Lifetime Lobbying Ban for Ex-Members of Congress: Staff Cooling-Off Period Jumps from 1 to 6 Years

The “Close the Revolving Door Act of 2025” is exactly what it sounds like: a major attempt to stop high-level officials and staff from immediately cashing in on their government connections. This bill doesn’t mess around. It imposes a lifetime ban on former Members of Congress—Senators and Representatives—from ever lobbying their old colleagues. If you’re a former lawmaker, you can’t knowingly communicate with or appear before anyone in the Legislative Branch to influence a matter on behalf of someone else (Sec. 2).

The Long Goodbye: Six Years for Congressional Staff

For Congressional staff, the change is less dramatic but still massive. Right now, many senior staffers have a one-year “cooling-off period” before they can lobby their former offices. This bill extends that waiting period from 1 year to 6 years for several categories of staff (Sec. 3). Think about the Legislative Director who helped write bills for years. Under current law, they could leave on Friday and start lobbying their former boss and colleagues on Monday of next year. Now, they’re locked out for six full years. This dramatically increases the separation time, making it much harder for lobbyists to rely on immediate, personal connections forged while the staffer was on the public payroll.

Lobbyists Can’t Jump to Congress for Six Years

The bill also tries to stop the revolving door from spinning the other way. If you are a registered lobbyist or an agent of a foreign principal, you now face a six-year ban on being hired by a Member of Congress or a Congressional committee—if you had “substantial lobbying contact” with that specific Member or committee (Sec. 5). What counts as substantial contact? It’s more than just social chats; it means setting up meetings, giving presentations, or helping with fundraising related to pending legislation or federal funding. The catch? The House and Senate ethics committees can waive this six-year ban if they decide there’s a “compelling national need” to hire that person anyway. That’s a pretty vague exit ramp that could potentially be abused, so keep an eye on how often that exception gets used.

Finally, One-Stop Shopping for Transparency

For anyone trying to track who is lobbying whom, this bill is a huge win for transparency. It mandates the creation of a single, joint, and easily searchable public website—lobbyists.gov—where all required lobbying disclosure information must be posted (Sec. 4). No more digging through multiple, clunky government databases. Furthermore, the bill targets major lobbying groups—those employing more than three registered lobbyists—by requiring them to file an annual report detailing every former high-level Congressional official they employ, including their current job description and how their past experience relates to their current work (Sec. 6). This new data is also required to be posted on the lobbyists.gov site, giving the public and the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia a much clearer picture of who is employing former government talent.

Higher Stakes for Violations

Finally, if you break the rules, the financial penalty just got a lot steeper. The maximum fine for certain lobbying violations under the Lobbying Disclosure Act is being raised from $200,000 to $500,000 (Sec. 7). This move signals that Congress intends to take these ethics rules much more seriously, making the cost of non-compliance a significant deterrent.