A former Professor of mine from Kennesaw State, Kerwin Swint, has a nice piece regarding the $100 lobbyist cap in Georgia. It ends with this summation:
After all, every Georgian’s real fear should be that the state of Alabama has stronger ethics laws than the Peach State.
You know, I get why some members of the General General Assembly, like Speaker Ralston, might not favor a $100 cap on lobbyist gifts. Members of Georgia’s General Assembly only get paid $17,342 per year plus a per diem for travel and expenses… now, some law makers abuse that per diem thing… but lets face reality, when dealing with lobbyists being paid far more than they are, some legislators might feel that their power is overshadowed by the money of a lobbyist. I mean, who wouldn’t feel somewhat indebted to someone that sent them and their family on a $17,000 vacation to Europe? Seriously, if anyone of you want me to be in debt to you, feel free to send me and my family on a $17,000 vacation to Europe anytime! Heck, I’ll even save you the trouble of figuring out hotel accommodations and airfare… just give me the $17,000 in cash, I’ll take care of the rest.
But seriously people, there’s an easy solution to this. So Ralston and his buddies don’t want to give up their unlimited lobbyist gifts, but they also want to maintain the whole “we only get paid 17K a year line” — well, you can’t have both… but what we should have is a fair and ethical system. We should also have a system that doesn’t allow just lawyers or folks in retirement to govern… now, all love to my lawyer friends, all love to my retired friends… I’ve got no problem with you guys… but seriously, I could not afford to be a member of the Georgia General Assembly, neither could my mechanic or anyone who is a member of a working family that has to provide that isn’t in a profession that runs on that persons own schedule.
So lets make the system fair, lets give legislators a living wage… something they can actually survive on, cause lets be honest, a “part-time” job that requires you to be in downtown Atlanta for 4 months a year, at community events, town halls, other legislative meetings, etc… trying telling the General Manager at Chili’s you need that flexible of a schedule, you can’t get it… and neither can most working Georgians. For arguments sake, lets say we raise the annual salary of a member of the General Assembly to $40,000… and lets give them a per diem based on how many miles they have to travel to the capitol for a session day (committees can meet via Skype or other methods), and none of these “committee of one” days, I’m talking legitimate in session media present days… and I don’t mean $0.30 a mile, lets make it a reasonable rate so that those from Valdosta and such can get hotels when needed, etc… but lets make it a set rate based on the distance of their home residence from the Capitol building, that will make that fair… so lets call it $10 a day plus $0.60 per mile. So if you live 1 mile away from the capitol, you get $10.60 a day so you can buy lunch… if you live 300 miles away from the capitol building, you get $190 a day to help afford gas, hotel, etc… and you ban lobbyists from giving any gifts to elected officials, because duh, we’re already paying for their lunch so that excuse is gone and if they want to see the Braves that bad then they can do like the rest of us and sit in the outfield.
There are two reasons the $100 lobbyist cap is facing backlash… one is simple… why would folks who can get $17,000 family vacations to Europe paid for ever want to give that up? And… if you get into the basic point of why Georgia has lax laws on this issue, it’s because of the minor amount of compensation a member of the legislature gets… but goodness gracious, could you imagine if we increased the salary to a decent amount so that regular folks could actually have a place in the General Assembly… we might end up with a government of the people, by the people, for the people… a very unique concept.
Leave a Reply