Eliza Newlin Carney’s most recent Rules of the Game column is up. It begins: “Even as Democrats enact new ethics rules for Congress, a little-noticed federal court ruling has actually made it harder to punish public officials who exchange favors for gifts, meals, trips and other goodies. At issue is whether such gratuities are legal as long as they are not linked to a very specific “official act” by a public official. In a controversial Feb. 9 ruling the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit defined ‘official act’ so narrowly as to jeopardize anti-gratuities statutes, some legal experts say.”