Two former Republican senators have been officially admonished, a relatively light punishment. They are Larry E. Craig of Idaho, who pleaded guilty in an undercover sex sting at an airport, and Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico, who was accused of an appearance of impropriety for contacting a federal prosecutor about a pending case.

Citizen watchdog groups are closely following the Rangel and Ensign cases, along with a handful of other less visible investigations, as a sign of how aggressively Congressional Democrats will pursue their pledge.

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“For a long time, matters that should have been investigated were just ignored, so we’ll have to see what type of accountability we have now,” said Fred Wertheimer, an advocate for tighter Congressional ethics rules.

The handling of possible wrongdoing in Congress has deeper political implications, as it did in the November 2006 elections, when Democrats ran on a platform of cleaning up Congress. Each party is still trying to attack the other as being soft on misconduct by members of Congress. With at least 10 of its own members facing ethics investigations, the Democrats appear to have the most to lose, especially since they have taken the lead in pushing for tougher ethics rules.

The last formal censure came in 1990 in the Senate’s “denouncement” of Senator David F. Durenberger, Republican of Minnesota, for financial improprieties.

In the Abramoff case, neither of the Congressional ethics committees took any action, though numerous Congressional officials were suspected of wrongdoing and a criminal investigation continues. Nor did the House ethics committee take any action against former Representative William J. Jefferson, Democrat of Louisiana, after $90,000 in cash was found in his freezer in 2006, deferring instead to Justice Department prosecutors.

“Congress will protect its own, no matter what,” said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, an advocacy group that has brought complaints against both Mr. Rangel and Mr. Ensign.

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As one main part of the Democrats’ ethics push in 2007, the House created a professionally staffed, independent Office of Congressional Ethics to review claims of wrongdoing against lawmakers and supplement the work of the oft-criticized House ethics committee.

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This ethics office has no subpoena power, instead relying on cooperation from lawmakers. But unlike the ethics committee, it can initiate reviews without having to wait for a House member to lodge a complaint against a colleague. If it finds grounds to proceed, it then makes a public referral to the committee.

Leo Wise, a former federal public integrity prosecutor who is now the director of the House ethics office, said in an interview that House leaders had given his office the resources it needed, with a budget of $1.5 million and seven full-time staff members, and that “over all, their approach has been hands off” to eliminate political interference in its work.

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The ethics office’s caseload steadily increased in its first six months of existence, disclosure reports show, but its investigations have already caused a bit of a backlash.

Tensions flared recently between the ethics office and the House ethics committee, made up of five Democrats and five Republicans, over the suggestion that the office staff might have withheld exculpatory information about its continuing investigation into Representative Sam Graves, Republican of Missouri.

The committee has not disclosed why it was investigating Mr. Graves, but news reports have questioned his use of a contributor’s private plane and his political support for a Missouri business partner.

Meanwhile, some members of the Congressional Black Caucus, an influential voting bloc, have also been unhappy with the ethics office. They have suggested that unfair political motivations have driven the investigation of Mr. Rangel and a separate ethics review involving a trip that he and four other members of the black caucus took to the Caribbean for a conference paid for by corporate sponsors.

Three other Democrats in the black caucus are also at the center of continuing ethics probes.

Two Illinois Democrats in the caucus, Representative Jesse L. Jackson Jr. and Senator Roland W. Burris, have been drawn into investigations because of their involvement in the scheme by then Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois to sell the Senate seat vacated by President Obama. Representative Maxine Waters, Democrat of California, is under investigation as well, apparently because of her role in directing bailout money to a bank that was affiliated with her husband.

Separately, the Senate ethics committee has begun an investigation into accusations, contained in a New York Times article, that Senator Ensign arranged lobbying jobs for the husband of his mistress and intervened with government agencies to help his clients.

Kenneth A. Gross, a Washington lawyer who specializes in government ethics, said the increased activity had made politicians, lobbyists and corporations much more cautious about adhering to the rules, whether it involved staying under a $50 lunch limit or disclosing lobbying ties and income sources.

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Now, he said, “the rules of the road have changed.”