Ordinary citizens should not be treated as lobbyists

Before my eldest son was old enough to drive, he spent his first summer working as a lifeguard at a Roswell neighborhood pool. He appreciated that because it was a summer job, he could work as many hours as offered without it interfering with his classes or grades at Lassiter High School. He was adamant that he was going to save as much of what he earned as possible, so he’d have it for college. He knew that as a single working mom, I would be unable to help him as much as I would have liked. And every summer throughout high school he did just that, salting away his earnings with nothing spent on anything frivolous.

He supplemented what he made with swimming lessons and pool party duties whenever opportunities arose. He worked as soon as the neighborhood pools opened for the season, but his summer work was cut shorter every year due to the ever earlier school start dates in Cobb County.

He saw his younger brother, a competition-level swimmer who regularly made the county’s state swim team, unable to attend scholarship camps or visit with family because for him, summer was over and school began right after the state swim meets. He also realized he was losing thousands of dollars that would be needed for college and couldn’t understand why the school board, at that time, was more interested in shrinking his summer break than they were with responding positively to their constituents’ concerns.

Under pressure from parents who felt powerless, state representatives stepped in with proposed legislation that would have limited how early the school year could begin in Georgia. Committees were formed and hearings were held under the Gold Dome. My son felt so strongly about this issue that he spoke before the education subcommittee considering the bill. At the conclusion of his address, Rep. Fran Millar, R-Dunwoody, said, “We hear you, young man.”

The bill wasn’t passed citing forfeiture of local control, but it was a valuable lesson in civics for my sons. We were not required to register or pay any fees to attend and participate in the hearings. That was almost a decade ago.

That’s why when I learned that one of the unintended consequences of HB-142, the much needed ethics reform bill aimed at limiting lobbyists and the gifts they lavish on our representatives, was to require hundreds of dollars in fees from those defined as lobbyists, I took notice. As originally written, that would have included everyday citizens who want to share their opinions and input; folks who should not have to pay anything to speak to their public servants.

Fortunately, Rep. Rich Golick, R-Smyrna, realized that broad definition would limit citizen participation and so set to correct that provision. I have no objection to actual lobbyists being charged large fees to gain access to our representatives, but the legislation should be written such that the definition of a lobbyist doesn’t include interested ordinary citizens who have the right to be freely heard.