The AP piece he links says

Now that they are running things, many Democrats want to keep the big campaign donations and lavish parties that lobbyists put together for them.

They also are having second thoughts about having to wait an extra year before they can become high-paid lobbyists themselves should they retire or be defeated at the polls.

And has a plaintive quote:

"The longer we wait, the weaker the bill seems to get," said Craig Holman of Public Citizen, which has pushed for the changes.

Really?

Apparently Judiciary (blogfave Conyers in the chair) will be taking up S 1 this coming week.

My impression is that this is no isolated push specifically related to the Judiciary meeting; for example, without any effort at all, I come across a Hill piece from May 3 which ledes thusly:

Finance Committee chief Max Baucus (D-Mont.) is unlikely to follow the example of three other chairmen who have imposed voluntary earmark-disclosure rules on their members' requests.

According to a Baucus aide, Baucus does not anticipate sending an earmark letter because the Finance Committee's informal rule against so-called "rifle-shot" tax benefits makes the panel a special case.

I'd not registered the expression before. The piece explains:

The rifle-shot rule, as former Finance Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) described it, requires that any tax benefit the committee considers affect "at least 10 entities."

I wonder how many current tax rules started off affecting 11 entities?

As I mentioned last month, Baucus has teamed up with good old Charlie Rangel to set up the Baucus-Rangel Leadership Fund, a one-stop shop where those so inclined may (purely out of the goodness of their hearts and without the slightest ulterior motive, natch!) practice their love for these keepers of the Internal Revenue Code.

Perhaps, for extra credit (!), they could organize a corporate eHarmony for groups of ten to find their Golden Eleventh...

Update [2007-5-14 17:15:20 by skeptic06]:

Our friends at the Politico weigh in with a piece along the same lines.

Except they have this vignette:

Before a Democratic caucus meeting, a Politico reporter asked House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel of Illinois about the language of the bill's main provisions. After Emanuel demurred on the specifics, this reporter asked -- in the effort for openness and disclosure -- if a journalist could sit in to hear debate on the language.

"Why don't you go f--- yourself?" Emanuel replied, as he entered a men's room in the Capitol basement.

Rahmbo can now safely diary on DKos any time he likes...