Senior House Democratic aides say a deal has nearly been reached on a new version of the lobbying and ethics package (S1, HR 2316) and they expect to bring it up for House floor action Tuesday.

The revised version would provide for increased disclosure requirements for lobbyists who serve as hubs, or conduits, for bundled campaign donations. But it would not make examining the bundles as easy as watchdog groups had wanted.

Campaign committees would be required to report on the bundled campaign donations they receive. Groups such as Public Citizen wanted disclosure responsibility to be imposed on the lobbyists. And they wanted the information to be stored in the lobbying disclosure database and easily searchable online. Scattering the information among the Federal Election Commission reports of hundreds of recipients will make it more difficult for outsiders to scrutinize the bundling.

Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in an interview that the bundling reports would be required whenever individuals had steered more than $15,000 in federal campaign contributions within six months or $30,000 in one year.

“This will make sure that the relevant information is reported,” Van Hollen said. “It was less important who reported the information or what venue collected the information.”

A senior Democratic aide said it was likely the new bill would drop House-passed language that would have required lobbyists to file quarterly reports on funds that they — or a political committee they administer — contribute, disburse or arrange, in contributions to campaigns or charities controlled by lawmakers, or in expenditures on events that feature or honor lawmakers.

Another Democratic aide confirmed that Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid talked by phone about 6 p.m. Friday and reached a tentative deal.

The leaders agreed the bill should impose different revolving-door restrictions on former lawmakers. Senators would be barred from lobbying colleagues for two years after leaving office, but the current one-year lobbying ban would not change for House members.

A number of senior House Democrats had been strongly opposed to adopting the more restrictive Senate-passed standard, arguing that lobbying firms would be unwilling to hire many rank-and-file House members after they have been out of the Capitol Hill circle for two years.

Pelosi, D-Calif., and other Democrats have been pushing to move the lobbying law changes as way to revive their “culture of corruption’’ attacks on Republicans and to inoculate Democrats against their own ethical woes, such as the pending public corruption probe of Rep. William Jefferson, D-La. Jefferson has been charged with 16 counts of bribery and other crimes in connection with the alleged promotion of business ventures in Africa.

Craig Holman, a lobbyist for Public Citizen, said he did not support putting the responsibility for bundling reports with the FEC, but was waiting to see the legislative language before deciding whether to support the package.

Fred Wertheimer, president and chief executive officer for the nonprofit watchdog group Democracy 21, said he was also waiting to review a copy of legislative language, but did not have an immediate objection to putting responsibility for bundling reports with the FEC. “I’m very hopeful this is good legislation,” he said.

The details of the tentative deal were to be circulated over the weekend.

“There may be some real small loose ends to be done,” Van Hollen said. “There is an agreement in principle. Sometimes when people have agreed in principle, issues arise when things are put on paper.”

Despite those loose ends, Van Hollen said the tentative deal covers “key pieces.”

“We’ve blasted off,” he said. “There is a major breakthrough.” He also said party leaders say the deal on bundling would provide for adequate disclosure of aggregated contributions to the Federal Election Commission, even though Public Citizen and other public watchdog groups had called for more detailed filings that would be tied to lobbying disclosure forms filed with the secretary of the Senate and the clerk of the House.

It was not clear whether the new package would omit Senate-passed language that would have changed chamber rules to make it easy to strike earmarks and other provisions that originate in conference reports without first being included in either a House-passed or Senate-passed version of the bill.

Also unclear was whether the new package would retain a proposed rules change that would force senators to reveal sponsorship of earmarks and certify that they have no financial interest in the projects.

By dripping out details of their lobbying and ethics package instead of revealing the full deal all at once, Democrats appeared to be floating trial balloons to see how potentially contentious omissions and insertions would be received by Republicans, rank-and-file members and constituent groups over the weekend.

Just the possibility that the earmark language might get dropped in conference spurred threats of a potential filibuster by Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., who had single-handedly blocked the Senate from going to conference on the original bills because leaders refused to promise the earmark language would survive.

Unless his fellow Republicans are ready to vote against what will be characterized as a “clean up Congress” initiative, DeMint will have a difficult time stopping the new version of the bill.

DeMint, who chairs the Senate Republican Steering Committee, made clear his intention to resist the Democrats’ new strategy for quickly getting identical versions of the bill passed by the House and Senate this week.

“It is ironic that Sen. Reid has seen fit to rewrite a bill in secret that is supposed to provide transparency and sunlight,” DeMint said. “Ethics reform is very important for America, and we need to make sure this bill includes true earmark reform and honestly addresses the culture of corruption that earmarks have created.”

First posted July 29, 2007 8:49 a.m.