Imagine if lobbyists could give virtually anything they wanted to lawmakers, ranging from a gift basket of cookies to a Mercedes Benz. This isn’t some dark fairy tale. In Georgia, it’s reality. Lobbyists can give virtually whatever gift they want to lawmakers. But in recent month, a rowdy coalition of tea partiers and progressives have
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You’d think that if there’s anyone who should be for curtailing the influence of lobbyists and other ethics reforms, its the chair of the ethics committee in the legislature, right? In Georgia, you’d be wrong. A trans-partisan coalition of tea partiers and progressives have been pushing for a cap of $100 on gifts that lawmakers
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We’ve been continually reporting on the tea party-progressive movement in Georgia to demand a lobbyist gift cap so that lobbyists can no longer give any gifts to lawmakers that cost more than $100 (Georgia is today one of three states where lobbyists can give unlimited gifts to legislators). At least 130 sitting state lawmakers or
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Momentum continues to grow in the state of Georgia, as both tea partiers and progressives are pushing hard to enact a lobbyist gift cap that would cap lobbyist gifts to lawmakers at $100. Recently, Rep. Don Parsons (R) called the cap “silly,” and refused to sign on to a pledge to push for such a
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As we reported earlier, last month the conservative Georgia Tea Party Patriots united with the progressive Georgia Common Cause group to demand lobbying reform in the state that would require cap the value of individual gifts given to legislators by at $100. The cap is a modest measure as it would still allow lobbyists to
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Last week, we reported that Georgia tea partiers and progressives are uniting to demand that state lawmakers sign a pledge endorsing a $100 per-day gift ceiling for lobbyists in their state. Right now, lobbyists can spend virtually anything they want, and sometimes it’s not even properly disclosed. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports today that more and
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In July, Georgia’s Democratic and Republican Party voters will get a chance to tell their respective political parties that there needs to be lobbying reform. Ballots for both parties will ask “questions about limiting the value of meals, tickets and other gifts lobbyists give to state legislators. The questions are nonbinding but will give policymakers
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The corporate front group the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) does not handle criticism well. In a Marietta Daily Journal piece today, a number of Georgia legislators defended their membership in the corporate lobby. One in particular, Rep. Earl Ehrhart (R), a former national chairman of ALEC, bitterly lashed out at the ALEC critics at Better
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