While campaign finance laws may have dampened some of the political world’s Super Bowl frolicking, at least four lawmakers are going to the Super Bowl and most of them are apparently using the event to host fundraisers, where they can collect campaign contributions and party with lobbyists and big donors over mojitos or martinis.

We’re qualifying this information with the word “apparently” because we learned from our Super Bowl Blitz that politicians don’t like to talk about their Super Bowl plans. ProPublica and more than 15 news organizations, local reporters, and a bunch of die-hard constituents contacted almost three-quarters of Congress and got answers from at least half of Congress in little more than a week. We and our readers asked two simple questions: Did you go to the Super Bowl last year? Are you going this year?

After repeated calls from our volunteers and our reporters, we confirmed that Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., and Reps. Mike Pence, R-Ind., Steve Scalise R-La., whose teams are in the game, are going, as is Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., whose team is not. Getting their offices to confirm news reports about the fundraisers several of them are said to be holding was another matter altogether. Although politicians are renowned attention-seekers, with press operations that publicize just about everything they do, their spokespeople disappeared from the radar scope when our questions shifted to parties for lobbyists and big donors.

Other members may also be heading to the game. Rep. Greg Meeks, D-N.Y., went last year but his staff was “unsure” about this year and hasn’t returned our recent phone calls. Rep. Kendrick Meek, D-Fla., a current Senate candidate in whose district the game is being played, “very likely will be going,” according to his press secretary. Current Florida Sen. George LeMieux’s office said several days ago that he had “not decided,” and nobody has not returned our subsequent calls.

So, what’s next? The Super Bowl Blitz was the first of a two-part effort to figure out which members of Congress are going to the Super Bowl and how they got their tickets. Reporters Marcus Stern and Sebastian Jones are flying to Miami today, where they’ll try to see which lobbyists and big donors are rubbing shoulders with the lawmakers at those fundraisers. We’ll let you know what they find on Monday.

Just in case a member of Congress slipped through our survey’s cracks, (we’re still waiting to hear back from about 100 of them) we’ve taken a page out of Deadspin’s playbook. We’re asking readers attending the Super Bowl to be on the lookout for members of Congress and other VIP public officials. If you get one in your sights, snap a pic and send it to us — along with details on where and when the pic was taken and your contact info (in case we need to follow up with you). The wider the shot, the better.

Now, that’s the big project update. Some of you have asked us to discuss other (amusing and interesting) findings of our reader-powered Super Bowl Blitz.

Much to our dismay, several congressional offices refused to answer our volunteers’ questions, saying that office policy forbids participation in “surveys.” Included in this list are Reps. Jane Harman, D-Calif., Baron P. Hill, D-Ind., and Kurt Schrader, D-Ore. Other offices—like those of Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.—said they don’t disclose information about the congressperson’s (personal) schedule.

Embattled Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke is expected to narrowly win confirmation for a second term. The Senate vote is expected as early as Thursday.

Hotline OnCall’s whip count on Bernanke’s confirmation reports only Idaho GOP Sen. Mike Crapo has formally announced his opposition. While others have signaled their support: Max Baucus (D-MT), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Robert Bennett (R-UT), Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Jon Tester (D-MT) and Mark Udall (D-CO). The region’s remaining Senators have not yet made their perspective known.

While Bernanke hangs on by his fingertips to lead the nation’s central bank, a controversial — though bipartisan — bill to audit the Fed moves forward. Treasury Sec. Timothy Geithner is expected to be grilled today by members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform over the secrecy of the Bush Administration’s Sept. 2008 bank bailout which is re-igniting calls to examine backroom deals during the financial crisis.

Co-sponsors of Texas Rep. Ron Paul’s bill include familiar names to Rocky Mountain West voters: Republicans Rob Bishop (UT-01), Jason Chaffetz (UT-03), Mike Coffman (CO-06), Doug Lamborn (CO-05), Cynthia Lummis (WY-ALL), Dennis Rehberg (MT-ALL), Michael Simpson (ID-02), and Democrats: Martin Heinrich (NM-01), Ben Luján (NM-03), Betsy Markey (CO-04), Walter Minnick (ID-01), Ed Perlmutter (CO-07), Jared Polis (CO-02), John Salazar (CO-03), Harry Teague (NM-02).

