* Dan Petrella at the Tribune…
With federal investigators scrutinizing the activities of lobbyists at City Hall and the state Capitol, Gov. J.B. Pritzker wants the General Assembly to pass legislation banning public officials from working as lobbyists at other levels of government.
But to do that, lawmakers will have to decide what, exactly, counts as lobbying and who would be required to register as a lobbyist. The difficulty lawmakers face in answering those questions became apparent Wednesday at the second meeting of a state ethics commission created late last year in response to the issues raised during the ongoing federal investigation.
* Neal Earley at the Sun-Times…
“Too often, a lawmaker’s retirement and resignation is immediately followed by that lawmaker’s registration as a lobbyist,” said Ryan Tolley, policy director for CHANGE Illinois.
Tolley was just one of the government reform advocates who came out Wednesday to address a newly formed state panel charged with trying to help clean up Illinois politics.
While they didn’t always agree on specific solutions, most of those who spoke agreed that the Joint Commission on Ethics and Lobbying Reform has its work cut out for it. […]
Tolley and others would like to see a “cooling-off” period” that regulates the time in which a former lawmaker can become a lobbyist.
The practice of legislators jockeying for bigtime lobbying gigs during session months needs to be stopped. If they won’t do a “cooling-off” period, then at least ban that. It’s stomach-turning.
* Peter Hancock at Capitol News Illinois…
The advocates also called for barring lawmakers from working as lobbyists at other levels of government.
While a sitting state representative, Arroyo was a registered lobbyist in Chicago. In the wake of his indictment, however, the City Council passed an ordinance prohibiting elected officials from other levels of government from lobbying the city and prohibiting city officials from lobbying other units of government.
House Majority Leader Gregory Harris, a Chicago Democrat, questioned how far that limit should extend, saying it could interfere with a lawmaker’s ability to talk to local governments on behalf of a constituent. But members of the panel said that shouldn’t be a problem and that a ban should extend only to working for pay on behalf of a private client.
Other recommendations from the panel included requiring lobbyists to disclose how much their clients pay them, something Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker has proposed but which lawmakers have not yet endorsed.
* Back to the Tribune…
Aside from state government, only a handful of Illinois’ nearly 7,000 units of government have any kind of disclosure requirements for those seeking to influence decision-making by public officials. Both the city of Chicago and Cook County require lobbyists to register and have active online databases making that information public.
In DuPage County, lobbyists have been required to register for decades, but the county government’s online database shows only seven registered lobbyists, the last of whom registered in 2017.
* Greg Bishop at The Center Square…
Of the thousands of units of government in Illinois, House Majority Leader Greg Harris said not many have a uniform standard for reporting lobbyist activities.
“And it sounds like among all of them we might be able to count on two hands how many of those entities have any regime [to register and track lobbying activities],” he said.
Rather than putting this burden on locals and creating a giant hodgepodge, the state should have a uniform registration system for all levels of government.
* Final word…
But Marie Dillon with the Better Government Association said she wasn’t “especially worked up about the deficiencies in the Lobbyist Registration Act.” She said, “the challenge facing the state should not be framed as a lobbyist problem.”
“The lobbyists who are players in this scandal, by and large, are not rank and file lobbyists. They’re elected officials moonlighting as lobbyists, they’re do-nothing lobbyists hired by people who expect something from the General Assembly in return, but I don’t think the problem is lobbyists,” Dillon said. “I think the problem is the transactional relationships between special interests and the people who write our laws and set our government policies. That’s what’s poisoning the people’s trust in Illinois and I think that’s what our work here is about.”
* Related…
* Rep. David McSweeney: End the cover-ups in the Illinois General Assembly
* How Embattled Alderman Solis’ Top Aide Landed Three Jobs
- SAP - Thursday, Jan 16, 20 @ 9:47 am:
I think Marie Dillon has it right. Seems like every time a legislator gets caught doing something fishy, the response is to tighten up the rules for lobbyists.
- 47th Ward - Thursday, Jan 16, 20 @ 9:51 am:
Defining lobbying is sort of like obscenity, it’s difficult to come up with a definition that covers every possible manifestation, but we know it when we see it. Although too often we don’t see it until after the fact.
- Dan Johnson - Thursday, Jan 16, 20 @ 10:04 am:
It would be nice if as part of this reform we could get rid of the $50 fee every time a lobbying entity is a day late in filing the once-every-two-weeks spending disclosure report with the Secretary of State, especially if it is another ‘zero spending’ report like most lobbying entities. That gets excessive, especially around random holidays that fall between the 1st-5th or the 15th-20th of every month (the windows to file).
- The Elephant In The Room - Thursday, Jan 16, 20 @ 10:15 am:
Enough with the hand wringing. There is already a substantive prohibition on lobbyist and revolving door activity - it just doesn’t apply to the legislature. The State Official and Employee Ethics Act has a one year period, and review by Executive Ethics Commission. If they do nothing else, apply those constraints to legislative members. Of course, they won’t, not because it’s not an excellent solution to corruption and insider dealing, but because there are too many self serving members that run for office to make money instead of serve the public interest. If you disincentivized running for office, we’ll get a better caliber of candidates.
