As originally envisioned by the founders of the American republic, serving in Congress was to be strictly a part-time job. Early officeholders, typically farmers and businessmen, came to Washington for only a few weeks to deal with national affairs and then returned home. Too much time in the capital, it was thought, would diminish the bond between representatives and their constituents. "As it is essential to liberty that the government in general should have a common interest with the people, so it is particularly essential that [Congress] should have an immediate dependence on, and an intimate sympathy with, the people," Federalist #52 opined.

    It is perhaps too easy to romanticize this era of "citizen legislators," who of course generally came from, and represented the interests of, the economic elite. And yet holding office was then genuinely seen as a public service rather than a career, let alone a path to riches. Today's lawmakers complain bitterly about the rigors of the job, including the incessant fund-raising, but they overwhelmingly opt to seek term after term and in recent decades have won reelection at a rate of roughly 90 percent, in part because both parties have gerrymandered congressional districts so that few incumbents are dislodged.

    Why do they so dearly want to stay? The pay is very good but not outlandish: at $169,300 per year, a member of Congress earns less than what he or she could likely command in the private sector.1 More generous, arguably, is the retirement plan, which (for members serving at least five years) is guaranteed for life, at a payout that the National Taxpayers Union estimates to be at least twice what a similarly salaried corporate executive would get upon retirement. Another factor, no doubt, is the entourage that tends to members' needs. As recently as World War II, lawmakers got by with a minimal staff, but today each congressman typically has a score of young, eager aides who do everything from managing his schedule to driving him around town. Only the nation's most elite CEOs can afford to have so many talented minions at their beck and call around the clock.

    But among the greatest perks of congressional service today is the campaign dole, which provides legislators with potentially limitless funds to lavish on associates, or on themselves. One cannot flip through disclosure reports of the most powerful members of Congress without finding vast sums being dispensed for purposes that hardly seem essential to their reelection. Over a recent four-year period, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has used more than $125,000 in political funds to pay for stays at such Las Vegas hotels as the MGM Grand, the Wynn resort, Caesars Palace, and Mandalay Bay. His House counterpart, Congressman Steny Hoyer of Maryland, has displayed similarly pricey tastes: during the 2006 election cycle alone, his Leadership PAC doled out $66,146 on hotels, including the InterContinental Hotel in Chicago, the Ritz-Carlton in Phoenix, the Breakers in Palm Beach, and the W in Seattle. In the fall of 2005, Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor, now the G.O.P. chief deputy whip, charged his political funds more than $42,000 for stays at the Beverly Hills Hotel and Bungalows, as well as $1,224 for a tour of the Warner Bros. studios.

    Such eye-opening use of donor money is by no means confined to party leaders. Consider the case of Representative James McCrery (R., La.), who has held no post in the Republican leadership and whose national profile is fairly limited. McCrery's campaign took in $3.3 million between 2005 and 2007, a staggering amount given that his seat is utterly secure; he crushed his most recent Democratic opponent, who spent all of $7,000, by some 40 percentage points. McCrery's Leadership PAC - which is named, without apparent irony, the Committee for the Preservation of Capitalism - raised another $2.3 million during the same period. McCrery recently announced that he would not seek reelection this fall, a choice that analysts described as a serious blow to the G.O.P.'s financial prospects for the 2008 election.

    By congressional standards, McCrery is poor: his assets, as listed on disclosure forms, are estimated at between $25,000 and $200,000, ranking him in the bottom fifth of his peers. Yet life in Congress has been good for McCrery, as well as for his friends, family, and associates. In 2004 his wife, Johnette, until then an assistant professor at Louisiana State University - Shreveport, was named a vice president at the Washington office of Ketchum, one of the world's largest P.R. firms. A number of his staffers have gone on to become lobbyists or consultants, and the wife of one former aide gets paid to run the Committee for the Preservation of Capitalism.2

    McCrery has cut a broad gastronomical swath through Washington, using political funds to dine out frequently at twenty-five different restaurants since 2005. Although his favorite spot seems to be the Capitol Hill Club (twenty-eight visits and events, totaling more than $59,000), the congressman has spread his wealth around town, spending thousands of dollars from his political funds at Bistro Bis and the Capital Grille, as well as at Johnny's Half Shell, a seafood spot near Union Station, and Acadiana, whose menu reflects "the bounty of Louisiana, in the finest of seafood and premium meats." When in his home district, McCrery regularly drops by the Southern Trace Country Club (twelve visits in three years, at combined costs to his political funds of some $40,000) and the Shreveport Club (seven visits, $2,200).

