New House Speaker David Ralston has advocated for ethics reform at the state Legislature, but that doesn’t mean he’s steering clear of meals with lobbyists.
Reports to the State Ethics Commission show lobbyists spent about twice as much on Ralston in January as they did on Glenn Richardson, the man he replaced, during the same month last year.
Lobbyists disclosed spending $1,225, or about $40 a day, on Ralston in January, mostly for meals and refreshments.
During the same period in 2009, lobbyists reported spending $597 on Richardson, also mostly for meals.
Last January, before he was the House leader, Ralston was treated to two lunches, worth $43.35, by lobbyists.
Richardson announced his resignation in December after his ex-wife went on TV and accused him of having an affair with a utility lobbyist.
Richardson’s resignation brought two months of almost non-stop media attention to the House, which was described as a lobbyist funded political frat-house.
When Republicans met to pick a leader to replace Richardson, Ralston, former chairman of one of two House judiciary committees, was chosen as a reform candidate. He has backed the call for ethics reform during the 2010 Legislative session, and he reiterated that support last week.
Ralston said it’s not surprising that lobbyists would want to get to know the new speaker.
“I (previously) chaired a committee that had a fairly narrow range of interest. As a result of that, I had not had an occasion to get to know or work closely with other groups, business groups and others.
“I think it (the lobby meals) was due to renewing a lot of acquaintances and people who wanted to visit and get to know me that I had not gotten to work with in the past.”
Ralston noted that since taking office, he’s pushed through rule changes to make the House more open to the media and for debate on legislation.
“The fact that I had dinner with some people didn’t get in the way of us having some major reforms to the House,” he said. “I just say, look at what I’ve done.”
Richardson’s figures for January 2009 were, for him, fairly low. He was traditionally among the biggest recipients of lobbyist largesse during his five years as speaker.
Still, lobbyists reports on Ralston show he hasn’t completely shied away the long-standing practice of dining with lobbyists during the session.
Lobbyists from the prominent firm GeorgiaLink reported paying for meals with Ralston on Jan. 10, 12 and 27.
Trip Martin, founder of the firm and a veteran statehouse lobbyist, said he had dinner with Ralston again recently, something that will be noted in February lobbyists reports.
“David Ralston was friend before he was speaker. Just because he’s speaker now doesn’t mean it’s illegal to be his friend,” Martin said.
GeorgiaLink’s clients include AGL Resources, American Express, Cash America, Checkfree, Children’s HealthCare of Atlanta, the city of Atlanta, Comcast, CVS, Diageo, EDS, the Georgia Hospital Association, Georgia Pest Control, Georgia-Pacific, UPS, T-Mobile, Turner Broadcasting, Siemens, Scientific Games and Publix.
Bill Bozarth, executive director of the ethics watchdog group Common Cause Georgia, is pushing ethics and campaign reform and was not particularly worried that Ralston is being wined and dined.
“The dinners of the new speaker versus the old speaker concern me less than whether the new speaker is willing to step up and support some of the things that rein in the large amounts of money coming into campaigns and political action committees controlled by those people,” Bozarth said.
“I am more concerned about what he thinks about some of the most significant reforms in the package.”
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