- 618er - Thursday, Jan 16, 20 @ 10:17 am:
Would this look like the revolving door policy in place for state employees?
- The Elephant In The Room - Thursday, Jan 16, 20 @ 10:22 am:
I don’t see why it shouldn’t. I expect that most people would be shocked to know that legislative members may register as lobbyists in any capacity while serving in public office and immediately after. It’s one of the same problems that exists in Washington that is too juicy for Congress to give up as well.
- lincoln's beard - Thursday, Jan 16, 20 @ 10:40 am:
Is Illinois truly leading the nation in this brand new idea of regulating lobbying? Perhaps some other state already implemented something that works and we don’t need to reinvent the wheel here.
- Centennial - Thursday, Jan 16, 20 @ 10:45 am:
“The practice of legislators jockeying for bigtime lobbying gigs during session months needs to be stopped. If they won’t do a “cooling-off” period, then at least ban that. It’s stomach-turning.”
I wholeheartedly agree. One of my first exposures to this phenomenon was working with a legislator serving in the GA on a Friday, and then (surprise!) he was a lobbyist on the following Monday. Perhaps naively, I was shocked that this practice was not prohibited by law or by policy. Personally, I then made an effort to avoid interactions with this person, if possible, because I thought that move showed poor ethical judgement.
On the lobbyist side, enhanced disclosures make sense. It should be completely transparent which client a contractual lobbyist is advocating for on an issue. Being able to subcontract between lobbyists makes sense pragmatically but the relationship should be moretransparent. That being said, I really don’t care what anyone makes. Two private entities (client and lobbyist) enter into a private contract for services. I do not see how requiring financial disclosures of the terms of that agreement adds any value or sunshine to this issues here.
- Sayitaintso - Thursday, Jan 16, 20 @ 10:54 am:
Those members who are lobbyists would rather be criticized and legal, than be lobbyists who are shifty and prosecutable. They are, by nature, thick skinned.
- Annonin - Thursday, Jan 16, 20 @ 11:06 am:
“I think the problem is the transactional relationships between special interests and the people who write our laws and set our government policies.”
can someone translate this gibberish from a dark money lobby group? Seems like bribery, whatever you want to call no so jobs and bid rigging are already illegal
- Precinct Captain - Thursday, Jan 16, 20 @ 11:34 am:
But the Republicans said it could be done easy peasy with a quickie bill that no one read.
- Michelle Flaherty - Thursday, Jan 16, 20 @ 12:01 pm:
“In DuPage County, lobbyists have been required to register for decades, but the county government’s online database shows only seven registered lobbyists, the last of whom registered in 2017.”
Does anyone think there isn’t lobbying going on in DuPage?
- Rod - Thursday, Jan 16, 20 @ 12:32 pm:
Being a retired registered lobbyist I can admit to having filed many zero expenditure reports. So Dan Johnson’s comment is not bogus. But if one looks at the filing dates for theses reports which are semi-monthly one realizes many of the filings are for dates the GA is not in session and it is indeed possible there were zero expenditures.
There are also relatively complex rules on what does not legally need to be reported, for example it is largely unknown by the public but technically a lobbyist can make a loan to a public official on the first day of a reporting period and if it is paid back on the last day of the reporting period no report is required. There is a reporting rule for contract lobbyists. It reads: “If an expenditure is made by a contractual lobbying entity and a client reimbursed the contractual lobbying entity during the reporting period, the client reports the expenditure.” So in that situation the expenditure would not show up under a contract lobbyist’s name but under the clients name.
Then there is the fact that registered lobbyists contributions to campaigns are not considered to be a lobbying expenditure, that is by the way on page 3 of the current instructions from the Illinois Sec of State for filing these expenditure reports. There is also the fact that a lobbyists “personal expenses” are not reportable, that includes for example renting an apartment in Springfield with a fully stocked bar that may be shared with public officials incidentally during friendly card games. All of this get pretty complex to be honest and I am pretty happy to be done with it.
- Buford - Thursday, Jan 16, 20 @ 3:28 pm:
“…only a handful of Illinois’ nearly 7,000 units of government have any kind of disclosure requirements for those seeking to influence decision-making by public officials.” With this focus on state officials, what about townships?
Did the Township Officials of Illinois (TOI) people who met with Gov. Pritzker on May 16, 2019, paid their own way, or was it paid for from their township budgets? Union Grove township highway commissioner Arnold Vegter, who met with Pritker, should be in Whiteside county destroying roads in order to repair them and knocking down mailboxes, not schmoozing on the taxpayer dime.
- Name Withheld - Friday, Jan 17, 20 @ 9:01 am:
I guess I would begin the process of defining what “lobbying” is by using the contracts or job descriptions of those people who are hired as lobbyists. How does the business/organization quantify the responsibilities of those who have to register as lobbyists? That may not be completely comprehensive, but it would at least help people understand how those who employ or engage others to lobby on their behalf define what is considered to be lobbying.
Once that’s done - I would think it would then be a matter of comparing observed behavior with a general list of things that others have defined as lobbying and seeing how closely they correlate.
Or is this oversimplifying?