Knowing the latest organizations to hire lobbyists can keep you on the pulse of what's happening in Washington. It may even prepare you for Nazis storming the Capitol.

LegiStorm is now showing the newest lobbying registrations for our LegiStorm Pro subscribers on the Pro home page. The recent lobbying registrations are the newest addition to our information dashboard for Pro users, which already includes the newest staffing moves on Capitol Hill, additions to the revolving door, personal financial disclosures we've added and the latest trips taken by members of Congress and their staff.

The registrations sometimes turn up surprises. A few days ago, LegiStorm spotted a new registration for the American Nazi Party, which is concerned with "political rights and ballot access laws," according to the filing. We provided our discovery to U.S. News and World Report, and their report generated many headlines.

Rep. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) will be refunding the meals provided to a friend who he brought along on a recent trip to a luxury Sea Island, Ga. resort, he told The Washington Post.

The $371 excess payment for the meals of Zee Patel - buyer and general manager for the Bits of Lace lingerie store - came during a trip financed by the American Enterprise Institute. House rules allow travelers to bring a guest, but only one. The unmarried Scott also brought his mother. Scott told The Post that he had intended to pay back the funds but was waiting on an invoice from AEI.

The congressman described Patel as a "family friend".

Members of Congress have earmarked at least $3.11 billion since 2007 for organizations connected to them or their family members - such as clients, employers or alma maters. 

That's one number that emerges from a ground-breaking database LegiStorm has compiled of family ties of members of Congress, built on an exhaustive report by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). The work highlights the intersection of the public work of members of Congress with their private interests. The full CREW report can be found at http://www.citizensforethics.org/familyaffair.

CREW explored a range of family ties, including: Family members on the campaign or official payroll; lawmakers directing earmarks to family members' groups; lobbyists trading on their family connections to Capitol Hill. 

Traditional fourth-quarter staff bonuses plummeted in the House of Representatives as budget cuts have taken their toll.

The average congressional aide earned a 3.6% salary increase in the fourth quarter of 2011, an almost two-thirds drop from last year's rate and nearly half the previous low since LegiStorm started tracking salaries in 2000.

LegiStorm added the House's 2011 fourth quarter salaries to our site today following yesterday's release by the House of Representatives. The new data allowed us to take our first look at the bonus habits of the 112th Congress. Many Republican members of Congress were swept to power on promises to cut spending, and the House imposed cuts to the amount that members could spend. Overall spending and bonuses were both down compared to previous years.

Four former congressional aides popped the question on Valentine's Day: whether to become first-time lobbyists. The answer was yes, according to their new lobbying filings.

These newest members of the revolving door were first available to LegiStorm Pro subscribers through a new feature LegiStorm introduced this week. 

On the LegiStorm Pro home page, subscribers to our premium Pro product will see the most recent additions to our revolving door list of D.C. insiders who have worked on Capitol Hill and lobbied on K Street. In addition, LegiStorm will continue to highlight revolving door connections in our daily Caught Our Eye feature.

Congressional financial disclosures were a hot topic in the news this week.

Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) is the latest lawmaker to land in hot water regarding his disclosures. The chairman of the House Financial Services Committee is under investigation by the Office of Congressional Ethics for possible insider trading, the Washington Post reported. The investigators are reportedly focusing on trades in the financial services industry Bachus reported on his financial disclosures which coincide with policy announcements that affected those companies.

Earlier this week, it was Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) whose financial disclosures were in the spotlight. Buchanan is the subject of an investigation for failing to disclose several positions he held with various companies between 2007 and 2010. This week, the Office of Congressional Ethics released a report with details on the investigation and recommending the House Ethics Committee further investigate. 

There were 1,600 privately funded congressional trips in 2011, worth a total of more than $5.8 million, the largest amount since ethics reforms were enacted in 2007 in the wake of the Jack Abramoff scandal. The total amount is the highest since 2005, when a record 4,917 trips were taken totaling $9.9 million. The record for money spent came in 2004, when 4,780 trips cost nearly $10.4 million.

LegiStorm's figures were used by CBS This Morning in a report which aired today looking at privately financed travel for congress.

Not only did the total cost and number of trips rise in 2011, the average trip was longer and costlier. The average trip in 2011 lasted more than four days and cost $3,638, both record figures. The average trip cost is up nearly $800 over 2010, which was the previous high.

Rick Santorum has positioned himself as a Washington outsider during his presidential campaign, but he's got plenty of connections on K Street.

In fact, the former senator has more revolving door connections than all but a dozen other senators over the past decade, with 28 former staffers who have also lobbied in the past decade.

Santorum has avoided registering as a lobbyist himself although he's worked as a consultant to lobbying firms after his failed re-election bid in 2006. Santorum earned $1.3 million in 2010 and the first half of 2011, with a large chunk of it coming from consulting and media work, according to the Washington Post

LegiStorm has launched a new feature for our Pro subscribers, giving them even more powerful information on revolving door lobbyists.

We have added the original lobbying forms for all revolving door lobbyists, allowing Pro users to dig deeper into the lobbying activity of congressional members and staff. We believe this change enhances our revolving door information available to Pro subscritbers, which already included the most in-depth and real-time tracking of the revolving door between K Street and Congress available anywhere.

Pro users can access the list of lobbying filings for any person who has gone through the revolving door by clicking the "Lobbying" option in the search results, or in the right-hand menu on any page featuring the person. On the biographical summary pages, there is also a "See all filings" in the section detailing lobbying activities.

A Senate committee passed legislation today prohibiting insider trading by lawmakers, and the legislation includes provisions to increase transparency regarding senators and Senate staff stock holdings.

The bill would require all senators' personal financial disclosure forms to be available online, according to The Wall Street Journal. The bill also applies to Senate staff. Currently, the forms are only available by going to the Office of Public Records in a Senate office building. LegiStorm makes the forms available online by printing hard copies of all disclosures, then scanning and uploading the forms to our website.

The House currently makes member disclosures available online. Both the House and Senate require senior staff to fill out disclosures as well, which are only available through the public records rooms. LegiStorm is now the only online source for staffer financial disclosures.