On March 20 President Barack Obama issued a memorandum to department and agency officials outlining restrictions on lobbyists regarding the economic stimulus package. As a result, some are in an uproar that the restrictions are a violation of lobbyists' free speech rights.

An interesting posting at Huffington Post addresses some of the unintended consequences of the new executive order on ethics. The main content of the article was apparently based off of interviews with "progressive" lobbyists, who would only speak on the condition of anonymity.

The Office of Government Ethics (OGE) released a memorandum explaining the executive order banning executive branch personnel from accepting gifts from lobbyists. The memo states that the order; "was not intended to prohibit certain gifts that do not implicate the purposes of the ban. [. . .] appointees may rely on the following interim guidance, to accept certain gifts from 501(c)(3) organizations and media organizations." This revises the order allowing covered officials to participate in events sponsored by charitable organizations and the press.

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) voted unanimously to approve the Explanation and Justification (E&J), implementing the new disclosure rule for lobbyist bundled contributions. In doing so, the FEC finally put into effect section 204 of the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007. The rules were approved by the FEC in Dec. 2008, but are only now in effect with the E&J.