Complaints about the revolving door are not limited to former lawmakers, nor to Republicans alone. Senior members of the Obama administration also flocked to K Street and corporate America, either as lobbyists or highly paid executives at some of the nation’s most recognizable companies. The former health secretary Marilyn Tavenner became the top lobbyist for the health-insurance trade group AHIP, while the ex–Obama adviser David Plouffe went to Uber, where in 2017 he was fined $90,000 by the Chicago Board of Ethics for illegally lobbying Mayor Rahm Emanuel on behalf of the company.

That well-trodden path between Capitol Hill and K Street has become a symbol of the swamp that both President Donald Trump and Democrats have repeatedly pledged—and largely failed—to drain. Currently, members of the Senate are barred from registering as lobbyists for two years after they leave office, while the prohibition—known inside the Beltway as the “cooling-off period”—on House members is just one year. As a candidate in October 2016, Trump called for a five-year lobbying ban for former members of both chambers. Like much of the president’s “drain the swamp” agenda, the proposal went nowhere.

Trump “put zero muscle” behind his anti-corruption proposals, says Meredith McGehee, the executive director of Issue One, a bipartisan government-reform advocacy group. “It never came up anywhere, and was never talked about,” she told me. “They were just words on a paper.” His administration has also become a haven for lobbyists. An executive order Trump signed upon taking office to limit the revolving door has gone completely unenforced, advocates told me, and the president frequently hires former lobbyists for top jobs. A prime example: After Scott Pruitt resigned as the EPA administrator under scandal, he became a coal lobbyist; the man who replaced him, Andrew Wheeler, had been a coal lobbyist as well.

Sensing an opening, both Bennet and Senator Elizabeth Warren have taken Trump’s proposal a (giant) step further by calling for a lifetime lobbying ban. “Outside of Washington, the American people understand that it is neither partisan nor unreasonable to demand members of Congress, heads of government agencies, and the president of the United States not cash in on their unparalleled access to influence government policy for the highest bidder,” Warren said in an emailed statement.

But she and Bennet may find that convincing Congress to appropriate trillions of dollars for new social programs is an easier lift than persuading lawmakers to permanently cut off a lucrative source of their own retirement income. That idea goes too far even for the purest good-government advocates, who say it’s not only wildly unrealistic but possibly unconstitutional.

The last serious effort to extend the cooling-off period for members of Congress—long pegged at one year for both chambers—came in 2007 during debate over the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, the ethics law that stemmed from the corruption scandal involving the prominent über-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who pleaded guilty to bribing members of Congress and defrauding Native American tribes. Lawmakers had agreed to lengthen the ban for senators to two years, but a rebellion in the House nearly killed the entire bill, recalled Craig Holman of Public Citizen, the liberal group that advocates for consumer rights and government reform, among other issues. As a result, the cooling-off period for House members stayed at one year.