,” said Michael P. Kortan, the chief spokesman for the   
   F.B.I.   
      
   And in interviews, aides-turned-lobbyists emphasized that there   
   was no need to run afoul of the law, given the broad number of   
   exemptions.   
      
   The salary loophole is perhaps the most popular. House aides can   
   avoid the one-year “cooling-off” period as long as their   
   salaries are below a certain cap, totaling $130,500 last year.   
      
   Erik Olson’s salary fell below that cap when he stepped down in   
   September from his job as chief of staff to Representative Ron   
   Kind, Democrat of Wisconsin. Soon after, he started to lobby   
   Congress on behalf of corporate clients like Leprino Foods of   
   Denver, which wanted to shape the so-called Farm Bill, a topic   
   that Mr. Kind was involved in.   
      
   Mr. Olson, when asked if he had contacted his former boss in the   
   months since he left, said his firm’s policy was “to not   
   publicize who we are meeting with on the Hill or   
   administration,” and a spokesman for Mr. Kind simply said, “No   
   comment.”   
      
   Matthew Tully, the Congressional aide who helped pitch a plan to   
   revamp the nation’s home mortgage finance system, earned an   
   annual salary of $128,000 while serving as chief of staff to   
   Representative David Schweikert, Republican of Arizona. Mr.   
   Tully’s job title, like Mr. Olson’s, would seem to have   
   qualified him as a senior staff member, a role the ethics law is   
   supposed to cover. But again, the paycheck amount exempted him   
   from the one-year ban.   
      
   During Mr. Tully’s tenure in the House, Mr. Schweikert was one   
   of the leading House advocates for legislation that would change   
      
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