Those lobbyists are pretty smart fellows, as one Utah legislator put it this week.
And they've found a way to hide from the public which legislators are taking Jazz tickets and expensive meals. But such shenanigans would be greatly reduced, some Utah House members said, through a "lobbyist reform" bill passed by the House on Monday.The trouble is, the lobbyist reform bill "will have a hard time" in the Senate and may not even be heard, Senate rules chairman Steve Poulton, R-Holladay, said of HB373, which passed the House 62-8.
Rep. Perry Buckner's bill was aimed at lowering from $50 to $25 the amount of an anonymous gift lawmakers may accept from registered lobbyists.
But in the debate Monday, Rep. Lloyd Frandsen, R-South Jordan, got the bill amended to also limit the recently common practice of "bundling." That's where several lobbyists split the cost of a Jazz ticket or expensive meal.
And by splitting the cost, each lobbyist pays less for the goodie and thus drops the individual benefit to below the reporting level.
Lowering the amount to $25, combined with Frandsen's anti-bundling amendment, would mean that more legislators who accept gifts from lobbyists would have their names listed in lobbyist reports -- something that some legislators don't seem to want.
Buckner, D-Kearns, mentioned in his debate a new Deseret News/KSL-TV poll that shows 69 percent of Utahns don't want legislators to accept any gifts from lobbyists.
Another 12 percent favor Buckner's lowering of the acceptable gifts from $50 to $25. The result, said Buckner, is that a large majority -- 81 percent -- of Utahns want lobbyist freebies to legislators greatly curtailed -- at the very least made public.
Rep. Jordan Tanner, R-Provo, who for years has introduced so-called government reform bills (with limited success), said Monday: "We have a problem with these intangible gifts (like Jazz tickets and meals). There's a loophole" in the reporting law that allows for bundling.
But Rep. Bill Hickman, R-St. George, one of the eight who voted against HB373, said his constituents don't care if he accepts a gift of $5, $50, $500 or $5,000 from a lobbyist. "They (his constituents) believe I will use the best judgment I can and my vote can't be bought" with a gift, said Hickman, who is running for the Senate this year.
"I don't see the advantage of "dropping the reporting level from $50 to $25," Hickman said. Lowering the amount "might send the wrong message" that there is something wrong going on.
Buckner pointed out that of the more than $200,000 that was provided to lawmakers by lobbyists in 1999, $166,000 came with no legislators' names attached.
"This is a reporting bill. The public has right to know" who is taking gifts from lobbyists, said House Minority Assistant Whip Patrice Arent, D-South Cottonwood. "I think the (gift acceptance level) should be lower" than $25.
But don't hold your breath for the Senate to act. In recent years, similar bills have gone to the upper body only to die the final week of the general session. This year's session adjourns next Wednesday.
Last year, Tanner had a bill that would have done away with the "intangible" gift, lumping all gifts to lawmakers into a definition that would have outlawed Jazz tickets, meals, golf games, etc., that cost more than $50. That bill was held in Poulton's Rules Committee until late in the session, then placed on the Senate calendar where it died.
"I haven't thought" about Buckner's bill. "We haven't discussed it" in the caucuses or Rules Committee, Poulton said Monday. Based on what's happened to similar bills in the past, "I think it would have a hard time" in the Senate this year, Poulton said. --
Joining Hickman in voting against the lobbyist gift-giving bill were Reps. Chad Bennion, R-Murray; Mel Brown, R-Midvale; Katherine Bryson, R-Orem; David Cox, R-Lehi; Ben Ferry, R-Corrine; Richard Walsh, R-Cottonwood Heights; and Bryan Holladay, R-West Jordan.