Former Sen. Larry "Wide Stance" Craig Is Trolling Halls Of Congress As A Lobbyist

Now that his two year post-Senate "cooling off" period is over, totally not gay toe-tapper Larry Craig is once again trolling the halls of Congress, but this time it's as a lobbyist.

Craig's firm, New West Strategies, wouldn't actually confirm lobbying was now part of his portfolio. "I didn't say that," said Mike Ware, a principle at New West, adding, with emphasis, that "the cooling off period IS over." But the mere spotting of Craig back on the Hill was enough to raise alarms from those good-government groups who see danger in the coercive influence former members can have on old colleagues. "This is sort of the way of Washington right now. It is not the exception to the rule but more or less a rule itself," said Dave Levinthal, Communications Director at the Center for Responsive Politics. "When you get out of federal office you think about how you can cash in that experience you gained from working in the public sector by going into the private sector."

Former members of the House and Capitol Hill senior staffers are only required to wait one year before that revolving door grants their corporate clients access to the very legislation their new emissaries once authored. According to the above-linked story, so far this year 90 former members of Congress and former Hill staffers have already registered as lobbyists.