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LEGISLATURE
Lobbyists
can hide most spending
As the start of the 2005 legislative session nears, Florida
Senate President Tom Lee wants to crack down on the cozy relationship
between lobbyists and lawmakers. But questions remain as to how far he
can go.
BY GARY FINEOUT
gfineout@herald.com
TALLAHASSEE - The meeting of Miami-Dade
lawmakers over dinner was held at an oak-shaded French restaurant near
the Capitol.
On the agenda: fighting a controversial change in school funding
that could hurt urban districts.
The tab for that night at Chez Pierre: $481.89 -- nearly $70 for each
of the seven legislators in attendance. The bill was paid by Bill
Rubin, a lobbyist who represents, among other clients, the Broward
County School Board.
Almost a year after the dinner, Rubin has yet to file the gift
disclosure form required by Florida
law. Had a Herald reporter not accidentally walked in on the event, the
public would never have known about it.
Rubin -- who did not return calls for comment -- is hardly alone in
how he deals with Florida's disclosure requirements for lobbyists: A
Herald review of three years' worth of gift disclosure forms shows that
only a handful of lobbyists regularly report when they hand out gifts
or pay for meals worth more than $25 -- the threshold for reporting --
for legislators or their aides.
In all of 2004, the total amount of gifts and meals revealed on
these forms -- which include detailed information on the gift and the
legislator who received it -- came to $15,925.
Yet during the same 12 months, nearly 600 registered lobbyists
reported on a different form -- one that doesn't spell out which
lawmaker received what -- spending a total of $3.47 million to lobby,
entertain, feed and provide information to the 160 members of the
Florida Legislature. Another 1,100 lobbyists reported to the state that
they spent nothing last year.
Lobbyists say there are explanations for why they don't report gifts
and meals they give lawmakers. But the wide gap between the two figures
underscores the way things work in Tallahassee:
Rules meant to give the public an idea of how lobbyists work are easily
circumvented or ignored.
It also means that the public may not have a clear idea of exactly
who is trying to influence the powerful group of men and women who
affect day-to-day life in Florida,
everything from telephone rates to how much money schools receive.
''It seems unreasonably low,'' Ben Wilcox, executive director of
Common Cause Florida,
said of the $15,925 reported spend on gifts and meals. ``You just know
more is being done in the way of wining and dining.''
NEW RULES PROPOSED
Senate President Tom Lee, a Brandon Republican and critic of the
cozy relationship between lobbyists and lawmakers, is proposing that
the Legislature enact this year tough new disclosure requirements,
including the so-far untouchables of the lobbying world: how much
lobbyists get paid and whom they lobby.
''We're not going to be able to stop people from being
entertained,'' Lee said. ``But you can create reporting requirements to
make sure the public is aware of what this Legislature is doing and with
whom.''
Right now, the rules aren't that hard to follow -- or to avoid.
Currently, people who lobby the Legislature are required to report
annually how much money they spend on lobbying, but that figure does
not include how much they are paid by their clients. Lobbyists instead
report how much they spend in broad categories such as entertainment,
meals, travel and advertising.
And the reports don't require a lobbyist to say exactly whom they
were lobbying or what issues or bills they were trying to affect.
Lobbyists are also required to file a form that lists any gifts or
meals worth $25 or greater given to any legislator or legislative aide.
Gifts over $100 are prohibited in most cases.
LIMITED COMPLIANCE
But a Herald review of three years' worth of these forms showed that
only lobbyists for BellSouth, Walt Disney World and UBS Financial
Services regularly disclosed buying meals or treating legislators to
tickets to concerts, theme parks or football games.
For example, BellSouth provided tickets to last summer's MTV Video
Awards to Sen. Gwen Margolis and Rep. Rene Garcia, both from
Miami-Dade
County. Rep. Adam Hasner, a Delray Beach Republican, got several
gifts from BellSouth, including tickets to a Van Halen
concert.
Disney gave theme park tickets to two Miami Republicans, Rep. Marco
Rubio and Rep. Marcello Llorente, and in July
gave a ticket to Cirque Du Soleil to Rep. David Rivera, also of Miami.
Other lobbyists, however, have found ways to get around the
reporting requirements.
Take the case of Ron Book, one of South Florida's
most prominent lobbyists. When it came to spending money to wine and
dine and entertain legislators last year, Book outdid anyone else in
the state. He reported spending more than $314,000 on behalf of his
long list of clients, which include the city of Miami,
Miami-Dade County,
Calder Race Course and AutoNation.
Yet Book says he never spent more than $25 for a meal or a gift for
a single legislator. In fact, Book said he doesn't even know what the
gift disclosure form looks like.
''If I gave a gift over the value, I guess I'd know the form,'' Book
said.
How does Book get around the $25 gift disclosure requirement? He
invites large groups of people to receptions he pays for, a move that
allows him to bring down the per-person cost.
''We sponsor large events,'' Book said. ``We do it in the sunshine.
We don't do it clandestine. And when we cater the meeting we feed
everybody.''
Other lobbyists use a different way around the disclosure
requirements. They take the total they spend on a legislator and divide
it by the number of clients they represent. A lobbyist with four
clients, for example, can divide up the cost of a
$80 meal for one lawmaker four ways, bringing down the cost of the gift
beneath the $25 threshold.
Gene McGee, a lobbyist who represents companies such as
Anheuser-Busch, IBM and Greyhound Lines, defends the practice, saying
he rarely goes out with a legislator to lobby on behalf of just one
client.
''If I take somebody to lunch, most times I'm not taking them to
talk about a particular issue,'' McGee said. ``It's
relationship-building.''
Even when a lobbyist doesn't follow the law, the public may never
find out. The job of making sure lobbyists abide by the requirements is
up to the people who receive the free meals and gifts: the legislators.
Any complaint about a lobbyist not following the law must go to the
Legislature. It's left up to legislators to investigate and decide
whether to fine or reprimand lobbyists who fail to disclose how much
they spent on lobbying or how much they gave to legislators. This
almost never happens.
The arrangement is supported by Florida's
Constitution, which sets out a clear separation of powers that leaves
it up to the Legislature to regulate its internal operations.
Lee first put lobbyists on warning in November when he became Senate
president, suggesting lobbyists make ''investments'' in legislators
that they expect to pay off.
Since then, Lee has floated ideas to ban lobbyists from serving on
appointed boards, such as those that run state universities. He has
ordered a flat prohibition on any gifts or meals to all Senate
employees, except those who report directly to individual senators.
Lee is in favor of beefing up disclosure requirements for lobbyists,
including letting the public know how much they get paid and maybe even
what lawmakers they are lobbying. Florida
is the largest state in the nation that doesn't require lobbyists to
say how much they are getting paid. Twenty-eight other states have some
disclosure requirements.
HOUSE SPEAKER
House Speaker Allan Bense, a Panama City
Republican, says he's open to many of the changes suggested by Lee,
except for barring lobbyists from appointments to university boards.
Lobbyists are already grumbling about any increased paperwork
requirements and question the value of disclosing their fees.
Book says that Lee's ban on allowing lobbyists to pick up meals in
Senate offices will just drive things underground. Book routinely pays
for lunch or dinner for the entire Miami-Dade delegation and holds the
event in the Capitol.
Lee is ''going to have the opposite [effect] of what he's trying to
accomplish,'' said Book. ``You drive people out of the Capitol into the
private back rooms of a restaurant.''
But Wilcox of Common Cause applauds Lee's efforts.
''There will be more public outrage once the public gets a better
picture of how these lobbyists are manipulating the process,'' he said.
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