By Lisa Tanger, USA Today, July 1, 2008

1 Jul 2008 // It appears federal lawmakers still love their privately funded trips, despite new ethics rules limiting congressional travel. The Denver Post reports lawmakers are still accepting trips -- albeit less often -- a year after ethics rules were overhauled.

The newspaper cited a Congressional Quarterly MoneyLine report saying lawmakers took 441 trips costing $2.1 million last year, compared to 1,340 trips in 2005 that totaling $3.6 million. Under the new rules, trips must be approved in advance by a designated committee, foreign governments are not allowed to pay for U.S. legislators' travel and organizations that employ lobbyists can't fund trips unless they are one-day events, the paper reported.

"It's way harder to sin than it used to be," Sarah Dufendach of the watchdog group Common Cause told the Post.

You can see what privately-funded trips your representatives have taken recently on the Center Responsive Politics, website, as well as review their most recent personal financial disclosures on LegiStorm's website.

In a different twist of the ongoing ethics story, USA TODAY reports the House and Senate campaign committees of both parties are explicitly offering "pay-for-access" at this summer's political conventions. Check out the story here.