DOESN'T THE TERM LOOPHOOLE SUGGEST SOME KIND OF INITIAL BARRIER?

President's Nominee for Trade Rep, a Lobbyist in 2008, to Take Advantage of Loophole in Anti-Lobbyist Regs (Jake Tapper, February 21, 2009, Political Punch)

As recently as last year, [Ron Kirk, the former mayor of Dallas and President Obama's nominee for U.S. Trade Representative] was a lobbyist for investment bank Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., and President Obama has said no one can work in his administration on issues they lobbied on in the previous two years.

Given the vast array of issues the trade representative deals with, and the vast array of Merrill Lynch holdings, such a scenario seems potentially quite problematic.

But here's the quirk for Kirk: He was a lobbyist in Austin, Texas. Not in Washington, D.C.

And that allows Kirk to easily avoid the requirements of President Obama's'anti-lobbyist ethics rules, which apply only to federal lobbyists.