Jack Abramoff has sold his season tickets at Verizon Center, home of Washington’s professional basketball and hockey teams, the Wizards and the Capitals, where he used to schmooze lawmakers, staffers and other officials.

“Mr. Abramoff doesn’t have any more of those tickets,” said Pamela Marple, one of Abramoff’s attorney’s at Chadbourne & Parke.

At $1,000 per game, the ticket sale won’t go far toward paying the disgraced lobbyist’s legal bills or the $26.7 million of restitution he’s likely to owe Indian tribes and the IRS.

His links to the arena, however, have not been entirely erased. A few days ago his name was still embossed on a wooden locker just off the arena floor, a perk reserved for courtside season-ticket holders, according to a Verizon Center official.

Abramoff had reportedly renewed his 2005-2006 season tickets despite being at the epicenter of a scandal that has shaken Congress and K Street.

Abramoff’s locker is next to that of Capitals owner Ted Leonsis and a few lockers down from Wizards owner Abe Pollin. Along with the locker, Abramoff had access to the Johnny Walker Coaches Club, an exclusive lounge a short walk from the court.

When asked in an e-mail about his locker-room neighbor, Leonsis replied about Abramoff: “I don’t know. I have never met him, nor do I use my locker — it is given to those who have courtside seats — but I don’t drink nor use the club.”

Scribble while you read

Reading is not a passive activity for Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.).

At a Center for American Progress forum last week, he praised The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track, the latest book from his fellow panelists Thomas Mann and Norm Ornstein.

“When I read a book,” Obey said, “I can’t read it without having a pen or pencil in my hand. I go through and mark up and make notes on every page, and then I index my comments on the back flap.”

He wasn’t kidding. To prove that his MO is not BS, the congressman turned the book toward the audience to reveal a back flap as covered with graffiti as a New York railway siding.

“As you can see, I scrubbed this book rather well,” Obey said with a laugh.

He explained that taking notes has practical advantages. It helps him remember cardinal points, and he admitted that it also helps him stack up “additional arguments to fit my original biases.”

Hamburgers, onions and the minimum wage

One opponent of the House’s minimum-wage legislation last week had his mind on food.

Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) lost his job as a busboy at the Holiday Inn in College Station, Texas, in 1974 when Congress increased the minimum wage from $1.60 to $2 an hour, so he has firsthand experience not only with market forces but also with the restaurant business.

Sure, but could he support the leadership’s plan of attaching a minimum-wage increase to the repeal of estate tax, which is one of his priorities?

“Well, sometimes you order your hamburger and it comes with onions and pickles whether you want them or not,” he said.

OK, so you’ll support it? “Depends on how hungry you are,” he replied.

And how hungry do you need to be? “Depends on when you order it up,” apparently meaning when leadership brings the bill to the floor.

The Dome is happy to keep chewing on this metaphor and can report that Hensarling couldn’t swallow his opposition to the minimum wage — maybe because it wasn’t served until around 1:30 in the morning, and who’s hungry then?

Trimming the debt

Some of Congess’s biggest credit-card debtors have turned things around.

Four of the top six debtors from 2003 appear on their way to higher credit scores.

Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), who once owed between $80,000 and $175,000 across seven cards, now has two cards with a total of $25,000 to $65,000 of debt, according to his most recent financial disclosure report. (Lawmakers report their liabilities in ranges rather than exact amounts.)

Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.) is also in the $25,000-$65,000 category, down from $50,000-$100,000 two years ago. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) used to owe $75,000-$250,000 but now is down to $20,000-$30,000. And Rep. Melissa Bean (D-Ill.) reduced her $40,000-$115,000 debt to just one business-related card with a $10,000-$15,000 balance.

But not every lawmaker was headed for an A in financial planning. Reps. Randy Kuhl (R-N.Y.) and Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) have both expanded their liabilities. They were in the $40,000-$115,000 range in 2003, but Kuhl now has racked up $55,000-$165,000 in debt while Rahall owes a whopping $60,000-$200,000.

One step — removed

Naming a post office takes an act of Congress, so maybe it’s no surprise that even a little maintenance takes one too.

But, really, did the House of Representatives need to pass a resolution just so the sergeant at arms could get the sergeant at arms’ mace repaired?

Why, yes it did.

The mace, a tradition-laden staff made of 13 ebony rods bound by silver bands, may not be removed without lawmakers’ giving their formal go-ahead. So there was a voice vote Thursday, and off went the mace to the Smithsonian Institution to be repaired.

The sergeant at arms carries the mace into the chamber at the start of each day’s proceedings — and, theoretically, uses it to quell unrest on the floor. So it needs to be in place when the unruly occupants of the House return in September.

The resolution requires that the mace be back in place, ready to knock members back into line, by noon on the day before the House next meets.

Who says lawmakers can’t police themselves?

Obama to visit Grandma

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) will travel to Africa this month, his first trip there in 10 years.

Obama, whose father was from Kenya, still has a grandmother living in Africa. The media will be there in force to document the political star’s every reaction during his two-week trip.

Obama will spend a week in Kenya and will travel to South Africa, Congo, Djibouti and Sudan. He also hopes to visit Darfur.

Journalists from the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, Rolling Stone magazine and possibly Newsweek will join Obama, giving the trip a high media profile that will likely strengthen Obama’s standing as a national leader in the African-American community.

“What happens in Africa is important to the U.S.,” Obama said.

Alexander Bolton, Josephine Hearn, Jackie Kucinich, Jonathan E. Kaplan and Patrick O’Connor contributed to this page.