The bottomless pool of free meals, trips and trinkets that lobbyists lavish on state officials may be developing a slow leak.
Dozens of legislative candidates in the July 31 primary have embraced a $100 cap on lobbyist gifts — significant because it would impose a limit for the first time and prohibit the kinds of gifts that have most infuriated voters. These include overseas trips, coastal golf outings, rooms in four-star hotels and intimate dinners at pricey restaurants.
Nevertheless, it’s a modest measure at best, even more so when compared with the stricter measures imposed by neighboring states. And it does not yet have enough steam to pass a House chamber that is hostile to putting limits on lobbyists.
“It would affect everything,” said William Perry, executive director of Common Cause, one of the groups in the Georgia Alliance for Ethics Reform pushing for the cap.
It would affect some things, such as prohibiting Speaker David Ralston’s $17,000 trip to Germany in 2010 on a lobbyist’s tab or state Rep. Richard Smith’s $141 dinner at Morton’s steakhouse on Feb. 16. Smith, the House Insurance Committee chairman, was treated by an insurance company lobbyist.
As proposed, the cap would prohibit registered lobbyists from giving any gift valued at more than $100 to a public official. Nothing would stop a public official, however, from accepting as many gifts under that cap as they like. Theoretically, lobbyists could provide every meal a legislator eats, so long as the meal tabs never exceed $100. And they often don’t.
Lobbyists have reported nearly $1 million in gifts so far this year with a median value of just $32.
For example, lobbyists have spent more than $2,000 on Smith, R-Columbus, in dinners and other forms of tribute this year, but the steak dinner was the single instance in which the proposed cap would have kicked in.
The roughly 6,400 individual gifts reported so far this year range from an $88,000 seafood feast for hundreds of legislators and supporters by the Savannah Area Chamber of Commerce to DVDs valued at $1.25 handed out to several lawmakers by a contract lobbying firm.
‘I won’t take anything’
Right now, public officials can accept anything from lobbyists without limit or consequence. Lobbyists can give anything too, so long as they file a public disclosure with the state ethics commission.
Legislative leaders have said the current system works, but the feelings of the electorate on this issue are unambiguous. Seventy-two percent of Georgians in an AJC poll in December favored a cap on lobbyists’ gifts.
With every seat in the House and Senate up for a vote this year, many challengers have sensed voters’ anger and latched on to ethics issues. In a recent debate, for example, two Republicans seeking to unseat Sen. Bill Heath, R-Bremen, said they would not take a dime.
“I’ll make a commitment,” said Bill Carruth, former chairman of the Paulding County Commission. “I won’t take any perks, any theater tickets, any ball game tickets, any dinners, any hunting trips. I won’t take anything from a lobbyist or PAC.”
The Georgia Alliance for Ethics Reform has been fueling such sentiments, and feeding off them, as it pushes for lobbying limits.
“We’re full throttle, in full swing with this,” said Kay Godwin, a founder of Georgia Conservatives in Action. “We are 100 percent motivated to make sure this happens for the people of Georgia.”
The alliance has been pushing for a cap and other ethics reforms for more than year, but legislators have been reluctant to place any new restraints on lobbyists’ activities, insisting that public reporting of gifts makes the system “transparent” to citizens.
The transparency of the current system is dubious. While lobbyists disclose how much they spend and on whom, they rarely report what they are lobbying. The vast majority of the time, lobbyists leave blank the question of which bill or issue they are trying to influence, leaving voters with more questions than answers.
Jet Toney, chairman of the Georgia Professional Lobbyists Association, said there are good reasons lobbyists rarely disclose what they want from a public official. Toney said a lawyer once advised him to leave that part of the form blank.
“He told me that by completing that column I would be making a de facto admission of a quid pro quo — a meal for a vote,” he said. “It could be used to support a charge of bribery.”
Investigations by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found instances where lobbyists failed to disclose gifts or where gifts were not reported because it was given by someone who is not a registered lobbyist. Capitol lobbyists often complain about the scrutiny they receive compared to these unregistered lobbyists.
Despite these and other concerns, efforts to place any sort of limit on lobbyist spending went nowhere in this year’s legislative session.
But Godwin thinks that may change soon. Both parties have agreed to put a nonbinding question on their July 31 primary ballots asking voters whether the state should set a limit on gifts to public officials.
Godwin is confident voters will overwhelmingly support a cap, making it hard for lawmakers to stand in the way.
“The legislators are going to have it right in their faces what the people want,” she said. “It doesn’t matter what Ralston wants. It matters what the people want.”
$100 annual cap?
While Georgia struggles with the idea of a cap on its limitless lobbyist goodies, other states have enacted much more stringent reform.
John Schaaf, legal counsel for the Kentucky Legislative Ethics Commission, said reforms put in place nearly two decades ago effectively wiped out a lot of the more lavish spending on state legislators.
In that state, lobbyists are banned from giving most gifts. Meals are allowed, but lobbyists and their employers have a combined $100 annual cap on spending per legislator. Schaaf said the annual cap — as opposed to the per-gift limit proposed in Georgia — put an end to most gifts.
“We get very little of this kind of one-on-one dining experience, “ he said.
Beyond the gift limits, lobbyists in Kentucky have to report their “direct” lobbying expenses: their salaries, office expenses, money spent on postage and reports developed for legislators. That gives Kentuckians a glimpse into the much larger world of what lobbyists and their bosses spend actually trying to affect legislation.
