House Bill 142: a ban on lobbyist gifts
Major provisions of the landmark legislation passed by the House Monday:
- Restores "rule-making" authority to the state ethics commission, which means the commission would again have the right to interpret the intent of state law and write regulations to carry it out. It was stripped of that authority by former House Speaker Glenn Richardson.
- Bans spending by lobbyists on public officials with the following exceptions: — Spending for events serving the entire General Assembly or established groups of lawmakers, including caucuses, committees, subcommittees and local delegations. — Payment for "actual and reasonable" travel expenses, with the exception of airfare, for public officials and staff members if the travel relates to the official's official duties, plus food and beverages during that travel for public officers, spouses and staff members.
- Expands the definition of lobbyists to require registration of people doing unpaid lobbying on behalf of an organization.
- Volunteer lobbyists who register but do not spend money on legislators do not have to file periodic spending reports.
- Volunteer lobbyists who spend no more than five days at the General Assembly annually need not register.
- Lobbyists for state agencies need no longer file expense reports.
House Bill 143: new reporting requirements
- Requires members of the General Assembly to report money raised between Jan. 1 and the start of the legislative session no later than five days after the start of the session.
- Allows local public officials to file their campaign finance disclosures locally, rather than with the state.
- Removes the filing requirement for city and county officials who receive $2,500 or less in campaign contributions or expenditures.
- Local officials whose contributions or expenditures fall between $2,500 and $5,000 file twice a year during election years instead of four times.
The Georgia House on Monday overwhelmingly approved a historic package of ethics reforms that would forever change how legislators and lobbyist interact and return power to the state ethics commission.
But now that House Bill 142 has passed 164-4, uncertainty begins anew. Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, sponsored the bill, nearly guaranteeing it would pass his chamber. But in the Senate, where the measure now goes, the outcome is much less clear.
The Senate has already adopted its own ethics reform, through a change in Senate rules that caps lobbyist gifts at $100, with a number of loopholes. While some in the Senate leadership have vowed to pass the House version as is, few believe that will actually happen.
“I’m sure several of us are going to sit down and talk about where we go from here,” said Senate Ethics Chairman Rick Jeffares, R- McDonough, who is likely to see the House ethics bills land in his committee.
Senate leaders are not talking about what specific changes, if any, they want to see with the bills.
Still, they are often quick to champion their own historic move in January to cap on lobbyists’ gifts to senators — the first time restrictions have been placed on lobbyists making gifts to any member of the General Assembly.
“We did that because we wanted to govern ourselves before session got started,” Jeffares said. “We thought there might be (ethics legislation) that originated here. We knew there was going to be something that originated over there. So we figured we’d police ourselves right off the bat. I haven’t had any complaints yet, so we’ll assume it’s working. And I like that.”
After the House vote, Ralston told reporters he can’t predict what the Senate will do. But he said he does not plan to back off the House ban in favor of the Senate cap on gifts.
“If I were going to negotiate on that I would have long ago and made my life much easier,” Ralston said. “We just have differing views on that.”
Senate President Pro Tem David Shafer, R-Duluth, last week said House and Senate leaders have already agreed that the current process of unlimited gifts from lobbyists needs to change.
“The rules that we passed and the tone set by the leaders in the House and Senate have already had an effect (on lobbyists’ gifts),” Shafer told a University of Georgia panel. “I’m confident by the end of the session we’ll have agreed.”
The bill as passed by the House still allows lobbyists to pick up the tab for dinners or gifts for entire committees, caucuses or other recognized groups and includes exemptions for lobbyist-funded travel, minus airfare.
For the first time, however, it would bar lobbyists from paying for golf outings, tickets to professional sporting events and private, high-dollar steak dinners that had become the norm.
Ralston rallied support from the House floor on Monday. He said he knows the bill won’t please everyone.
“But in conjunction with that realization, knowing you can’t please everybody is, in a way, kind of liberating,” Ralston said. “It allows this body to do what it truly believes is the right thing.
“These are big bills that do big things.”
Common Cause Georgia, which has called for ethics reform and earlier Monday dismissed Ralston’s bill as a “gimmick,” staged an “Eggs and Ethics” breakfast Monday at a restaurant a few miles from the Capitol. The event drew fewer than a dozen attendees, including four Common Cause staffers, with Sen. Josh McKoon, R-Columbus, as the primary draw on his 34th birthday.
McKoon said the $100 limit “makes a lot of sense” and won the support of more than 800,000 Georgia voters during last summer’s Republican primary elections. In a similar straw poll on the Democratic ballot, another 420,000 voters said lobbyist gifts should be limited. McKoon said he would like to see the Senate narrow the exemptions in both the House bill and the Senate rule adopted in January.
Both plans exempt gifts to caucuses, committees and subcommittees from the ban, and most lobbyist-funded travel is still allowed.
“We’d be much better off with a $100 limit and limited exceptions,” he said. “People understand that.”
Echoing a recommendation from Common Cause, McKoon said travel could be allowed up to a certain point — Common Cause recommends $750 — with any additional amount subject to approval by a legislative committee in a public hearing.
“I think that would screen out junkets,” he said.
McKoon thinks Ralston’s attempt to broaden the definition of who is a lobbyist will get scrutiny from the Senate, particularly the speaker’s attempt to get volunteer lobbyists to register. A display on lobbying in the Capitol museum notes “citizen lobbyists” often exercise their “right” to pressure government officials, and McKoon said the Ralston’s new definition challenges that theory.
“We are debating something and we have a display in the Capitol contradicting it,” he said.
But Ralston was just as adamant that those who are regularly at the Capitol, advocating for or against legislation on behalf of an organization, should have to register as lobbyists, whether they are paid or not.
That measure has sparked the most outspoken criticism of Ralston’s bill, especially from tea party activists who have become regular visitors to the Gold Dome. Ralston has tried to accommodate most of their concerns, from slashing the registration fee from $300 to $25 to creating a way for them not to have to file disclosure reports if they sign an affidavit vowing not to spend money.
The bill faced no opposition in the House. While several lawmakers spoke in favor of it, no one asked any questions. Of the four House members who voted “no,” Reps. Michael Caldwell, R-Woodstock, Charles Gregory, R-Kennesaw, and Scot Turner, R-Holly Springs, are all freshmen. The fourth “no” vote, Delvis Dutton, R-Glennville, is in his second term.
Caldwell later tweeted that he voted no because of the lobbyist registration provision.
Meanwhile, the most veteran member of the House, Rep. Calvin Smyre, D-Columbus, urged colleagues to support it.
“Is this a perfect bill? No,” Smyre said. “Do I agree with all aspects of it? No. This won’t be a cure-all fix-all.”
But, he said, “it is one of the strongest and forward-moving [bills] that I’ve seen since I’ve been here.”
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