Having thoroughly ticked off the K Street crowd with a string of controversial lobbying restrictions last year, President Obama has signaled that he's not done yet -- either with anti-lobbyist rhetoric or with complex new rules.

Obama outlined sweeping new reporting requirements and campaign contribution limits for lobbyists in his State of the Union address. Norm Eisen, the White House special counsel for ethics and government reform, posted details on the White House blog of the administration's agenda for cracking down on special interests.

This includes new rules requiring lobbyists to report all contact with lawmakers or administration officials; new bundling restrictions on lobbyists; and a ban on lobbyist campaign contributions. Eisen also ticks off new campaign finance and earmark reforms.

One problem is that the secretary of the Senate and the clerk of the House don't have the authority or the resources to enforce disclosure laws.

On Capitol Hill, plans for a fresh lobbyist crackdown have largely fallen flat. Instead, members of Congress have zeroed in on campaign finance changes following the Supreme Court's landmark Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling. Lawmakers held three congressional hearings last week to air proposals responding to the ruling, which ended the longstanding ban on direct corporate political spending.

Measures on the table include a ban on campaign spending by corporations that are owned or controlled by foreign principals; new shareholder approval and disclosure rules; and a ban on election ads by bailout money recipients and government contractors. Reform-minded activists and lawmakers are also pushing a public financing bill, but that effort is on a slower track.

Some congressional proposals do implicate or take direct aim at lobbyists. Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., has introduced a bill, colorfully dubbed the "Pick Your Poison Act," that would ban corporations that employ or retain lobbyists from making direct campaign expenditures. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., are mulling that approach as they put together a post-Citizens United legislative package, the Washington Post reported.

Open-government advocates are also working closely with the administration on steps to improve lobbying disclosure, which they maintain is woefully inadequate. Lobbying registration reports lack detail, are difficult to decipher, and do not make it clear when lobbyists have officially "deregistered," said Lee Mason, director of nonprofit speech rights at OMB Watch. That group is working with the Center for Responsive Politics on comprehensive recommendations to improve lobbyist disclosure.

Better lobby reporting is also a centerpiece of a multipart disclosure agenda released by the Sunlight Foundation following Citizens United. The administration has already embraced the group's call for lobbyists to report all "significant contacts," whether electronically, by phone or in person, to request government action.

Likewise, the White House backs the group's proposal to end the current 20 percent exemption, so that disclosure rules capture virtually all people making lobbying contacts. (The rules now apply only to lobbyists who spend at least 20 percent of their time lobbying.) Sunlight also calls on lobbyists to file all disclosure electronically within 24 hours, and endorses better enforcement of all disclosure laws, including the Lobbying Disclosure Act.

"Everybody's for more disclosure," said Sunlight Foundation executive director Ellen Miller. "But are they for more 21st-century disclosure? For us, the bottom line is real-time, online disclosure."

Many lobbyists themselves endorse better disclosure, but they question the administration's approach. A major problem with the LDA, said Washington lawyer Kenneth A. Gross, is that existing forms exclude important details, such as whether expenditures were for in-house or out-of-house lobbying, or for trade association or coalition dues.

Another problem is that the secretary of the Senate and the clerk of the House, which handle the LDA forms, don't have the authority or the resources to enforce or even fully administer the law. Senate officials have referred more than 8,000 disclosure violations to federal law enforcement authorities, according to the Bureau of National Affairs' Money & Politics Report. But the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia has taken no enforcement action beyond sending letters to potential violators.

"The whole enforcement of the Lobby Disclosure Act is lacking," said Gross, a partner with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. Gross added that he is "generally in favor of increased disclosure by lobbyists," which he said would improve compliance.

But like many lobbyists, Gross argues that the administration's approach is unworkable. Requiring lobbyists to calendar each and every meeting with officials "chills meaningful interaction between the private and the public sector," he maintained.

"It would be an overly burdensome reporting requirement," concurred Gina Mahony, policy director in Washington for Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, a Denver-based law firm. Such a policy raises myriad practical questions, she added: "Is a hallway conversation a meeting? Is that a contact? Do I have to report that? What if I forget? Does it put you in legal jeopardy? Why only this particular class of citizens?"

While some lobbyists would welcome an end to the constant pressure to make political contributions, a ban on lobbyist campaign donations may or may not withstand a constitutional challenge. Once again, lobbyists argue, the administration has come up with a long list of proposals that single out and punish lobbyists -- without really changing Washington's influence game.

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