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It usually goes down like this. A lobbyist spies his competitors traipsing around the marble halls of Congress, urging Members and staffers to craft or kill legislation.

The next step: The lobbyist checks on his opponents’ lobbying-disclosure forms to see if those public declarations accurately reflect what he sees going on up on Capitol Hill.

Maybe they don’t match up, in which case the lobbyist can file a private, written complaint against the competitor.

Or maybe a lobbyist forgets to fill out all the boxes in her lobbying disclosures, in which case the law’s administrators will send a polite admonition.

All it takes to correct a violation is a prompt written response from the lobbyist in question and case closed.

Both situations offer a glimpse into the enforcement of the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 — a quiet process that, in the eyes of some, may be a little too muted for the public good.

One decade after its passage, Members of Congress are calling for the act’s reform.

On the one hand, lobbyists admit that the law has its shortcomings, including a widespread perception that enforcement is lax.

On the other hand, they say that the law still offers adequate regulation of their activities without overwhelming them and the public with paperwork.

Galen Reser, the top in-house lobbyist for PepsiCo, has long filled out his company’s federal lobbying forms, which last year amounted to 29 pages that reported on $720,000 worth of lobbying expenditures.

The LDA, Reser said, “tells you how much we’re spending, it tells you what issues we’re working on, tells you whether you’re working on that issue with Congress or the administration or both, tells you who’s working on the issue.”

Pam Gavin, superintendent of the Senate Office of Public Records, oversees LDA disclosures on the Senate side. Her office, along with the Clerk of the House, administers the LDA.

“From my perspective,” Gavin said, “I think it’s working pretty well. Anybody in the world can go to our Web site and look at lobbying reports and see what’s being done.” So far this year, the Senate side has received 25,500 lobbying disclosure documents.

Explaining her office’s role, Gavin said that “Section 6 of the law is very clear. We may inquire; we may not investigate. We’re administrators and not enforcers.”

If the lobbying registrant fails to respond to her inquiries, Gavin’s office will refer the matter to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. The penalty for violating the LDA is a civil fine up to $50,000.

But finding out details of these cases is more difficult than one might expect.

The LDA doesn’t say whether cases should be made public. Gavin’s office has never made public the number of LDA-related referrals it has made to the U.S. attorney’s office, much less any details about individual cases.

The U.S. attorney’s office so far has been no more forthcoming. Justice Department officials, in interviews earlier this month with the Bureau of National Affairs, argued that disclosing the settlement of LDA violations would contravene the Privacy Act, a statute that bars any federal agency from publicizing most records pertaining to individuals.

The U.S. attorney’s office confirmed to Roll Call that the office has not previously made public LDA-related actions. A spokesman said that there have been “a number of referrals” but “few” actions related to the act.

Watchdogs say the current method of disclosure is not serving the public interest.