Jeff Lungren is now communications director for the House Judiciary Committee, on which dear old Dad now sits again.

How things change, the congressman told a breakfast sponsored by The Hill last week: "Now I have reporters coming up to me and saying, ‘Are you Dan Lungren?’ I say yes, and they say, "Are you possibly related to Jeff Lungren?’ I have to confess that he’s my son."

House Republican leaders restored Lungren’s four terms of seniority on the Judiciary Committee, but the move wasn’t without its problems.

"I found out that the payroll of the Judiciary Committee was held up until my son signed a sheet of paper saying that he’s my son," said the congressman. But the Lungrens aren’t running afoul of any ethics rules. "He’s grandfathered in," Lungren said. "He got the job before I ever got there."

Nine years ago, to be exact. Besides, added Jeff Lungren, he doesn’t speak for his father, only for Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.).

The Hill caught up Friday with Jeff Lungren, who remembers his dad’s first swearing-in well. It was his first time on an airplane, he said, and was also a "long day for a 5-year-old." He fell asleep on the floor — a moment that The Washington Post captured on the front page. (He still has the photo framed in his office.)

"It’s very exciting and special" to have his father back in Congress, he said.