YOU CAN'T MAKE PEOPLE CARE:

Call for Lobbying Changes Is A Fading Cry, Lawmakers Say: Calming of Political Storm Cited as Reason for Attitude Shift (Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and Jim VandeHei, 6/26/06, Washington Post)

Six months later, the legislation has slowed to a crawl. Along the way, proposals such as Hastert's that would sharply limit commonplace behavior on Capitol Hill have been cast aside. Committee chairmen once predicted the bill would be finished in March, but the Senate did not pass its ethics bill until March 29 and the House passed its version May 3. The House has yet to name negotiators to draft the final package.

Legislators and public-interest group advocates say the most likely result this year is a minimalist package that would allow members to say they have responded to the Abramoff situation and other scandals but would do little to crimp their ability to accept lobbyist favors.

The change, these people say, reflects a calculation that the political storm has mostly passed and that the need for more intrusive efforts to alter the congressional culture and the lobbyist-lawmaker relationship is less urgent.

"Initially, I worried that Congress would do this bill too quickly and that it might not be as well-thought-out as it needed to be," said Susan Collins (R-Maine), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which had partial jurisdiction over the legislation. "That fear seems ludicrous now."

It was ludicrous then too, though that hasn't stopped Democrats from basing their entire '06 campaign on it.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 26, 2006 3:35 PM