* 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