Former Congresswoman Abandons Car in Congressional Garage

July 22, 2010 -- The Washington connection between Congress and lobbying just got a little dirtier.

How dirty?

ABC News spoke with former Rep. Melissa Hart, R-Pennsylvania, and confirmed that a Volkswagen Jetta with a George W. Bush bumper sticker, covered in dirt and cobwebs and parked in the congressional Longworth House Office Building parking garage, does, in fact, belong to her.

Hart was voted out of office in 2006, but her car remains parked in the choice spot more than four years later.

ABC News first reported on the congresswoman's dirty car abandoned in a taxpayer-subsidized Capitol Hill parking spot earlier this month. Hart told ABC News she would donate the long-abandoned and illegally parked car to charity. But that hasn't happened yet.

The issue is not the clunker's obvious need for a tune-up and a car wash but, rather, the owner's particular profession.

According to the website of the Committee on House Administration, former members of Congress are allowed to park or store their cars in House parking garages free of charge indefinitely, as long as they are not registered lobbyists. Hart now chairs Pittsburgh-based law firm Keevican Weiss Bauerle & Hirsch's government relations practice, which is registered in the Senate lobbyist database.