Atlanta restaurants and sports venues may well be sad the General Assembly has left town.
More likely, they miss the lobbyists who spent nearly $1 million taking lawmakers to breakfast, lunch, dinner, football games, movies, even bowling, to foster the kind of cozy relationship that sways votes.
Disclosure reports reviewed by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution show lobbyists spent $995,513.70 on meals and other goodies for lawmakers, their family members, government bureaucrats and appointees, and even judges from Jan. 1 through end of the legislative session April 14.
The number is slightly less than the $1.1 million spent last year, but that session dragged on two weeks longer.
William Perry, executive director of Common Cause Georgia, said lobbyist spending on high-dollar trips and tickets “further solidifies what we refer to as the ‘legislative lifestyle’ taking priority over concerns of citizens.”
Out-of-town hunting trips, tickets and lodging at the Masters golf tournament, and luxury box seats at sporting events “aren’t the things that are helping legislators become better informed about the issues,” Perry said. “These are things that are meant to curry favor and we think they should be stopped.”
House Speaker David Ralston topped the list of recipients with lobbyists disclosing spending $22,656 on the Republican from Blue Ridge. If you add his son’s internship salary at the lobbying firm GeorgiaLink Public Affairs Group, which was reported by the firm as a lobbying expense, Ralston’s total jumps to $26,536.
A large portion of the money spent on Ralston went to take him, his family and staff members on a trip to Europe last Thanksgiving and a December dinner. Both the trip and the dinner, paid for by Washington-based Commonwealth Research Associates, occurred before the session but were not reported until January.
But even without those expenses, Ralston would be at the top of the list with $8,852 in disclosed expenses. Ralston was out of town last week and unavailable for comment. In previous interviews, the speaker said the European trip last year let him see how rail lines increase economic investment.
Ralston, who took over as speaker in 2010 after former Speaker Glenn Richardson resigned amid a sex scandal with a utility lobbyist, has championed transparency — not limits — to enforce ethical behavior. Voters can look at lobbyist disclosures and judge for themselves, Ralston has said.
Clearly the speaker’s position is an attractive position for lobbyists. In 2009, lobbyists reported spending $1,304 on Ralston. The next year, spending on the speaker jumped to $5,328, more than the $4,731 lobbyists spent on Richardson in the last year of his reign.
Last-minute spending
A study of lobbyist spending during the legislative session’s final days is instructive.
From April 11 through the session’s end on April 14, for example, lobbyists from the liquor industry and others who supported the passage of Sunday sales of alcohol spent more than $1,200 on meals for House members. The bill passed on the session’s penultimate day, and Gov. Nathan Deal has said he’ll sign it.
Meanwhile, the House was also trying to pass a tax overhaul that would have lowered the individual income tax, added a tax credit for manufacturing, raised other taxes and eliminated a host of deductions.
Interests on both sides of the issue dropped nearly $2,000 on lunches and dinners for House members — who pulled the plug on the bill on the 39th day of the 40-day session.
Nonprofit groups like the United Way, which feared the bill would eliminate a deduction for charitable giving, bought dinners for lawmakers. Automobile dealers, who wanted the package to pass because it would, for the first time, impose sales tax on the private sale of cars, bought dinners for House Republican leaders.
State utilities, including Atlanta Gas Light and electric co-ops, were also busy in the final days, spending more than $1,600 on House members between April 11 and April 14. The House had yet to give final approval to Senate Bill 160, which would allow, also for the first time, for utilities to contribute directly to political campaigns. The bill passed on the final day.
After spiking during the first two weeks of March, lobbyist spending began a steady decline until the last week of the session. For the week of April 3-9, spending totaled about $7,900. In the final five days it was more than $49,000.
‘I don’t think it’s a conflict’
Nineteen of the top 20 beneficiaries of lobbyist spending were Republicans, who control both legislative chambers. Most of the party’s leadership is on that list, and 13 of the top recipients serve on the House or Senate appropriation committees, which set the state budget.
After Ralston, the General Assembly’s top lobby magnet was Rep. Butch Parrish, R-Swainsboro, who heads the Appropriations subcommittee on health.
“I wasn’t really aware of that,” Parrish said of his ranking. “I hadn’t given it any thought.”
Lobbyists reported spending $5,535.64 on Parrish, mostly in meals for him and his wife. At least two dozen of the dinners cost more than $100, with the cost sometimes split among two or three different lobbyists.
Parrish said the dinners are just the product of friendships he has formed over his 26 years in the Legislature. Many of his friends also represent various hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and other health concerns with an interest in the work of his committee.
The lobbyist for the Georgia Hospital Association alone spent $1,075 on six dinners and a $30 gym bag for Parrish. The dinners are an opportunity for lobbyists to talk about issues facing their industries, he said.
