Administration officials have said that the highly complicated measure would have perpetuated a double standard under which lobbying restrictions were more onerous for former executive branch employees than for members of Congress or legislative staffs.

Paradoxically, new lobbying restrictions being considered in the wake of the Abramoff scandal may only tip the scales further, making a long career on the Hill too onerous for all but the most earnest public servants.

At the close of last session, Congress enacted sound legislation providing reasonable lobbying restrictions for former Government employees, including, for the first time, members of Congress and their staffs.

The Senate gift ban will take effect as a rule on Jan. 1, 1996; the new lobbying restrictions were passed in the form of a bill that requires House approval.

As a 501(c)(4) social welfare group, Focus Action has fewer political lobbying restrictions.

With the Senate's appetite for major lobbying restrictions waning last week, the grassroots provision is even more likely to be subsumed, if not jettisoned, when debate resumes over travel and enforcement rules.

The Senate has already approved its own lobbying restrictions for those who resign from the executive branch or leave Congress.

But the advent of tougher lobbying restrictions has generated a whole new set of them.

Hampton said he and Ensign were aware of the lobbying restriction but chose to ignore it.

The Second Circuit unanimously held that the welfare-advocacy restriction was unconstitutional, but upheld other restrictions that Bronx Legal Services had challenged (such as the lobbying restriction) by a 2-1 vote.