Ethics Bill Heads To Governor

Published April 22, 2010 at 4:15 a.m.
ATLANTA (AP) The state Legislature on Wednesday adopted an ethics package that supporters say will make government more transparent.

The bill was authored by House Speaker David Ralston, who rose to power late last year after his predecessor was hit with allegations of an affair with a lobbyist. Ralston pledged to make strengthening ethics a centerpiece of his agenda this year.

The wide-ranging bill adopted Wednesday night requires lobbyists to disclose more frequently what they spend wining and dining lawmakers but places no limits on what they can spend. Local officials would have to file campaign finance disclosures with the state for the first time. And it boosts fines for lobbyists and officials who are late filing their required disclosure reports.

The bill sailed through the House 168-2 and was approved unanimously in the Senate. It now heads to Gov. Sonny Perdue.

The Senate tacked on a provision that makes the state transportation board file financial disclosure reports.

Still, critics labeled the bill too weak.

Officials with the watchdog group Common Cause Georgia said the measure stops short of placing caps on lobbyist gifts and does nothing to regulate the transfer of money from one campaign committee to another.

But state Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver said while the bill is imperfect it improves the current laws and penalties for bad behavior.

``It's a fair set of compromises that truly strengthen where we want in Georgia to be,'' the Democrat from Decatur said.

Ralston said he trusts Georgians to make decisions about what is appropriate conduct. His legislation, he says, would arm them with the needed information on who is spending what on whom.

``That is what is at the core of this bill,'' he said.

State Sen. George Hooks, an Americus Democrat, said the bill ``completely opens up our transparency.''

``We have grabbed this thing by the horns,'' he said.

The bill would establish an abuse of power provision for state legislators and would outlaw sexual harassment.

Lobbyists would be required to make more frequent reports on what they spend entertaining lawmakers every 15 days during the legislative session and every 30 days during the rest of the year.

But lawmakers would still be charged with policing their own behavior, which some have said was a critical problem in the scandal involving former House Speaker Glenn Richardson. An ethics complaint had been filed against Richardson in 2007 with the joint legislative ethics committee but it was dismissed by his fellow legislators.

The new bill would abolish the joint legislative ethics panel. Most agree it had been a failure in investigating conflict of interest complaints. Instead, complaints would be go straight to the House or Senate ethics committees.





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