Common Cause Georgia sent me an Email on HB 920

It's position time folks.

I got an email in today from the state LP asking for a response to a poll being conducted by Common Cause Georgia on the contents of last years HB 920 which sought to place limits on how much money a lobbyist could give to sitting politicians. I found the tone of the invite quite interesting and responded with a query of my own. We'll have to see if the 50 word limit on comments is set in stone when they publish the results next week.

Here's the invite and my response:


2010 Common Cause Georgia Candidate Poll

Dear Candidate,

Common Cause Georgia invites you – as a candidate for Georgia statewide office this year - to declare yourself in support of 2 specific ethics reform measures in 2011.

House Bill 920, introduced last year by Rep. Wendell Willard, had 40 co-sponsors, Republcans and Democrats who came from all parts of the state. This legislation offered real reform that would have taken major steps forward in curbing the ability of lobbyists and special interests to use money to slant the legislative process.

House Bill 920 was not passed. It never even got a committee hearing. The ethics bill that was passed in 2010 did not address any of the reforms supported in HB 920; specifically, a $100 limit on the value of any one gift by a lobbyist to an elected official, and a $10,000 limit on total transfers from a candidate's campaign account to other candidates, parties, campaign committees and PACs

You will have a chance to remedy that in 2011. We ask you to support two specific reforms from HB 920. The questions below do not include the specific limits mentioned above, which may differ in final legislation. Rather, we seek your reaction to the principles addressed in the questions. We will post all responses – and non-responses - on our Common Cause Georgia website.

If elected, would you support in 2011:

1.) Legislation to limit lobbyist gifts to elected officials? Yes or No?

2.) Legislation to limit movement of campaign funds out of campaign accounts for purposes other than paying for valid expenses of the candidate’s own campaign? Yes or No?

Comment to both questions: (up to 50 words total)

Click here to respond via e-mail.



Regards,



Bill Bozarth
Executive Director


Mr. Bozarth,

Here are my responses to your poll questions on lobbyist gifts.

1.) Legislation to limit lobbyist gifts to elected officials? Yes or No?

2.) Legislation to limit movement of campaign funds out of campaign accounts for purposes other than paying for valid expenses of the candidate’s own campaign? Yes or No?

1. No.

I'm a Libertarian. Politicians should have a sufficiently developed ethics base to see that accepting gifts from lobbyists is patently wrong. Republicans and democrats have a great deal of trouble with this, Libertarians do not. If some fool wants to give $100 dollar gifts to a politician to buy a vote on a particular piece of legislation, the fool should be allowed to do so. Having said that, I would like to see legislation introduced that requires such donations be documented in painstaking detail and published for all the world to see with draconian penalties for not doing so. More transparency in the murky world of politics and influence peddling should gain the result that HB 920 sought to achieve by limiting gifts to $100. A better solution would be to vote for Libertarian candidates since they wouldn't take the money to start with.

2. No.

I'm a Libertarian. If one of our multi term elected officials with huge wads of cash stashed away in the campaign kitty wants to help out a fellow politician, PAC, or single issue group with a cash infusion to maintain the status quo, he should be allowed to waste his resources any way he sees fit. If we mandate that they keep their warchests full for their own use we'll never be able to bleed the entire system of it's financial resources and bring about fundamental change. Why would we seek to give our elected officials an official reason to deny their supporters and affiliates huge wads of cash? We should be encouraging them to spread their money around as fast and furiously as they spend the publics purse.

Now that we've addressed your concerns about Lobbyist gifts, it's time to ask your position on Ballot Access Reform (B.A.R) in Georgia. What is your position sir, do you support last years HB 1141, HB 1257, HB 1425 or SB 359? All of these bills sought to bring relief to Georgian citizens and all of them died in committee like HB 920.

I await your response.

Shane Bruce
Libertarian Candidate for Insurance Commissioner