None of that information is reported in Georgia.
That’s not all. Georgia requires lobbyists to register annually, but Kentucky and 18 other states require lobbyists’ employers to register as well, so citizens in those states know who ultimately is behind the effort.
Georgia is one of a dozen states that have no law forbidding lobbyists from intentionally deceiving public officials. Some states like Delaware and New Jersey can seek criminal penalties against lying lobbyists.
‘Political gimmicks’
Speaker Ralston has blasted the cap proposal as ill-advised and formulated by liberal pressure groups and media elites. In addition, Ralston has argued that imposing a cap will simply drive lobbyist spending “underground.”
Marshall Guest, Ralston’s spokesman, said the speaker’s position is “all about integrity.”
“The speaker fought for tougher ethics laws in his first session in the job and has subsequently continued this effort. He believes in seeking real improvements to our law rather than opting for political gimmicks,” he said.
Guest said Ralston will push to give the state ethics commission, now known as the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission, greater authority and more resources. The commission collects campaign finance reports and lobbyist disclosures and is charged with investigating complaints against lobbyists and candidates. Ethics advocates claim the Legislature does not give the commission enough money to aggressively investigate alleged violations, a claim legislators have dismissed.
Ralston’s opposition may explain why few House Republicans have signed on to the $100 cap. But support for the idea has grown in the Senate, with leaders such as Senate President Pro Tem Tommie Williams, R-Lyons, and Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers, R-Woodstock, pledging to cosponsor a reform bill.
In addition, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle has announced plans to name an ethics study committee this summer. What the committee will consider and who will be on it remain undecided. Ben Fry, Cagle’s spokesman, said the committee will be asked to come up with “comprehensive recommendations” for ethics reform.
Cap confusion
Even if the Legislature did enact a cap, there likely will be arguments over how it is calculated and what gifts would violate it. Take, for example, out of town trips.
Last year, the Georgia Association of Convenience Stores paid to take eight state lawmakers to its annual convention, which happens to be at a golf and beach resort at Amelia Island, Fla. The trips cost about $1,000 per lawmaker, but is that cost one gift or could each meal, each night’s stay and each round of golf count as a separate gift?
“To me, it’s the whole thing,” Perry said. But he said that question likely would have to be addressed in an advisory opinion by the state ethics commission.
Perry said he and his staff are working on that and other potential work-arounds, like the common practice of two or more lobbyists splitting a dinner check among them. That has the effect of masking the total cost of the dinner. Perry said the intent is that the $100 cap applies to the total value of the gift, regardless of how it is split.
Toney estimates that half of his organization’s 140 lobbyists support some kind of cap, although personally he does not.
“I’m always concerned when government limits the tools or activities of a legitimate business,” he said.
-- Staff writer Jim Galloway contributed to this article.
CAP OR NO CAP?
Several good government groups are pushing legislative candidates to endorse a $100 cap on lobbyist gifts. Currently, lobbyists can give anything they want as long as they report it. If the cap were in place now, what would it do? Here’s a look at some past gifts and our take on whether the cap would have affected them.
The five-grand lunch
In January 2011, Coca-Cola popped for a $5,200 luncheon for House Speaker David Ralston, members of the House leadership and House committee chairs. If everyone attended, that’s 53 people, which comes to $98 per head. Ruling? Likely this luncheon would fall under the cap.
Cagle’s golf outing
In October 2011, a for-profit cancer hospital paid $5,000 to enter Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle in a charity golf tournament. After the AJC questioned Cagle about the trip, the lobbyist amended his report, claiming that most of the money was a “charitable donation” and not a gift to the lieutenant governor. Regardless, the amended amount — $750 — is still a cap buster.
Gubernatorial upgrade
In May 2011, Delta Air Lines gave Gov. Nathan Deal and his wife “medallion” status that amounted to nearly $8,000 in perks, such as bonus frequent flier miles and free seat upgrades. The gift came after Deal signed into law a tax break that benefited the company. Deal’s spokesman said the gift was to “promote economic development” and would not be used for personal travel, but it was reported as a lobbying gift, so it would violate the cap.
Brushing up
On Jan. 9, the Georgia Dental Association distributed dental kits worth a total of $4,304 to all members of the General Assembly. Like many such gifts, these kits just showed up on legislators’ desks. The association lobbyist reported giving away 655 of the kits, which means they cost under $7 apiece. No cap violation.
D.C. junket
In March, the Georgia Charter Schools Association paid to send Atlanta school board member Courtney English, DeKalb County school board member Jay Cunningham and state Reps. Keisha Waites, D-Atlanta, and Ralph Long, D-Atlanta, to the Black Alliance for Education Options conference in Washington. The cost was more than $1,000 per person and included airfare, meals, lodging and conference expenses. Would that violate the cap? That likely would depend on whether the ethics commission viewed the trip as a single gift or several gifts (air, hotel, meals, etc.) lumped together. Either way, unless they went by hot air balloon, air fare probably would have topped $100.
Party pooper
In April, the Metro Atlanta Chamber paid for Rep. Roger Bruce, D-Atlanta, and Sen. Steve Henson, D-Tucker, and their spouses to the state Democratic Party’s annual Jefferson-Jackson dinner. At $200 per person, the tickets would have broken the proposed cap wide open.
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