Roll Call offers this report (paid subscription required), which begins: “Facing election-year pressure to score a win on the ethics front, House and Senate Republicans signaled Wednesday that they would like to accelerate their long-floundering overhaul of lobbying laws to final passage this month. But that plan faces a major hurdle from Senate Democrats, who are still mulling their options for how best to scuttle the House version’s controversial provision curbing 527 groups.” Another snippet: “If Senate Democrats can’t get Republicans to agree to knock out the 527 provision, they will have at least three chances to try to stop the lobbying reform bill. They can filibuster the motion to name negotiators; they can filibuster the motion to report the conference agreement back to the floor; or they can filibuster the package itself once it’s on the floor. Sources close to Senate Democrats said they are still considering what, if anything, they should do. Each option carries advantages, but they all share the same risk: that Republicans will be able to label them obstructionists who stopped an ethics overhaul in its tracks to protect a political priority.”
In other lobbying reform news, The Hill offers this report, which begins: “New rules aimed at curbing the growth of earmarks are among the most widely touted elements of both chambers’ recent lobbying overhaul bills, but a loophole written into the very definition of ‘earmark’ could allow more than 40 percent of member-directed pork to continue unlabeled and unchecked.”