The Hill offers McCain does about-face on grassroots reform bill, which begins: “Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has told conservative activists that he will vote to strip a key provision on grassroots lobbying from the reform package he previously supported.” Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports Republicans Halt Ethics Legislation: Senators Sought Virtual Line-Item Veto, which begins: “Senate Republicans scuttled broad legislation last night to curtail lobbyists’ influence and tighten congressional ethics rules, refusing to let the bill pass without a vote on an unrelated measure that would give President Bush virtual line-item-veto power.” UPDATE: A reader with Republican Party ties emails: “It was Senator Byrd, not the Republicans, who derailed the ethics reform vote. Here’s Harry Reid last night, discussing the agreement between the Republican and Democratic leadership that would allow the ethics reform bill and the Gregg Amendment to move forward to a vote.

‘Mr. President, to bring everyone up to date as to where we are, I made a good-faith offer to the minority that we will put the line-item veto off to another day. Senator Byrd was not agreeable to that. I talked to Senator Byrd on more than one occasion this evening, the last time for a significant amount of time, and he simply believes this line-item veto is a matter of great constitutional import, that for us to agree at this time to debate this would be wrong and that he simply will not do that.'” — (Sen. Harry Reid, Congressional Record, 1/17/07, p. S647) (here)