Last Wednesday, Sen. Christopher Dodd, R-Conn., introduced an amendment to the Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act of 2006. The amendment aims to end lawmakers' ability to accept free refreshments and meals from registered lobbyists.

Included in the bill are provisions intended to improve congressional ethics, such as requirements to disclose earmarks and payments made before any bill, amendment or report can be presented to the Senate, ending the receipt of gifts from lobbyists and increasing the length of time a former lawmaker must wait to lobby his or her former colleagues.

One of the good, and for the politically inclined, interesting aspects of this amendment is its sponsorship. In addition to Dodd introducing it, Senators Rick Santorum, R-Pa., Barack Obama, D-Ill., John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., announced their support, making this amendment a prominent bipartisan effort by popular and widely known senators.

But aside from this new and perhaps increasing occurrence of bipartisanship, this amendment -- and perhaps the bill in its entirety -- is befuddling.

Though it is admittedly probably a good thing that the Senate finally decided to tackle this issue, it is 2006, so why is ethics a seemingly new issue?

Congress needs to deal with the relationship between lobbyists and lawmakers. But to what extent will this really affect any of the politics that goes on between interest groups, lobbyists, lawmakers, voters, the administration, foreign governments, etc.? How will Congress manage to regulate any of it?

Is this initiative a nice bipartisan effort to get re-elected? Maybe a little nudge to the voters just to show off that the Senate can work together and wants to prove its moral rectitude to the people? If so, nice work senators because it will probably work. Ethical issues, like "family values," are vital in Americans' voting habits.

Hopefully in addition to getting votes the senators who sponsored the bill, along with other members of Congress, will consider what the legislation really means and start to practice it.