--By Jordan "Alex" Johnson, Esq. on --
H.B. 142, commonly known as the
“Ethics Reform Bill”, is a bill proposed for the purpose of limiting lobbyist
gifts and ensuring accurate reporting to the public. In simplified terms, the
proposed law defines lobbyists, bans most types of gifts from lobbyists, and
sets out stringent reporting requirements for lobbyists so that the citizens
know what highly paid lobbyists are influencing their legislators. So far, so
good. But it gets bad.
The proposed law requires that any
citizen who influences a legislator regarding legislation is a lobbyist subject
to a fee of over $300 and stringent reporting requirements. This has few
exceptions. In effect, these provisions take away every Georgian’s First
Amendment Constitutional Right to petition their government officials throwing
it out the window. The proposed law requires that private, unpaid citizens who
would never consider themselves “lobbyists” must pay over $300 and subject
themselves to stringent reporting requirements and bureaucracy if they wish to
communicate or even “influence” any elected official other than one from their
own House or Senate district.
In practical terms, that means if
you, as a concerned citizen, really want a bill to pass or fail, and its
passage depends on a Senate or House member from a neighboring district, you
either pay over $300 and register as a lobbyist just to be able to communicate
with them, or you better keep your mouth shut and let the legislature pass
whatever they want without your input.
I have seen reports of the
proponents of the legislation stating that the bill will likely be revised.
While that may be a good idea, damage has already been done. As an attorney, I
am sure I am more capable than many at reading and understanding legislation,
but am certainly not as good at it as those people who hold elected office.
That said, it took me less than 30 minutes to read and understand the proposed
13 page bill, and less than 5 minutes more to realize how bad it is for free
speech and good governance. The first words from the people who proposed the
bill should have been: “I’m sorry, we didn’t read it, and we will fix it.”
Instead, they defended it as an attempt at ethics reform. If it was truly an
honest attempt at ethics reform, the legislators would have talked to the
private concerned citizens who wanted reform instead of writing a bill that
prohibits communication with private concerned citizens who want reform.
Unless it was sincerely proposed out
of ignorance, the only logical reason for this bill being proposed and defended
in its current form is to intentionally enrage citizens and grassroots
activists so that they will eventually agree to some sort of lukewarm
compromise on ethics reform, one that allows elected officials to keep
receiving expense paid trips. This is unacceptable. This poorly conceived law,
though only sponsored by 6 legislators (including House Speaker David Ralston),
has hurt the faith of many Georgians in their government and in the Republican
Party. Republicans hold a majority of the State House, State Senate, and
all Constitutional Offices in this state and have the opportunity to show
transparent, ethical, honest leadership and to actually listen to the citizens.
That is the type of leadership that Georgians expect and deserve and that the
Republican Party has an obligation to provide. If we fail to provide such
leadership, it won’t be long until someone else will
Source: http://cumminghome.com/opinion-free-speech-in-georgia-destroyed-by-6-people/
Tuesday March 11,2014 by Jordan “Alex”
Johnson Esq.
No comments:
Post a Comment