Legislators show feet of clay dragged by ethics reform

Legislators’ cowardice remained on full display yesterday as they made strenuous attempts to water down ethics legislation regarding removing the acceptance of up to $500 a year of free tickets from influence-seekers and in limiting meals to $50 per “occasion.”

These protestations both slowed the progress of such legislation and revealed the amazingly insular world in which some legislators apparently live, even as they argued in the case of the tickets which they often use to attend various events in their districts assisted them in actually meeting real constituents. And this isn’t even a total ban – it’s just tickets from those who wish to advocate something.

Perhaps that’s why Democrat Speaker Pro-Tem Karen Carter Peterson expressed that the legislation, SB 3, if not worded precisely, could threaten the amount of freebies she gets which she claimed would take her entire legislative base salary of $16,800 a year to pay for the tickets herself. Now, unless I’m missing the mark and underestimate the newlywed Peterson’s wit, charm, and good looks, my guess she wouldn’t get a fraction, or even any, of that value in free tickets if she weren’t in the legislature as second-in-command of the House. (Actually, as the new Speaker Pro-Tem, she’ll find her salary has about doubled.)

Isn’t this a problem, when a legislator basically matches her compensation through unregulated gifts even if they aren’t coming from the taxpayer? And while the donors of such tickets mostly never will be in a position of desiring influence, surely some will after the event in question which is not in and of itself unethical but the fact is none of this is regulated at this time – only when it involves an entity with a reasonable chance to wish to obtain influence.

In a world where legislators had courage, all free tickets, period, would be prohibited. But courageousness seldom defines the doings of the Louisiana Legislature and the present situation is no exception, so now there’s all this haggling over definitions to allow the free ticket ride, excepting influencers, to continue.

At least some over in the Senate do have some courage, as demonstrated by the approval of SB 19 by Democrat Sen. Ben Nevers that would not allow any lobbyist-paid meals, period, in contrast to the $50 standard, SB 8, being pushed by the leadership and Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration. But even that $50 is subject to carping by spoiled legislators. As Democrat state Rep. Charmaine Marchand’s impoverished district struggles to recover from Hurricane Katrina, its legislator appears to be living high off the hog when she complains that the $50 limit would force her to eat fast food on lobbyists’ tabs. The stupidity of this assertion was noted by Democrat state Rep. Rick Gallot, who noted that this amount would be a night out for a family of four in the environs of Ruston (and, in fact, a big night out I can vouch from personal experience).

The ticket measure finally got out of committee today, even as legislators still were griping about how their legislative lives would become so crimped in not being able to take freebies and talking of altering the bill on the floor. When are these dunces going to learn that you don’t have to pop up at every glad-handing event to serve their constituents well? Or if that seems such an imperative, they can pay for the ducats themselves. Although perhaps a novel idea to some is that they could converse with constituents without having it tied into some extraneous event requiring tickets.

While the silver lining is these imperfect measures continue to move along the legislative process into law, the dark cloud is their doing so exposes ugly truths about the attitudes of too many legislators. Service to the public, not to themselves, too often gets forgotten by some.