This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Dec. 10, 2012 - If incoming Sen. Scott Sifton dines at a tony restaurant or spends an afternoon at a Cardinals game, it's fair to assume that a lobbyist isn't picking up the tab.
Before he upended state Sen. Jim Lembke last month, Sifton repeatedly pillored the Lemay Republican for racking up thousands of dollars worth of lobbyist meals, entertainment and travel over the years.
And while it remains to be seen whether that is why Lembke lost, Sifton isn't abandoning the issue. Earlier this month, the Affton Democrat pre-filed legislation to ban lobbyists' gifts.
“Lobbyists spend a couple hundred thousand-plus a year on gifts for lawmakers,” Sifton said in an interview. “I think the public is of the sense that they wouldn’t be spending that money if they didn’t think it would influence legislation. Whether that’s true or not doesn’t matter. The public perception of it is terrible. It just looks awful.”
Sifton’s bill is part of a long-running effort to restrict lobbyist meals, entertainment or travel. Legislators can accept anything from a meal at a Jefferson City eatery to a ticket at a high-profile sporting event, as long as it's disclosed to the Missouri Ethics Commission.
According to the commission's records, lobbyists gave about $509,000 worth of meals, entertainment and travel to the indiviudal members of the Missouri General Assembly from January 1, 2011 to October 31, 2012. That doesn't include the nearly $1 million worth of gifts given to specific groups - such as caucuses, committees or the entire General Assembly - during that same time period.
While lawmakers in both parties have accepted lobbyist gifts, Sifton is in a relatively small group of legislators who refuse them. In the state Senate alone, Sen. Mike Kehoe, R-Jefferson City, Sen. Jay Wasson, R-Nixa, and soon-to-be Rep. Kevin Engler, R-Farmington, have this year taken zero dollars worth of gifts from lobbyists.
That situation would become the norm if Sifton's bill passed. His measure states that no lobbyist “shall deliver any tangible or intangible item, service, or thing of value to any member of the General Assembly or such member's staff, employee, spouse, or dependent children.” Sifton’s bill would also ban lawmakers from reimbursing lobbyist gifts with campaign money, the focus of a recent St. Louis Post-Dispatch article.
Sifton noted that this bill's language is stricter than earlier legislation. A wide-ranging Democratic ethics proposal caps lobbyist expenditures at about $1,000 a year. And past bills curbing lobbyist gifts – such as the ones that then-Sen. Joan Bray, D-University City, pitched for years – didn’t include restrictions on staffers.
“It certainly isn’t zero,” said Sifton, referring to gifts going to legislative staffers. “And part of the concern is if you ban gifts to legislators and allow them for staff members, you could actually see that balloon and that’s not what we want. That’s the reason I added the language banning gifts to staff members as well as to family members.”
If past bills are any guide, Sifton’s bill may not have a promising future. Bray’s legislation to curb lobbyists' gifts rarely ever got heard in committee. And restrictions on lobbyists' expenditures aren’t expected to be a part of state Reps. Todd Richardson and Jay Barnes’ ethics bill. That's likely to be a primary vehicle in a GOP-controlled legislature for changes to ethics law.
Members of both parties have noted that an outing with a lobbyist can provide a more informal chance to learn about an issue. And Lembke, for his part, told the Beacon during the campaign that a lobbyist trinket didn’t influence his decision-making.
(Using more colorful language, in 2006, then-state Rep. Steve Hobbs, R-Mexico, told the Columbia Daily Tribune that a “dinner didn’t mean diddly” in determining how he votes.)
For any legislation, there's also the practical question of enforcing the ban. Sifton said the legislative process would determine, for instance, whether his bill would require an increase in staff at the Missouri Ethics Commission or another monitoring agency.
"Certainly there has been a separate topic in various ethics bills in recent years of trying to beef up the Ethics Commission’s enforcement powers. That’s something that I support," Sifton said. "That’s not something that I’ve included in this bill because I’ve tried to keep the focus narrow. And of course, that can change through the legislative process."
"I think that the Ethics Commission’s enforcement powers should be broadened," he added. "Whether that would require additional staff would be determined within the process of drawing up that bill."
Lembke looks to future
Even if Lembke had beaten Sifton, he would have been barred by term limits from running again for the Missouri Senate. If he wanted, he could have run for one more term in the Missouri House in 2014.
Asked during the campaign season if he had interest in any other office – including St. Louis County-based positions – Lembke noted a need for "strong leaders at the state level" to deal with blowback from the federal government's debt situation.
Lembke was even more coy when he was asked more recently about his political plans. After his appearance at a recent St. Louis County Council meeting, he was aked what he planned to do next. He quipped: “I’m going to go home and spend the evening with my wife.”
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