    For travel, McCrery appears to enjoy the Napa Valley, having charged his political funds tens of thousands of dollars for fund-raising trips there in the past three years. His fall 2007 expenses at Sonoma's Benziger Family Winery, which "produces Sonoma cabernet sauvignon, merlot, and chardonnay wines with a strong sense of place," set back his Leadership PAC $13,000. The congressman also enjoys a good party. McCrery sits on the executive committee of the

    Mystick Krewe of Louisianians Inc., a group of "displaced Louisianians living in our nation's capital." In 2005, his campaign paid $7,725 to the group for a Mardi Gras-themed party.

    McCrery's passions include golfing - several years ago, he appeared on Golf Digest's list of the top 200 players among members of Congress, White House officials, Supreme Court justices, and lobbyists - and he frequently can be found on the links, courtesy of his political funds. McCrery spent $1,592 in December of 2005 at the Calusa Pines Golf Club and another $994 the following month at the Olde Florida Golf Club, both in balmy Naples, Florida. He frequently holds his fund-raising events at golf clubs, where donors have given him the money to pay for yet more golfing.3 He spent $7,488 at the Talking Stick in Scottsdale, Arizona (winner of the Golden Nugget Award for Best Recreational Facility), and $32,036 at the Kiawah Island Golf Resort off the South Carolina coast (named No. 1 golf resort in America by Travel + Leisure Golf magazine and No. 2 tennis resort by Tennis magazine).

    He and donors traveled farther south for an affair McCrery hosted at the Rio Mar Beach Resort and Spa in Puerto Rico, which, says its website, "lies between a magnificent palm-lined beach and lush mountains" and boasts "an award-winning staff at your beck and call." The resort offers - naturally - two championship golf courses, as well as eleven tennis courts, two oceanfront swimming pools, and "oceanfront meditation areas." Still another golfing affair - a single-event expense record for McCrery, costing his Leadership PAC nearly $52,000 - was held at the Lansdowne Resort in Virginia's Hunt Country.

    McCrery's non-travel-related payments of note include an $88,512 bonus to his fund-raising consultant last year, $10,000 in checks to the Tom DeLay Legal Expense Trust, more than $10,000 for gifts (much of it spent at the Tiny Jewel Box in Washington), $3,000 labeled only as petty cash, $1,427 at the Marble Slab Creamery, and $1,102 more at the Cake House. There is seemingly nothing that McCrery has not seen fit to charge to his political funds, including babysitting for his children: a bill of $300 was paid to one Katie Raffaelli, the daughter of John Raffaelli, a lobbyist and campaign donor to the congressman.

    I called McCrery and asked whether he thought some of his expenditures might have been a bit extravagant - for example, the donor event in Puerto Rico. McCrery explained that early in his career, he had attended many fund-raisers, and had developed a keen sense of what made for a memorable affair. "I tried to emulate those events that attracted people so that they would want to come back," he told me. "Yes, we do go to some very nice places, and we like to make sure that people have a good time. . . . So I plead guilty."

    What about expenditures for meals and other non-fund-raising events? I asked. "It's fairly loose in terms of the use of campaign money," the congressman replied. "It has to be connected to the campaign, but that can be any number of things." For example, McCrery might pick up the dinner tab for other members of Congress "if I'm talking to them about fund-raising activities, or if I'm trying to get them to come to a campaign event." At the Capitol Hill Club, some of his expenditures were for what he called "check presentations," ceremonial events (often including donors) at which the PAC hands out checks to members and candidates. As for babysitting, the congressman said that he had asked the FEC for an opinion about that matter, and he had been assured it was appropriate. "We don't use it often, but we have occasionally," he told me, adding that he usually paid $100 "if the person comes in and spends the night." The 2007 tab for $300 was for babysitting when he and his wife were away for a few days at a Republican retreat - at the Hyatt Regency Chesapeake Bay Golf Resort, Spa and Marina.

