For more than two hours, a group of state Senators heard from lobbyists and the public on a sweeping ethics bill sent over from the house.
Rep. Rich Golick (R-Smyrna) presented the bill, by House Speaker David Ralston, that includes a ban on all lobbyists’ gifts except dinners for large groups and out-of-town trips.
“This is the strongest bill we’ve put out in the modern era,” he told members of the Senate Rules Committee.
While the registration fee was initially reduced from $300 to $25, Golick told the committee that Ralston now favors doing away with the fee entirely.
The bill would also require anyone who lobbies on behalf of an organization for more than five days to register as a lobbyist.
But most of those who spoke were opposed to the bill as it came out of the House.
Kay Godwin with Georgia Conservatives in Action has lobbied on behalf of various issues for 24 years on her own dime and says when the bill first came out she was insulted.
She favors a $100 cap on lobbyists gifts rather than a total ban and says voters overwhelming agreed in a non-binding referendum during last year’s July primary.
“That’s what we asked for, we didn’t ask for a zero limit,” she says. “We know there’s a lot of circumstances where we’d like to take you out for a cup of coffee.”
Citizen activist Ray Boyd wants to know why the bill, which passed the house nearly a month ago, is still in committee. He worries it will go nowhere.
“The public wants to see you get ethics and they want to see it this year,” he says.
The committee is expected to take a vote on the bill Wednesday, but not before changing it to reflect a Senate rule that was passed on the first day of the session that includes a $100 gift cap. The full Senate could vote on it as soon as Friday.