Riley kills ethics bill

From the Montgomery Advertiser:

The state Senate’s Democratic majority leader said Republican Gov. Bob Riley was trying to shield his own children when he killed government ethics legislation that passed the Legislature with unanimous bipartisan support.

Riley called the criticism from Little and other Senate Democrats “another attempt to cover up their dismal failure to pass” any of the ethics legislation he proposed in the recently completed legislative session.

Just what would this bill have done?

In the session that ended June 7, Rep. Marcel Black, D-Muscle Shoals, sponsored a bill that that would have expanded the definition of lobbyists who must register with the State Ethics Commission and file quarterly reports with the commission about their activities.

For years, the law only has covered people who regularly try to influence the Legislature. Black’s bill would have expanded it to include people who attempt to influence the awarding of state contracts that are not competitively bid.

Riley was not alone in criticizing the bill.

Jim Sumner, executive director of the State Ethics Commission, said Tuesday legislators developed the bill without consulting the commission. If they had, he said he would have explained that it was “far broader than they realized” and could have affected thousands of people doing business with the state.

The Democrats are slinging around accusations about Riley’s family, but they haven’t cited any actual examples – yet.  I tend to give Riley the benefit of the doubt for his track record of running a clean administration.  Personally, I don’t think that about half of the people in the legislature could differentiate an ethical action from an unethical one.

You can read the actual bill here.  There is a little loophole in the bill that pertains only to the legislature and is not extended to members of the executive branch.  There are a number of people who are excluded from being called lobbyists, including:

A person whose primary duties or responsibilities do not include lobbying, but who may, from time to time, organize social events for members of a legislative body to meet and confer with members of professional organizations and who may have only irregular contacts with members of a legislative body when the body is not in session or when the body is in recess.

Why allow those individuals to throw parties for legislators, but not members of the executive branch, without having to register as lobbyists?