Mar. 21, 2005
Lobby Reform Gains Momentum
By J. Barlow Herget
RALEIGH - It’s March Madness and basketball fans are familiar with the pulls and pushes in a game. A team that seems hopelessly behind starts hitting baskets, getting rebounds and gains momentum.
Big Mo. It’s an intangible yet real phenomenon, and it’s not limited to sports.
Political campaigns, for example, ebb and flow, and the campaign for lobby reform in North Carolina gained momentum here last week. Forty-one groups, including the N.C. Center for Voter Education, gathered at the General Assembly and endorsed major changes in the state’s lobbying rules.
“Something clearly has to be done,” declares Sec. of State Elaine Marshall. She provided the initial momentum when she named a blue-ribbon Advisory Council on Lobbying Reform to examine current law and make recommendations. She was responding to a failing grade given North Carolina’s lobbying regulations by the national Center for Public Integrity.
Marc Siegel, director of the N.C. Coalition for Lobbying Reform, helped organize last week’s gathering. Siegel notes the cross section of coalition members, from the conservative John Locke Foundation to its opposite, the Common Sense Foundation.
Siegel says, “We’re growing. We couldn’t have a better start. We need to continue to press on with this issue.”
One reason he is pleased is the early support by key legislators. House Majority Leader Joe Hackney, D-Chapel Hill, introduced House Bill 6. Hackney’s counterpart in the Senate, Tony Rand, D-Fayetteville, will submit a similar bill.
Hackney’s legislation incorporates four major recommendations by Marshall’s Advisory Council:
* Full disclosure on money spent on legislators by lobbyists;
* A “cooling off” period for legislators who step down from office before accepting lobbying jobs;
* A ban on gifts to legislators;
* Money for the N.C. Secretary of State's office for enforcement of the new rules.
J. Allen Adams, a former House member and experienced Raleigh lobbyist, was on the Advisory Council. He recalls that “full disclosure was the most important thing” for his council colleagues.
“The vote on that was 11-0,” Adams says.
There was a compromise on the cooling off period. Many states that have such regulations require lawmakers to wait a specific period of time, perhaps a year, before they may become lobbyists. The council recommended that legislators simply had to wait until the end of the term to which they had been elected.
Another coalition member, Bob Phillips of Common Cause North Carolina, indicates that the group might seek a more definite length of time as the legislation moves through committee.
Hackney’s bill asks for a modest appropriation of about $200,000 for enforcement. The N.C. Secretary of State's office now is given no money to investigate possible violations.
Banning or limiting gifts would effect the most dramatic change in today’s lobbying culture. The advisory council recommended that gifts should be limited to $25 in value per year.
Council Chair Gene Nichol, dean of the University of North Carolina Law School, strongly supports the idea of a gift ban. He is persuasive when he asks, “What is the public good in giving gifts to legislators?” No one answered during the Council’s debate on the change . . . at least not for the record.
A gift limit, however, is not as simple as it sounds. For example, Adams notes that if the gifts -- including meals and ACC tickets -- are limited to $25, it would affect not only wealthy business associations and lobbyists, but also nonprofits.
If, for instance, the state Arts Council served food and drink at a reception for legislators to meet art supporters from their respective districts, it is likely the legislators would have to pay part of the bill.
“How many legislators do you think would show up?” he asks.
Adams believes that full disclosure is a better way to persuade legislators and lobbyists to reduce the flow of unseemly money.
But it is the growing gobs of steak dinners and golf outings and campaign contributions -- this money flood -- that marks today’s legislature. Money may not buy votes, but it does buy access, and access opens the door for influence.
John Hood, president of the John Locke Foundation, concedes that a gift ban will hamper well-meaning, low budget groups along with well-heeled lobbyists. But he thinks the tradeoff is worth it.
“Nobody wants to restrict our fundamental right to speak, assemble, and petition our government,” Hood argues. “But when it turns into private gift-making, what you end up doing is putting your money in wine and golf trips and that’s not the kind of public advocacy as we used to understand it."
He adds, “[Citizens] may not know the details, but they have a nose and they know there’s something wrong.”
Barlow Herget is a former Raleigh city councilman and writes the Follow the Money column for the N.C. Center for Voter Education.
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