Law360, New York ( July 31, 2014, 11:08 AM EDT) -- An unexpected announcement last week from the Office of Congressional Ethics ("OCE") ought to serve as a wake-up call for many consultants, strategic advisers, corporations and others who lobby the federal government. At the tail end of its quarterly report to Congress, the OCE — an independent, nonpartisan entity in the legislative branch that reviews alleged misconduct by House members and staff — noted that, in the second quarter of 2014, it voted to refer an unnamed entity "to the U.S. Attorney's Office of the District of Columbia for failure to register under the Lobbying Disclosure Act." This referral, which appears to be the first of its kind, is a major development in the regulation of lobbying and may signal a turning point in enforcement of lobbying disclosure laws....