$100 Coffee Is Not Good Enough For the Georgia Legislature

Written by David Hancock

You may have heard - the Georgia Ethics in Government Act is in trouble.  While Republicans have enough of a majority in the Georgia Assembly to pass or stop any legislation they want, it is unfortunate that they are not pushing this through; but not that surprising.  There were several bold legislators in front of the cameras at the press conference announcing the reforms, but there were precious few who hung around to show support.

Something is better than nothing

This legislation comes after the ethics commission decided in April of 2011 that lobbyists can spend undisclosed sums of money on members of the Legislature (including sending Georgia's House Speaker, his family and staff to Europe).

Because of this ruling the part of this bill that is getting all the press is the $100 limit for lobbyist spending.  This rule would keep lobbyists from spending more than $100 per event on a particular legislator.  A lobbyist could still spend $100 at breakfast, $100 at lunch and $100 at dinner, just not $300 all at once.  When asked at the press conference why elected officials should be allowed to take any gifts at all, the answer given by one of the representatives is that “people need to be able to take their representative out for a cup of coffee.”  The biggest applause line of the conference came from the follow-up question - “Why can’t legislators buy their own coffee?”

They not only can't buy their own coffee, but it appears that a $100 cup of coffee isn’t even good enough.  Unless the voters get involved this bill may not even get a hearing.  I am sure there are several reasons for this, but it looks like the biggest reason is that the GOP leadership does not want it done.  New representatives who came in to make a difference are afraid that if they support the bill they will be locked out of committee assignments and may have trouble promoting their own legislation.

About the Bill

A large portion of the legislation (HB 798, which you can see by clicking HERE ) involves changing the name of the overseeing agency from the “Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission” to the “State Ethics Commission.”  Here are the major items in the bill:

• Limits to $10,000 the amount that can be transferred between PACs in the two year election cycle
• Limits to $1,000 the amount that can donated to a PAC
• Limits to $10,000 the amount that one candidate can contribute to another candidate
• Includes limits on money that can be spent on family members of elected officials
• Limits to $100 per occasion the amount that can be spent on an elected official by a lobbyist

While there is a limit on the amount that can be spent on a legislator at an off site event, there is no limit on the amount that could be spent to transport an official to an event

What can you do?

Find out how much your representative is receiving from lobbyists and campaign donors by doing the following (if you already know the name of your representative you can skip to step 3):

1) Visit the Postal Service website to find your +4 zip code. Click on the link on the left side of the screen “Look up a Zip Code”

2) Visit Project Vote Smart to find your state representatives (House and Senate). Enter your +4 zip code in the box at the top of the screen

3) Take the name of your state rep to the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission website.

Enter the representative’s last name in the box near the bottom of the form. Unfortunately this report will pull up everyone with the last name you entered, but you have the amazing option of being able to export the report to Excel.  There you can sort the records however you want.  Just look over about 23 columns to the one titled “Candidate_FirstName”.  The report includes campaign and lobbyist contributions.

Once you have found your state representative, PLEASE drop him/her an e-mail or give them a phone call asking them to get behind the 2012 Ethics in Government Act!  Their contact information will be right there on the Project Vote Smart page. Then leave a comment here to tell us what kind of response you received.