I’m doing some catch up blogging now that I’ve had a chance to recuperate from Sunshine Week.

Last Thursday, Congressional Quarterly reported that 18 members of Congress had registered lobbyists serving as treasurer of their re-election campaign or their leadership PACs during 2007. Despite the passage of S.1 Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007 (HLOGA), last year’s overhaul of lobbying regulations, “those in the business of seeking favors and those in a position to grant favors can be intertwined in such ways without running afoul of lobbying or ethics laws or congressional rules,” CQ write. And if that isn’t enough to raise your eyebrows, CQ says that lawmakers also asked for earmarks for the clients of their lobbyist-treasurers. (We’re trying to dig up a list of those.)

Any good news here? According to the article the number of lobbyists moonlighting as campaign treasurers has dropped over the past couple of years. Wow.