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January 30, 2012

Editorial: Ethics bill gets cool reception

— One of the issues brought up at the General Assembly this session is one that affects the legislators themselves: ethics reform. And guess what? Very few lawmakers are rallying behind the measure.

State Rep. Tommy Smith, R-Nicholls, submitted a bill this past week that includes a $100 cap on lobbyist gifts to legislators and other barriers between public officials and influence-peddling.

These include tightening up disclosure requirements and increasing the amount of time a former public official must wait before registering as a lobbyist from one year to two.

Also, the bill reduces the lobbyist registration fee to make it more affordable for non-profit organizations, small businesses and single-client lobbyists while recouping costs through an increase in fees for lobbyists with multiple clients. Out-of-town travel would be capped at $500 per event, except for transportation costs, which would have no limit.

But did Smith get much support from his fellow Republicans, who control both the House and the Senate? No. He couldn’t even find a single co-sponsor in his party. A few from the Democratic side have voiced in favor of the bill.

A collection of non-legislators in favor of the bill make up the Georgia Alliance for Ethics Reform, a broad coalition of reform groups including many conservative organizations that make up a sizeable portion of the Republican Party. Georgia Tea Party groups are playing a huge role in trumpeting the bill — they even placed a letter about the bill on every lawmaker’s desk.

Watchdog groups like Common Cause of Georgia and the League of Women Voters as well as other statewide organizations are also backing the bill, creating a novel blend of liberal and conservative groups teaming up to turn up the heat on lawmakers.

Currently, Georgia has no caps on gifts from lobbyists, and the annual tab comes to about $1.6 million; most of it is spent on food, trips and event tickets for legislators. Every state surrounding Georgia has some sort of cap or ban on lobbyist gifts, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

In a related issue, Senate Democratic Chairman Doug Stoner proposed a separate piece of legislation last week that would make the state’s ethics commission an independent agency.

Supporters say this would legitimize ethics enforcement by removing control of the ethics process from those subject to its power.

But sadly, leadership in both chambers say the efforts probably won’t make much headway. They say current law works because it requires disclosure of gifts. But that is limited to lobbyists reporting two times a month when the General Assembly is in session.

Perhaps the reason lawmakers aren’t giving the bills much consideration has something to do with what several of them said to Julianne Thompson of the Georgia Tea Party Patriots, as reported by the Rome News-Tribune:

The $100 gift cap is too low to cover meals at the type of restaurants they’re taken to.

It’s just that sense of entitlement acquired by some public servants that these reform bills need to address.

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