Hill a Steppingstone to K Street for Some -WaPo

Election to Congress used to be an end in itself. Now, for nearly half of federal lawmakers, it is a steppingstone to a second career: lobbying.

A new study has found that 43 percent of the 198 House and Senate members who left government to join private life since 1998 have registered to lobby. Of the 36 senators who left during that period, half have joined the lobbying ranks.

Republican lawmakers have become lobbyists at a faster rate than Democrats, a fact that reflects GOP control of the White House and Congress in recent years. Nearly 52 percent of Republican lawmakers who moved to the private sector since 1998 have registered as lobbyists, the study said. Only a third of departing Democrats took the same path.
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"Access equals power in Washington, and few people have greater access than a former member of Congress," said Frank Clemente, director of Congress Watch. "We believe the public has the right to know how frequently their elected representatives change their allegiances and become lobbyists."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/26/AR2005072601562.html

this aggressively when it first started to happen.

Five years later when it is accepted as common practice the WaPo gets around to informing the public.