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   the way most Americans obtain home mortgages, limiting the   
   federal government’s role as the primary insurer of these loans.   
   While on Capitol Hill, Mr. Tully became a sought-after expert on   
   the debate, speaking in 2012 at a major mortgage industry   
   conference in Miami to highlight legislation his boss was   
   preparing.   
      
   But in 2013, Mr. Tully spun that expertise into a job as the   
   only internal lobbyist for a Pennsylvania-based private mortgage   
   insurer, a job he started one day after leaving the House. The   
   company, Essent Guaranty, stands to benefit from Mr.   
   Schweikert’s positions.   
      
   And yet Mr. Tully, in his new role as a lobbyist, was free to   
   communicate with the staff in his former boss’s office. At one   
   point, while attending a House hearing on housing legislation,   
   he emailed one of Mr. Schweikert’s staff members, according to a   
   Congressional aide with direct knowledge of the matter.   
      
   Mr. Tully and Essent declined requests for comment, so it is   
   unclear whether he intentionally kept his salary below the   
   $130,500 threshold.   
      
   But a former Senate staff member-turned-lobbyist, whose salary   
   was just a few thousand dollars below the cap, acknowledged that   
   she had knowingly kept down her pay. That way, she was free to   
   immediately lobby at least some members of the Senate upon her   
   departure for a mortgage company.   
      
   “I was very lucky I was underneath the cap,” she said, asking   
   that she not be named because her new employer would not allow   
   her to speak on the subject. “The rules are very arbitrary.   
   Honestly, they don’t make sense to me.”   
      
   Dee Buchanan, a Republican who earned more than $170,000 during   
   his last year as a senior aide to Representative Jeb Hensarling,   
   Republican of Texas, benefited from a different exemption.   
      
   After departing Capitol Hill in fall 2012, Mr. Buchanan started   
   a job with Ogilvy Government Relations. The firm’s website   
   boasts that Mr. Buchanan — who quickly registered to lobby for   
   the American Bankers Association and the CME Group, one of the   
   world’s largest futures exchanges — was “the ‘go-to guy’ for the   
   new House Financial Services Committee chairman,” Mr. Hensarling.   
      
   Despite the close ties, Mr. Buchanan was free to immediately   
   lobby most members of Mr. Hensarling’s committee. Mr. Buchanan’s   
   one-year ban did not apply to the committee at large because his   
   government paycheck had come from the House Republican   
   Conference, a leadership arm of the party that Mr. Hensarling   
   led in 2011 and 2012. As such, Mr. Buchanan was restricted from   
   lobbying only Mr. Hensarling and a few other committee members   
   who also belonged to leadership.   
      
   Democratic aides have made similar moves.   
      
   John Hughes, the lobbyist now representing JPMorgan Chase and   
   Bloomberg L.P., last held a job on Capitol Hill as a senior   
   adviser to Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2   
   Democrat in the House. As an aide to Mr. Hoyer, Mr. Hughes’s job   
   in part was to be the contact person with the House Financial   
   Services Committee, where he worked as the top lawyer during the   
   2008 financial crisis.   
      
   Because his most recent government paycheck came from House   
   Democratic leadership, Mr. Hughes was prohibited only from   
   lobbying top House leaders. Mr. Hughes, who declined to comment   
   for this article, was soon able to begin contacting his former   
   associates on the House committee.   
      
   “It is almost a meaningless ban,” said Craig Holman, who helped   
   write the 2007 ethics law as a government ethics expert at the   
   nonprofit group Public Citizen.   
      
   The one-year ban also allows former aides to “interact socially“   
   with former bosses or Capitol Hill colleagues. Although there   
   can be no “intent to influence” a lawmaker’s “official actions   
   or decisions” at dinner parties and golf games, the lobbyists   
   can work behind the scenes, using their expertise to advise   
   clients about the inner workings of Congress. And when it comes   
   to working on a political campaign, there are few restrictions,   
   since such activity is considered a form of free speech.   
      
   The result is a blurring of lines that allows former aides like   
   Larry Lavender to legally spin through the revolving door. Mr.   
   Lavender spent five years as chief of staff to the top   
   Republican on the House Financial Services Committee at the   
   time, Representative Spencer Bachus, a longtime friend from   
   Alabama.   
      
   When a law firm representing JPMorgan recruited Mr. Lavender for   
   a job in early 2012, he left the committee behind. But he stayed   
   close to Mr. Bachus, becoming an unpaid campaign manager for the   
   congressman’s re-election bid.   
      
   Mr. Lavender, who earned $172,500 in his final full year on the   
   Hill, fit squarely into the one-year ban’s allowances for   
   campaigning and socializing. While Mr. Lavender occasionally   
   lunched with former colleagues, and even made an appearance at   
   the committee’s holiday party, he said he did not seek out any   
   official favors or actions. And although he represented   
   JPMorgan, he said he had never contacted the committee on the   
   bank’s behalf.   
      
   “I took great care to confer with the House ethics committee to   
   make sure I understood the rules, and then I was scrupulous in   
   complying,” Mr. Lavender said in an interview.   
      
   The rules allowed Mr. Lavender to join a behind-the-scenes   
   effort to help JPMorgan avoid having to testify at a House   
   hearing in 2012. The hearing focused on the collapse of MF   
   Global, a major New York brokerage firm that was one of   
   JPMorgan’s clients.   
      
   On a conference call with fellow lobbyists, one person briefed   
   on the call recalled, Mr. Lavender took aim at the former   
   colleagues who wanted to force JPMorgan executives to testify.   
   The person briefed on the call, who spoke on the condition of   
   anonymity, said that Mr. Lavender remarked about his former   
   colleagues: “I should have fired them when I had the chance.”   
      
   http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/02/01/law-doesnt-end-revolving-   
   door-on-capitol-hill/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0   
      
       
      
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