What lobbyists want

Kansans aren’t so naive as to be shocked — shocked! — that lobbying goes on at the Legislature. The shock is what a growing, recession-proof industry it’s proving to be, and that state law makes Kansans guess the motivation behind the wining and dining and the money behind the media campaigns.

As Brent D. Wistrom reported in the Sunday Eagle, lobbyist spending was a record $1.4 million in 2010, way up from the $475,000 spent in 2002 and even the $939,000 spent in 2006. Judging from the $648,000 spent through August, lobbyists pulled it back a bit this year.

But the steep increase since 2002 — despite no change in the rules, which bar legislators from accepting gifts worth more than $40 or entertainment worth more than $100 from any one entity in one year — has left both inflation and common sense in the dust. And the numbers don’t even include lobbyists’ salaries, administrative expenses, travel and lodging, which needn’t be disclosed under state law.

Carol Williams, executive director of the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission, said it isn’t that lobbyists are spending more these days on food and entertainment. “The big change is coming in how these organizations are communicating with the citizens to urge action or nonaction on the part of the Legislature,” she told The Eagle editorial board, pointing to mass media and direct mail efforts.

Industry groups, local governments, universities, hospitals, law enforcement, nonprofits and other entities aren’t spending money lobbying legislators and residents out of a sense of public service. They have desired outcomes in mind.

And while the public can find lobbying statistics at the Kansas.gov website, the searchable information doesn’t shed light on what the state’s more than 500 registered lobbyists are lobbying for or against, as it would in a state such as Wisconsin.

Nor do entities have to declare who (and whose money) is behind them; in 2007, for example, something called Know Your Power spent nearly $406,000 lobbying against a new coal-fired power plant, without most Kansans knowing the campaign was bankrolled by an Oklahoma natural-gas company.

And sometimes the goal is obvious but illogical: The beverage industry spent hundreds of thousands of dollars last year, including on a radio and newspaper campaign, lobbying against a pop-tax proposal that never stood a chance of passage.

As Gov. Sam Brownback once said, “Lobbyists are children of God, too.” Nobody understands pending bills and the legislative process better. Most of the “special interests” that lobbyists represent are of special importance to Kansans, whether or not they realize it.

And let it be said that a lawmaker’s acceptance of a free lunch or green fee from a lobbyist isn’t evidence of vote buying. As the most-lobbied legislator of 2011 as of August, state Sen. Terry Bruce, R-Hutchinson, told The Eagle: “If you can’t eat their food and tell them to their face ‘no,’ you shouldn’t be up in Topeka.”

But state law shouldn’t leave Kansans to wonder what lobbyists want and whose money they’re spending. For now, it does.

For the editorial board, Rhonda Holman