Ga. lawmakers will face new ethics law in January

12-26-2010 Georgia:

ATLANTA - Georgians will be able to keep closer tabs on what lobbyists spend wining and dining state lawmakers. But new ethics legislation set to take effect Jan. 1 doesn't set a limit on what those lobbyists can spend.

Reeling from a sex-and-lobbying scandal that toppled Georgia's powerful House speaker, state legislators earlier this year ushered through what they touted as a sweeping ethics reform package.

But watchdogs say while the new law makes some needed improvements - such as requiring lobbyists to disclose expenses more frequently - it failed to tackle some of the more pressing ethical issues that have dogged Georgia.

Common Cause Georgia pushed to include caps on what lobbyists can spend entertaining public officials. The group also sought to ban, or at least limit, the transfer of campaign funds between political action committees, a popular way to disguise who is giving to a candidate.

But neither made it into the bill signed into law in the spring by Gov. Sonny Perdue. Alabama recently adopted both as part of a wide-ranging ethics reform package in that scandal-plagued state.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Wendell Willard, a key Republican lawmaker, said he will try again in the coming year to cap lobbyist gifts.

But he could face push-back from House Ethics Committee Chairman Joe Wilkinson, who said such limits would simply force lobbyists to go underground so the public would have no accounting of their actions. ..For the remainder of the story.. SHANNON McCAFFREY