(FORTUNE Magazine) – There are far brighter stars in the Republican firmament than Michael Oxley. The Congressman, a Republican from Ohio, is best known for a rather sober piece of corporate reform: the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Corporate Responsibility Act, the most profound reworking of the nation's securities laws since they were enacted in the early 1930s. Important work, no doubt, but hardly the sort of thing that's likely to improve one's social life. So it's a little surprising that Oxley, as evidenced during August's GOP Convention in New York City, has become the toast of the town.

On Monday, the first night of the convention, he was serenaded by crooner Frank Sinatra Jr. at a swank dinner dance held in his honor at the Rainbow Room. The event, for which attendees each paid between $25,000 and $100,000, was sponsored by the American Council for Excellence and Opportunity, a charity that promotes free-market philosophies. (Oxley is the council's honorary chairman.) On Tuesday he was feted by the Financial Service Roundtable--a group made up of Merrill Lynch, J.P. Morgan, Citigroup, and other prominent Wall Street firms--at a brunch at Tavern on the Green, the famous restaurant in Central Park. And on Wednesday evening the Securities Industry Association and the Bond Market Association teamed up to throw a lavish affair in Oxley's honor at an exclusive Midtown loft with sweeping views of the Hudson River.

Oxley doesn't hold a high position in the party's leadership, and at 60 he's too old to be considered an up-and-comer. (A member of the House since 1981, he shows no signs of running for higher office.) But as chairman of the powerful House Financial Services Committee, he helps oversee the laws that govern the way Wall Street and much of corporate America operate. No wonder Wall Street rolled out the welcome mat. "It's a chance for us to salute the people we work with and also have a chance to talk with them to forward our agenda, which is pro-investor and pro-market policy," says Dan Michaelis, spokesman of the Securities Industry Association.

Oxley's detractors, however, are hoping to use his party hopping as a way to generate some good old-fashioned controversy. Back in Ohio, Ben Konop, a 28-year-old Democrat who is trying (probably in vain) to unseat Oxley in November, called on the Congressman to turn down invitations to the lavish convention events being held in his honor. Oxley refused. (His spokesman has responded that his boss "will not change the way he votes as a result of a cocktail party.") Besides, as those who witnessed him cutting a rug at the Rainbow Room can attest, Oxley seemed to be enjoying the star treatment too much to let a little political griping get in the way of a good time. --Jeremy Kahn