PAAT Members
While we are working on several bills passed during the session that impact our business, there are at least two items on the Ethics Commission agenda tomorrow about which you need to be aware.
- The Commission is considering the adoption of an advisory opinion request (I don’t know who asked for it) that tentatively is going to have the effect of prohibiting any corporation that does not have a lobbyist from inviting an elected official to talk to their audience and paying any expenses for that person to be there (transportation, lodging, food, etc). The exceptions will be if the expenditures can be reported as a lobby expenditure or a political contribution (which a corporation cannot make).
So if you deal with a non-profit corporation that invites a legislator to talk to its group and they can’t report it as a lobby expenditure, then they won’t be able to do it. I have been dealing with this since the draft opinion came out late last week, and haven’t found a way to solve the problem yet. We will be at the Commission meeting tomorrow to discuss it, but if you know of any NFPs (or other corporations) that don’t have lobbyists (or where the corporation is a lobbyist itself), they may want to weigh in to try to convince the Commission that this would be a bad result for public access to their government.
Click here to download the draft opinion (AOR 457).
- The Commission will be taking up for the third time the proposed rules on how to evaluate ticket costs for a suite for expense reporting purposes. As you probably know by now, the
 current methodology being set out by staff is that all the expenses involved in using a suite must be counted as entertainment, which may have the effect of making some sports venues off limits for officeholders and state employees because the pro rata expense of the suite exceeds the annual limit for entertainment. We have made numerous suggestions to make this rule workable and more fair in its application, but the Commission has not yet agreed with our reasoning.
If you are involved with a corporation or entity that has a suite at a sports or entertainment venue, this rulemaking may impact your ability to utilize that opportunity for lobby purposes. Please let us know directly if you have any concerns about this problem and have not expressed those concerns to the Commission in the public comment period.
We will give you a report on the outcome (and impact) of both of these items after the Commission meeting tomorrow.
Thanks.
Jack
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