WASHINGTON -- Sen. Rick Santorum is under fire again from Democrats for his meetings with lobbyists.

He said in late January that he would be suspending until further notice meetings with lobbyists that he had been regularly holding at the Capitol each Tuesday.

But the campaign of Mr. Santorum's chief Democratic challenger, state Treasurer Robert P. Casey Jr., and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee criticized Mr. Santorum this week after a report in the Washington Post that the Pennsylvania senator held two recent meetings with many of the same lobbyists whom he had previously invited to his regular Tuesday meetings.

Mr. Santorum began those weekly meetings after he became the Senate Republican Conference Chairman, which made him responsible for coordinating the party's message.

He said they were part of the GOP efforts to promote the party's agenda.

Democratic leaders have held similar meetings with lobbyists, but they criticized the Santorum gatherings because he and his guests often discussed job openings at Washington lobbying firms as well as the names of Republican candidates for those jobs.

But Mr. Santorum has said he never pressured any lobbying firms to hire Republicans.

The recent meetings occurred at the office of the National Republican Senatorial Committee and at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington.

Santorum campaign spokeswoman Virginia Davis said the recent meetings were unrelated to the previous Tuesday meetings because they were organized by the senator's 2006 campaign and were not held inside the Capitol.

The Post also reported that a job list was circulated at the Heritage Foundation session, but Ms. Davis said that list was distributed by Republican National Committee officials and was withdrawn after a Santorum aide noticed that it was being passed around.

The Senate's work on legislation changing the rules governing relationships between members of Congress and lobbyists was suspended this week by a partisan squabble over a controversial deal that would have given a United Arab Emirates-based company control of ports in six major U.S. cities.

Amid the controversy, the company said it would sell the U.S. operations to a still-unnamed American buyer.

Earlier in the week, during consideration of the lobbying bill, Mr. Santorum and several Democratic colleagues persuaded the Senate to agree to an amendment banning members from accepting meals paid for by lobbyists.

The original bill would have let lobbyists buy meals but would have required the senators to report that on their Web sites within 15 days, explaining which lobbyist bought the meal and what it cost.