In 1995, with much ado, the newly Republican-constituted House of Representatives enacted a total ban on receiving gifts from lobbyists. They've been chipping away at it ever since.

This month, in a party line vote, they eroded it even further by passing a new rule that:

...allows lawmakers and their aides to once again accept free trips to golf courses and free meals catered to their offices from corporations and other special interests.

By relaxing the gift ban, Republicans have provided corporations, labor unions and other interest groups many new avenues -- which are closed to ordinary Americans -- to try to influence lawmakers and their staffs. Lobbyists footing the bill often get coveted face time with key lawmakers and their aides.

"As gifts are given, meals are paid for and vacations subsidized, these favors build up and it's just human nature members and staff will be responsive to those doing the favors," said Don Simon, acting president of Common Cause, a nonpartisan group that monitors congressional ethics. "It's not how government business is supposed to be conducted."

Praise, however, is due Colorado Republican Congressman Joel Hefley, who said the rule goes too far:

Now even a key Republican worries that the party is going too far by allowing House members to take free trips to charity events and accept free, catered meals.

"I see my job as to keep people out of trouble," said Rep. Joel Hefley (R-Colo.), chairman of the House ethics committee. "We don't want to have the impression, nor the reality, that we're trying to weasel around ways to live high at someone else's expense."

Hefley said he was blindsided earlier this month when Hastert decided to weaken the gift ban without consulting him. At the behest of Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), Hastert drafted what Hefley and others worry might become the biggest loophole in the gift ban yet: allowing members to take all-expense-paid trips to charity fundraising events. The 1995 gift ban outlawed such trips because the practice was routinely abused.

Under the new rule, which passed 221-203, a corporation could anonymously underwrite a charity event on the greens of, say, Pebble Beach in Northern California and provide accommodations at a five-star resort. The corporation then could send its top executives and lobbyists to the event for a weekend of schmoozing with lawmakers.

"That is open to enormous abuse if we are not careful," said Hefley. "I don't want sham charities out there so congressmen have a nice vacation at a resort."

Tom Delay and Dennis Hastert are said to be behind the new rule--for personal reasons--Delay to be able to fly colleagues to "his annual golf tournament in Texas" which raises money for his foundation for foster children. "Scores of corporate lobbyists attend the event." Hastert wants to be able to continue accepting delivered meals from, for example, pharmaceutical firms, on the same night the House is voting on prescription drug legislation. They call this the "pizza rule."

The Republicans are not only creating an appearance of impropriety with this rule, they are providing an opportunity for the impropriety to occur. Where was the media when this rule was proposed and voted on? Was it reported but glossed over with Republican spin? Why are we just hearing the true likely effects of the rule now, after-the-fact?