This American News Project video report on the Federal Reserve explores “one of the most powerful and secretive institutions in Washington, long considered beyond the reach of lawmakers. But now, as details emerge of how the Fed secretly doled out more than a trillion dollars during the financial crisis, a rare bipartisan movement in Congress demands that the Fed be held accountable.”

UPDATE 1/28/10: Idaho Republican Jim Risch told StarkReports.com about how he was leaning on the Bernanke confirmation, “You’ll see at 3:20 when I vote.” The only remaining undecided vote among the Rocky Mountain caucus is New Mexico’s Tom Udall.

UPDATE 1/27/10: After the publication of this story, Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) issued a statement Wednesday morning affirming his support of Bernanke. We’ll update the original Hotline whip count list above by indicating the remaining Western senators’ vote intentions in italics.

It doesn’t rise to the level of the sex and drugs peccadillo or oil shale lease fire sale but Interior staffers stepped in ethical cow pie again.

An Oct. report by the Dept. of Interior Inspector General found in the waning days of the Bush Administration that two high level National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS) managers breached ethical protocols with environmental advocacy groups the National Wildlife Federation and the Wilderness Society, including discussing proprietary budget information, requesting changes to federal legislation under consideration and providing editing assistance on non-governmental brochures.

NLCS, a division of the embattled Bureau of Land Management, is charged with conserving and protecting 27 million acres of nationally significant public lands, largely in the West.

Its Division Chief Jeff Jarvis copped to a fellow co-worker that his actions were “felony stupidity.”

That’s putting it mildly.

But Jarvis is largely off the hook. NLCS Director Elana Daly, who was also investigated, has since left the department.

The Dept. of Justice weighed in on the investigation and concluded that there were no criminal sanctions for the lobbying violation. Any administrative action is at the discretion of the BLM director.

The investigation was spurred by 2008 complaints by Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) and now former Rep. Bill Sali (R-Idaho), who lost his re-election bid. Both Bishop and Sali have been noisy foes of Interior and the agency’s attempts to strengthen oil and gas industry regulations on public lands. Bishop chairs the Western Caucus, a conservative congressional group that champions property rights and unfettered energy development.

High Country News narrates the latest installment of rogue Interior staffers gone wild:

But the enviro-agency dalliances highlighted by the investigation look downright G-rated compared to the Interior Department’s cavorting with industry. Last year, the Inspector General found that staffers of Interior’s Mineral Management Service were literally in bed with executives from the oil companies they were supposed to be auditing. That is, when their bosses weren’t demanding oral sex from them, or sniffing meth off their toaster ovens. Soap operatics aside, though, that investigation highlighted just how dysfunctional the program overseen by these party animals really was. Royalty in Kind — wherein royalties on oil and gas plucked from public land are paid in oil and gas — was first implemented because it could net more money for the feds than traditional royalties. But the Inspector General found that it was more vulnerable to faulty oversight than the conventional system of collecting cash royalties.

In response, now-Interior Secretary Ken Salazar performed one of his most significant acts yet: On Sept. 16, he began phasing out the Royalty In Kind program.

Salazar didn’t stop there. On Oct. 20, he ordered an investigation into “a set of favorable conditions and low royalty rates” offered to energy companies holding oil shale leases just days before the end of the Bush administration. That announcement came just about a month after news broke that the Justice Department was investigating whether former Interior Secretary Gale Norton’s department gave preferential treatment to Royal Dutch Shell. In 2006, Interior awarded oil shale leases to a subsidiary of the company. Just two months later, Norton resigned from her position at Interior and soon after took a position in Shell’s oil shale department.

High Country News also notes, with irony, that Interior Sec. Ken Salazar announced Sept. 21 a little-noticed management order to shore up the department’s ethics program.