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L ast May, Mayor Nancy Denson flew to New York for the
University of Georgia's Peabody Awards ceremony, the
broadcast news equivalent of the Oscars. The University
System of Georgia picked up the $1,133 tab for the
"awards luncheon, recognition dinner and travel meals for
Mayor and guest," according to state lobbying records.
It wasn't the first time Denson has traveled on the uni
versity dime. (No tax or tuition money is spent on lobbying,
but one could argue it diverts other funds away from educa
tion.) The University System of Georgia paid $1,648 to bring
her to her hometown of Memphis, TN, two years ago to watch
the Bulldogs play in the Liberty Bowl. AT&T bought her $375
tickets to a botanical gardens ball in May. And she's accepted
football tickets exceeding $100 in value three times since tak
ing office in January 2011.
It's legit now, but all those gifts would be illegal under new
ethics laws the state legislature will consider this year.
Denson defends accepting the tickets and trips, saying she
needs to represent the city and spend time interacting with
UGA officials. But she says she can't afford to pay her own way
on her $45,000 salary. "As the mayor of the community, I think
it's very important to attend those kinds of things," she says.
"But when you have part-time people on part-time salaries, it's
hard to ask people to pay for it out of their own pockets."
They'll have to start, if lawmakers follow through on their
pledge to enact serious ethics reform. State senators are likely
to cap now-unlimited gifts from lobbyists at $100. House
Speaker David Ralston (R-Blue Ridge) doesn't think it makes
sense to ban a $101 gift when a $99 one is OK. He once
opposed any limits but now supports a complete ban.
"The House is working on a bill that, as I understand it to
be, is a complete ban," says newly elected Rep. Regina Quick
(R-Athens), who campaigned on ethics reform. "How that will
come about remains to be seen, because the committee is still
working on it."
Almost everyone's accepting the free tickets and fancy din
ners lobbyists hand out, especially under the Gold Dome. Last
year, lobbyists spent $1.4 million buying gifts for government
officials, mostly at the state level???and that doesn't include
millions more in campaign contributions. UGA Director of
Community Relations Pat Allen reported spending $1,438 for
Athens-Clarke Commissioner Andy Herod to go to the Outback
Bowl in Tampa, FL, in 2011 as the guest of Herod's wife, UGA
Vice President for Public Service and Outreach Jennifer Frum.
State Rep. Chuck Williams (R-Watkinsville), former Rep. Doug
McKillip (R-Athens) and Sens. Bill Cowsert (R-Athens) and Frank
Ginn (R-Danielsville) have all accepted tickets and meals worth
more than $100 apiece from university system, Coca-Cola and
Georgia Power lobbyists in the past two years. The party in
power, in this case the GOP, gets more perks than the minority.
Just because a politician accepts a trip from a lobbyist
doesn't mean she's crooked???they're not all vacations or jun
kets, Denson says. "I feel like if you have people who don't
know what's ethical internally, you can't force it on them," she
says.
But state lawmakers are increasingly realizing that voters
don't like even the perception of influence-peddling. Both par
ties put questions about ethics reform on their July primary
ballots; 72 percent of Democrats said they want to end unlim
ited lobbyist gifts, while 87 percent of Republicans supported
a $100 cap.
"We do not want the public to think our votes are being
bought and sold," says Cowsert, who has opposed a cap in the
past. Monday, he and other senators agreed to a loophole-filled
$100 cap in the chamber's rules.
If a cap passes, it will be a stunning turnaround from
less than a year ago, when then-freshman Sen. Josh McKoon
(R-Columbus) introduced a bill capping lobbyist gifts at $100.
Ralston and Senate leaders blocked the bill, saying they'd
already dealt with ethics reform after former Speaker Glenn
Richardson resigned in the wake of an affair with a lobbyist.
Ginn co-sponsored it, but in a Capitol culture where fine dining
and sporting events grease the wheels, the bill went nowhere.
"When other lobbyists come down the line, [legislators are]
looking for Falcons tickets, they're looking for dinner tickets,
they're looking for pretty much anything they can get their
hands on," says Kelli Persons of the League of Women Voters.
Once legislators got a taste of just how unpopular the cur
rent system is, they began to drop their resistance. Over the
summer, a group of government watchdog and tea party groups
calling themselves the Georgia Alliance for Ethics Reform
launched a statewide bus tour drawing attention to the issue.
Dozens of candidates, including Quick and Rep. Spencer Frye
(D-Athens) signed a pledge to support a gift cap. Polls and
election results showed the issue resonated with the pub
lic. "That's given us momentum like we've never seen," says
William Perry, executive director of Common Cause Georgia.
McKoon says he plans to introduce new legislation this year
that will include the cap, plus restore funding for the Georgia
Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission???
formerly the state ethics commission???which keeps track of
lobbyists' disclosures. The commission's budget has been cut
by 40 percent, it only has 12 auditors to oversee 4,000 elected
officials, and the website where people can look up campaign
and lobbyist spending reports is often down. McKoon's bill
would also allow the state attorney general to empanel special
grand juries to investigate corruption, among other things.
"Until we prove ourselves worthy of the voters' trust, it's
going to be impossible for us to grapple with the big issues
facing our state," he says.
What are those big issues? They're the same ones lawmakers
have been grappling with for years: inadequate transportation
infrastructure, education, health care and resources to deal
with the problems. Add to that a national debate over mental
health and gun control in the wake of the Sandy Hook shoot
ings, along with a new Republican supermajority that could be
tempted to overreach on hot-button issues like abortion.
Georgia Right to Life, for example, plans to push a "person-
hood amendment" that would declare fertilized eggs to be
humans with rights, potentially banning abortion and stem
cell research that's lucrative both financially and medically.
Don Weigel, political director for the Athens-based progres
sive group Better Georgia, says he's on guard. "We may all be
shocked at how far they'll push the needle this year," Weigel
says. "There's really very little stopping them."
More Budget Cuts
The one thing the legislature is required to do every year
is approve a budget to fund roads, schools, prisons and social
services. Since the recession hit in 2007, state spending (not
counting federal contributions) dropped from $22 billion to
$16 billion before rising back to $19 billion this year. While
the economy is slowly recovering???and tax collections along
with it???Gov. Nathan Deal is still proposing 3 percent cuts in
8 FLAGP0LE.C0M-JANUARY 16, 2013