On a related note, House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) yesterday called on the ethics committee to create new rules governing lawmakers’ privately funded travel. The Speaker made his request in a letter to Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) and Rep. Alan Mollohan (W.Va.), the ranking Democrat. Hastert asked Hastings and his staff to update the ethics rules in light of the recent uproar involving members’ faulty reporting and trips paid for by private interests, several of them to luxury golfing resorts.

Almost half of the former members of Congress who looked for new jobs after leaving office since the early 1990s have become lobbyists, according to a report released July 27 by the watchdog group Public Citizen. The report pointed out that 43 percent of members of Congress who left office since 1998 and were eligible to lobby have become lobbyists. Public Citizen suggested that this represented an increasing trend toward lawmakers using Congress as "a way station" on the path to the lucrative lobbying industry. For more information, visit their new website, www.lobbyinginfo.org

President Bush said he will hold a White House summit next spring to encourage corporations and foundations to give more money to churches and religious charities. Bush announced the summit as he met behind closed doors with 17 leaders of black churches and community groups -- a traditionally Democratic demographic that Republicans have been trying to persuade to switch alliances.