House Speaker David Ralston and his family spent part of Thanksgiving week in Europe on a $17,000 economic development mission paid for by lobbyists interested in building a high-speed train line between Atlanta and Chattanooga.
Commonwealth Research Associates, a D.C.-based consulting firm, paid for the trip, which also included Ralston's chief of staff Spiro Amburn and his spouse, to Germany and the Netherlands the week of Nov. 21-27, according to records filed with the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission, formerly known as the State Ethics Commission.
The trip was the most expensive single expenditure reported by a lobbyist since at least 2005.
Ralston said the trip helped him understand how European countries have succeeded in merging rail and roads with commercial development. He said took his family with him because it was over Thanksgiving.
"I wanted to be with my family during Thanksgiving week and that was the only week I could go due to my schedule," he said. "I wanted to be with my wife and kids. I don't apologize for that."
Ralston's spokesman Marshall Guest said the $17,000 cost, which included $14,709 for airfare and train tickets, and $2,570 for lodging, covered the six people on the trip.
Ethics watchdogs slammed Ralston for the trip, saying it demonstrates the need for a cap on the amount lobbyists are allowed to spend on lawmakers. Ralston, who last year sponsored the state's first ethics legislation in several years, has long favored having lobbyists disclose what they spend on lawmakers, rather than limit the spending.
Those new rules increased lobbyist reporting to once every two weeks while lawmakers in session as compared to once a month under the old rules. Ralston's European trip was included in Commonwealth's disclosure report filed Jan. 14.
Since 2005, which is far back as the state’s electronic records go, only once has an individual received a gift of more than $10,000 from a lobbyist. In 2009, then-Gov. Sonny Perdue and members of his staff each received $12,000 worth of travel on an IBM-owned aircraft for a trip to New York.
Since the Nov. 2 election, Ralston has accepted nearly $22,000 total in gifts and meals from lobbyists, including numerous dinners, Falcons and Thrashers tickets, and a Christmas dinner for himself, his staff and their spouses.
Among the special interests spending on the speaker are the University System of Georgia, Delta Air Lines, the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, CSX Transportation, AT&T and the Outdoor Advertising Association.
Commonwealth Research Associates, according to its web site, has done work on six proposed U.S. rail projects, including plans for a magnetic levitation (known as maglev) train to run between Atlanta and Chattanooga. Georgia and Tennessee received a $14 million federal grant to study the issue but have not yet come up with the local matching money necessary to conduct an environmental impact study.
Chris Brady, Commonwealth's registered lobbyist, did not respond to requests for an interview, but he provided The Atlanta Journal-Constitution with an itinerary and report on the trip.
Brady's report shows Ralston's group arriving at Frankfurt International Airport on Nov. 22. It says the group examined an intermodal train station that connects subway, local, regional and intercity high-speed trains. Later that same day the group left on a 180 mph train to Amsterdam. Officials there briefed the group on how a brownfield was developed into a central passenger and business district.
The following day Ralston and his group flew to Berlin where they heard a presentation on maglev trains. On the fifth day, the report says, the group toured Berlin. The sixth day was spent in meetings with the German deputy minister of transport, building and housing and later with officials at the German Foreign Office. They then took another train back to Frankfurt and flew home the following day.
Ralston said he learned a great deal.
"It was a working trip. It was helpful," Ralston said. "I was very impressed both in the Netherlands and in Germany with the way that rail has brought economic development in terms of being able to develop residential commercial recreat7ional facilities around rail stations."
Ralston said he is interested in ways to replicate the Europeans' work along the I-75 corridor north of Atlanta and how the highway links Chattanooga and and Atlanta.
"When you talk about developing that corridor, ideas that get me excited and have some potential, connecting the airport in Chattanooga with Hartsfield, all these things could mean a great deal to our economic future," Ralston said. "For that reason we ought to at least keep taking a look at that project."
No matter what Ralston learned on the trip, it is still an affront to taxpayers, members of the newly formed Georgia Alliance for Ethics Reform said Friday.
"This is a prime example of the need for our ethics proposals," said William Perry, executive director of Common Cause Georgia, a government watchdog group. "The public is tired of the perception of the luxury lifestyle of legislators."
Common Cause this week joined with the Georgia Tea Party Patriots, consumer watchdog Georgia Watch and gubernatorial candidate turned watchdog Ray Boyd to form the alliance. Among their proposals released this week is a $100 cap on gifts from lobbyists.
Debbie Dooley, a state organizer for the Tea Party Patriots, said Ralston's trip was not a purely working trip. Dooley said the Tea Party would be scrutinizing trips and other gifts from lobbyists and if Ralston blocks ethics legislation this year, the group will throw a tea party in his North Georgia district.
"That would be the type of trip that, even though on the surface was for business, they're never going to say it's a pleasure trip," Dooley said. "But with them taking family along it sounds like it's more like a pleasure trip than a business trip."
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