    All in all, McCrery has allocated some $650,000 in political funds for food, drinks, catering, and hotels during the past three years. This is a pace of roughly $18,000 a month - and keep in mind that this figure excludes tens of thousands of dollars more in airfare, rental cars, and related travel costs. For Democrats just beginning to enjoy the enhanced perks of majority status and hoping to tighten their grip thereon, McCrery's story can only serve as election-year inspiration.

    Even as the Democrats' triumph in 2006 has accomplished almost nothing in terms of policy, it has produced a stunning reversal in the parties' respective finances. As of January, the Democratic Senate and House congressional campaign committees had combined cash on hand of $56 million, almost five times more than their formerly cash-swollen Republican counterparts. At one point last fall, the G.O.P.'s House campaign committee was technically insolvent, with $2.3 million more in debt than in the bank. "Washington is a town that operates on the basis of what people can do for you," says Melanie Sloan, director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "Now that the Democrats control Congress, it's a lot easier to get people to show up at their fund-raisers. As a donor, you can't afford to say no."

    In Washington, the Democrats' political and social resurgence can be witnessed in the revived fortunes of the National Democratic Club, which serves as a semiprivate venue for party lawmakers and elected officials, as well as the lobbyists, consultants, fund-raisers, and others whose livelihood depends on access to them. Monthly fees at the club - located on Ivy Street, a few minutes' walk from the House and Senate office buildings - are only $25 per month for members of Congress; others pay $80 monthly, on top of a $300 initiation fee.

    I stopped by the club on a cold, windy evening last December to meet a party political consultant. It was a jovial spot, to be sure, but surprisingly modest, with pre-Christmas décor reminiscent of a roadside hotel lounge. Thick pillars in the dining room were wrapped in faded red, white, and silver decorations, and a small Christmas tree squatted against a wall. Among the customers were a few members of Congress, including Carolyn McCarthy of New York and Barney Frank and Michael Capuano of Massachusetts, as well as an elderly foursome playing bridge at a corner table. At the bar, Hill staffers, assorted politicos, and a few locals from the neighborhood chatted over drinks and bowls of a low-grade nut mix.

    The club was founded by former staffers in the Truman Administration, and for decades it was a de rigueur stop on the local social circuit. In March 1986, when Democrats held a huge majority in the House, a capacity crowd gathered for "a glittering gala" to mark the completion of a major remodeling, the website relates. Eight years later, catastrophe struck when the party lost both chambers for the first time in over forty years. More than 1,000 members promptly resigned from the club, and the smart action drifted a few blocks away to the Republican Party's more lavish Capitol Hill Club.

    As the Republican grip on Washington tightened in the ensuing years, the National Democratic Club was forced to sell its three-story building and then rent back the ground floor for its dwindling operations. Up until recently, the mood here had been desultory, but a renaissance arrived on Election Night 2006, when hundreds of revelers gathered to celebrate the sweeping Democratic victory. "Once again, the place to be is your NDC," said the club's first post-election newsletter. General Manager Christine Hilty describes the club as a refuge for Democrats and their supporters. "There's certainly networking going on, but people come here because it's a safe place," she said. "There are no cameras." Membership has climbed by about 30 percent since the 2006 elections, she estimated, and business is more bustling than at any point in the six years she's worked there. During the first nine months of 2007, congressional Democrats and party committees used political contributions to pay for $426,431 worth of food and drink at the club. That was an increase of about 70 percent from the same period in 2005, when the Democrats were still in the minority.4

    Not only does the majority party have more to spend; it is also more spent upon. Democrats have found themselves newly fashionable on the Washington scene, whether as party guests, as dinner partners, or simply for a coffee or office meeting, especially, of course, with lobbyists. "You're vying for time and you're not going to vie for the time of someone who has no power," one lobbyist explained to me about his post-2006 shift in social priorities. Former Democrats, and those considering retirement, have seen their prospects soar as K Street firms look to enhance their outreach to the new kings of Congress. The Republican-dominated lobby shop of Barbour Griffith & Rogers - founded by Haley Barbour, the Mississippi governor - recently announced that it would begin hiring Democrats. "I'm not going to deny the obvious," the firm's chairman, Ed Rogers (Edwina's husband), told the Washington Post. "The expectations of our clients are such that we have to have a full range of political, policy and business expertise, and in today's world that includes Democrats."