“I don’t think it’s a conflict. Should I not visit with anybody or talk to anybody if they want to talk to me?” he said. “I just never have looked at it as problem.”
But why does he not pay for his own dinner?
“Certainly I guess we could do that,” he said. “We are usually there for three or four months and you end up having dinner with folks.”
Lawmakers do not have to spend their own money even if they decline meal invitations from lobbyists. Each legislator gets a $173 per diem on top of $17,000 in salary to cover expenses while the Legislature is in session.
$990 to attend Masters
The top Democrat on the list is a surprise, since he does not hold a leadership position in the party and is just entering his second term. Yet lobbyists claimed spending $2,281 on Rep. Rahn Mayo, D-Decatur, enough to place him 18th overall among lawmakers.
Mayo said he was unaware he accepted so much, but he said he did not see a conflict.
“My memory recalls going to six or seven Hawks games and maybe a handful of dinners that are pretty customary for legislators during the session,” he said. “It’s an age-old practice in the state Legislature for lobbyists to pick up the dinner tab or miscellaneous expenses and spend money on gifts and give campaign contributions to legislators. ... It didn’t start with me and I’m not one who would be considered a primary beneficiary of such [spending].”
Among the most expensive single outings, Sen. Renee Unterman got an all-expenses-paid trip to the final round of the Masters on April 10, at a cost of $990. Unterman, R-Buford, said she decided to accept the tickets because it gave her access to an arena from which women traditionally are excluded.
“I am the only female Republican in the Senate and all the guys go to these sporting events and they go to the Masters every year,” she said. “A lot of deals are made at all of these sporting events and women get excluded.”
No deals were made on that Sunday. “I did see the speaker and the lieutenant governor,” she said. “I can’t remember if I saw any other senators or not.”
Sam Olens accepted a pair of Falcons tickets costing $422 on Jan. 2 from one of the most powerful law firms in the state, McKenna Long & Aldridge, just days before being sworn in as the state’s attorney general. Earlier in the year, Olens dismissed the importance of the tickets as coming before he was in office. Last week he declined to comment further.
Constituents don’t care?
Common Cause is part of a coalition of groups pushing for tougher ethics laws, including a $100 cap on lobbyist gifts.
Lawmakers, Perry said, “can show they care more about their constituents’ concerns than maintaining the legislative lifestyle by voting to install caps.”
But that’s a tough sell. Several lawmakers contacted by the AJC said they do not hear anything from constituents about what they get from lobbyists.
Even some lawmakers who have advocated for tighter controls on lobbyist spending have partaken. Sen. Josh McKoon, R-Columbus, who became an outspoken supporter of an ethics overhaul, accepted more than $275 in tickets to the Thrashers and Hawks and to WWE.
“If you think somebody can buy my vote for $275, then I don’t think you ought to vote for me,” McKoon said. “If somebody offers me an opportunity to go to a ballgame and I go with them, I certainly hope they don’t have any expectations that they will be treated differently by me than any one of my constituents.”
McKoon said the main thing is that such giving be transparent to the public.
“I don’t think there is any conflict between saying that we need greater transparency and accepting what’s been accepted by me during this legislative session,” he said.
Two who didn’t partake
Only two lawmakers — Reps. Bobby Franklin, R-Marietta, and Sistie Hudson, D-Sparta — emerged from the 2011 without accepting a dime from a lobbyist.
“I just don’t think it’s proper,” Hudson said. “I know that all of my friends say they can’t be bought. I think there is some expectation if you partake of what they are offering.”
Franklin did not return a call seeking comment. Both have taken gifts in past sessions, although Franklin has not accepted anything since 2008, when he got a $9 lunch from the lobbyist for Cancer Treatment Centers of America.
Hudson said she would love to see tougher laws cut down on the role money plays in state politics, including limiting what representatives can do with campaign contributions.
“I think that needs some serious scrutiny,” she said.
Legislators generally said they did not believe their acceptance of gifts from lobbyists came with strings attached.
“Honestly, I expected more arm-twisting,” said Rep. Buzz Brockway, R-Lawrenceville.
Lobbyists reported buying more than a dozen meals for the freshman over the course of the session, and the Georgia Tech grad also accepted tickets to see the Yellow Jackets play basketball.
Interests as varied as the state university system to AT&T to the assisted living industry ponied up meals or other items for him.
“The times when I went out to eat with lobbyists I can’t think of any time when they asked me about a piece of legislation,” Brockway said. “It was more of an attempt to build a relationship than to hit me up about legislation. Some of them said, ‘Hey, we’re off the clock, too.’”
Database specialist John Perry contributed to this report.
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