This just in from the department of I Am Not Making This Up: After all the work to pass an ethics and lobbying reform bill, and passing both houses of Congress by overwhelming margins, President Bush is hesitant about signing the bill.

The White House, according to the Los Angeles Times, is worried that the bill doesn't go far enough to shed light on earmarks. White House spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore told the Times the administration "was concerned that the earmark provisions were not 'as strong as we'd like.' As to whether Bush would sign it, she said, 'We're continuing to review the legislation.'

What?

When I first heard this, I thought: Since when did Bush care about a bill to change Senate ethics rules? About the same time he decided Dick Cheney was in the legislative branch and not the executive branch?

BREAKING NEWS: The U.S. Senate voted this afternoon, 83-14, to send the lobbying and ethics reform bill to the White House for President Bush's signature.

The vote, which technically gives Senate approval to changes the House made in the bill on Tuesday, July 31, came a couple of hours after the Senate voted, 80-17, to end debate on the bill.

Some interesting notes from today's vote: Sen. Ted Stevens, R-AK, who faces a federal corruption investigation and had vowed to kill the bill after an IRS-FBI raid on his house Monday, voted for its passage. Meanwhile, Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, a longtime reform champion and supporter of the ethics and lobbying reform bill, voted against passage.

The Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007, also known as S. 1, or the ethics and lobbying reform bill, is not everything we had hoped it to be. And it's nowhere near what we'd like it to be despite its lofty title and low number.

That's all right.

If the Senate gives its approval to S. 1 this week, as it's expected to do, Congress will finally have produced tighter ethics and lobbying rules after being dragged through the mud of the Abramoff, Foley, Ney and Cunningham scandals of years past. And we'll soon be reminded of why we went to this trouble, when Rep. William Jefferson, D-LA, goes to trial.

UPDATE: The House this morning passed a new lobbying and ethics reform bill, 411-8. This vote sets up a cloture vote in the Senate on Thursday that will determine whether the bill makes it to the president's desk for his signature. (James)

A new ethics bill, negotiated by House and Senate Democrats, is on its way through Congress this week.

The new bill came up after Senate Republicans, incluidng Jim DeMint, R-SC, and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, objected to appointing conferees for the ethics and lobbying bills (S 1, HR 2316) both passed by the House and Senate.

This bill requires increased disclosure of bundled campaign contributions from lobbyists. But the information will be filed with the Federal Election Commission instead of the House and Senate.

The reporting requirements for bundled campaign contributions are triggered when lobbyists steer more than $15,000 worth of federal campaign contributions within six months, or $30,000 within a year.

People often say that Congress only makes big changes when faced with consensus or crisis. This must be the reason why we have no progress to report today on ethics reforms.

Apparently, there's no consensus to produce an ethics and lobbying reform bill or a revamped House ethics process. And there must not be a crisis -- notwithstanding the recent indictment of Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) ongoing federal investigations involving Reps. Rick Renzi (R-AZ) and John Doolittle (R-CA) and the recent news that Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) had been hanging out with alleged prostitutes. Nah, just business as usual on the Hill.

But as members have the aroma of jet fumes dancing in their heads -- the month-long August recess is approaching -- there may be a new ethics and lobbying reform bill in the next two weeks.

Talk about misplaced priorities.

Unless you live on Mars, you know by now that Paris Hilton (who I'm still trying to figure out why she's always in the news) has been locked up for 45 days, turning the act of going to jail into some kind of infotainment freak show.

But while the media have been wall-to-wall Paris, they haven't said much at all about the White House's recent changes in a plan of who would take over federal departments in the event of a sneak attack on the federal government.

On May 9, President Bush signed National Security Presidential Directive 51 and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 20. The directive orders federal executive agencies to draw up plans for their operation after a surprise attack. But Bush made the White House, not the Department of Homeland Security, responsible for running a "shadow" government in the event of such an attack.

So now Rep. William "Dollar Bill" Jefferson, D-LA (or D-Freezer, if you're the Feds) has been indicted on federal bribery, racketeering and money-laundering charges.

Aside from the obvious (never stash 90 grand in your freezer or try to solicit bribes while holding elected office), do you think Congress, and specifically, the Democratic leadership, will learn anything from this?

Here's a suggestion: You campaigned to create an "ethical Congress" but then you came up short on reform, specifically tracking the money that pays for "Astroturf lobbying" and a two-year "cooling off" period for yourselves and key staff.

But you've got one more shot to make things better. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, has a task force out there led by Michael Capuano, D-MA, to study whether the House should have some independent ethics oversight.

The House Democratic leadership appears to think you don't care about House ethics reform anymore.

They were all for it last fall, when control of Congress was in the balance and everyone was shocked that former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) had been chasing teenage pages for years, and no one had bothered to blow the whistle on him. That was when the Democrats promised they would stop the scandals that had plagued Capitol Hill for years and left members resigning from Congress in disgrace or heading to prison.

They said they would tighten ethics rules and lobbying requirements, and they did do that. But they have consistently ignored action on the most critical ethics problem: the toothless House Ethics Committee and its inability to punish members who break ethics rules.