What’s all the hoopla about? Several lawmakers are cashing in on the slew of upcoming Wizards basketball games at the Verizon Center.

These lawmakers aren’t the first to get into the spirit of basketball season. Basketball games have been popular fundraising sites in the past.

As news reports surfaced today that two Illinois donors with ties to Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. promised to raise $5 million for former Gov. Rod Blagojevich plus $1 million from Indian community donors if Jackson was appointed to President Back Obama’s U.S. Senate seat, Jackson continued to deny any knowledge of pay-to-play schemes. While it’s too early to tell what the findings of any investigation will be, the episode if nothing else demonstrates how lawmakers have a hard time distancing themselves from scandal when they’ve partied with suspects.

Take a gander at  these fundraisers in the Party Time database for Jackson, three in the last month alone. There’s this annual “roast” for the congressman. There’s also not one but two birthday celebrations–this one in Washington D.C, at the offices of the lobbying firm the Twenty First Century Group hosted by lobbyists Cynthia Wilkinson and Jocelyn Hong. Then there’s this one in Chicago at the restaurant 312.

According to today’s New York TImes story about the investigation of the congressman, one of the donors under scrutiny, Raghuveer Nayak, “has been a sponsor of the congressman’s annual “birthday bash” fund-raiser” in Illinois. It’s probably the same party. Jackson has said that he spoke with Nayak about the senate seat but did nothing illegal. “I pray for him,” he told the Chicago Sun-Times. Jackson is basically saying that he’s not his fundraiser’s keeper–but investigators appear to be taking a closer look.