Of Ethics Reform and Tradeoffs (Gwen Moritz Editor’s Note)

From absolutely nothing to just about anything, states vary greatly in what they allow lobbyists to give lawmakers.

In the February issue of the National Conference of State Legislatures’ magazine, a map identifies Arkansas as one of 10 “zero tolerance” states when it comes to showering gifts on legislators.

Meanwhile, the Arkansas Times’ Arkansas Blog — Max Brantley, proprietor — publishes an almost daily list of opportunities for state lawmakers to eat and drink at the expense of special interest groups. There are so many scheduled every day — breakfasts, lunches, cocktail parties — that the Arkansas Blog has given its list a standing headline, “The Big Swill,” and martini glass logo.

I confess: Brantley’s daily flogging of the endless shindigs thrown for legislators got to me. I felt my outrage rising. Didn’t Arkansans just vote for the kind of no-tolerance ban on wining and dining that State Legislatures Magazine gave us credit for? And yet there’s clearly a loophole in it big enough for a half-dozen open bars every day.

I took to Facebook (my social media drug of choice) to complain that people who voted for the ethics reform amendment in November — which I didn’t — were suckers. They traded two things that made legislators happy — longer term limits and higher pay without political responsibility — for ethics reform that clearly hadn’t changed anything. Maybe state Rep. Warwick Sabin, D-Little Rock, the original sponsor of the ethics reform third of Amendment 94, had done his best, I wrote. Maybe he didn’t realize how the law could be circumvented. Rant, rant, rant.

It wasn’t long before I got a call from the self-same Warwick Sabin, asking if he could come and talk with me about ethics reform. I was delighted. And I got an education. Here are some takeaways:

• Ethics reform is real. The days of lobbyists taking lawmakers to Sonny Williams for expensive meals accompanied by the hard sell on favored legislative action are over — or at least they aren’t legal anymore. If that’s going on, Sabin hasn’t heard about it, nor have I. Nor have I seen any reporting on it by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette or the Arkansas Times. Sabin says he has heard some legislators complain about all the things they can’t do anymore.

• One of those things they can’t do anymore is take political donations from corporations. It may be that prohibition will eventually be challenged in court, and the way the courts have been looking at campaign finance, corporations and political speech, there’s a chance that prohibition will be stuck down. But until that happens, it’s in place.

• The things we are still seeing, these big cattle-call events, are bad and could (should) be reined in when the legislature gives the Ethics Commission the authority to write new rules. In other words, not all of the new law has kicked in yet. But these events are mainly opportunities for members of special interest groups, ranging from the League of Women Voters to the liquor groups, to come in from around the state and rub shoulders with their legislators. They are officially meetings of legislative entities — actual committees, not self-appointed groups or caucuses — which means they must be announced in compliance with the state Freedom of Information Act and are open to anyone who wants to show up, including you and me. (That’s why the Arkansas Blog has a handy list to run every day.) “The Big Swill” is unseemly, but this is not the truly egregious kind of one-on-one legislator-buying that used to be SOP, like lobbyists giving legislators credit cards to use for the weekend.

• Sabin still thinks the extension of term limits and the commission to recommend legislative (and constitutional officer) salaries were acceptable in order to get the ethics reform that we got. I still don’t. I don’t think it was right to create a single amendment that does three very different things or that Arkansans should have to give incumbents more power and money in exchange for more ethical government. But, as Sabin pointed out, we may see more of those combo platters coming out of the Legislature. Forty amendments were proposed by legislators by the deadline last month, and only three of them can be placed on the 2016 general election ballot.

What Do You Think? Are you happy with Arkansas ethics reform as approved by voters in November? Take our poll right here.

Gwen Moritz is editor of Arkansas Business. Email her at GMoritz@ABPG.com.