Sunlight Foundation

While House and Senate lawmakers agreed in February to new rules requiring them to notify the public of any conflicts of interest they may have in pushing for earmarks to legislation, there remain no such guidelines for disclosure by another category of public servants - Congressional aides.

... "When people look at Congress, they think that the [Members] are the important ones ... [but] in the past relatives of aides have lobbied and gotten earmarks and the same sort of rules should apply to the staff," said Bill Allison of the Sunlight Foundation, a watchdog group that has spearheaded the push for ethics reforms in Congress.