'Lobbyist' is Not a Dirty Word
Almost a decade after BOPTROT, positive changes have emerged

It’s legislative season again, so it’s time to review some history. It has been almost a decade since the FBI probed corruption in Kentucky state government. That probe, named BOPTROT, centered on the Legislature’s Business Organizations and Professions Committee and convicted 15 legislators, among them the former Speaker of the House. Lobbyists were also convicted.

Following this scandal and despite opposition from the leadership, a Legislative Task Force on Ethics was formed to recommend rules changes for Kentucky’s legislature. Faced with resistance, the task force got off to a rocky start and initially made slow progress. But in the end, it made important recommendations for cleaning up the legislature.

The task force concluded that Kentucky needed clear, simple and easily understood principles for legislators, lobbyists and legislative candidates. It recommended compulsory registration for all lobbyists; regular reporting of lobbyists’ expenditures and activities; a ban on lobbyists’ contributions and soliciting contributions for legislative campaigns; a ban on gifts to legislators, including trips and vacations; regular financial disclosure for legislators; and a panel of non-legislators to monitor this new code of conduct.

These reforms did not create perfectly ethical people out of every legislator, lobbyist and candidate. Most were already decent and ethical. They DID, however, clearly define ethical conduct and represented major ethical surgery for the legislature and changed its political culture.

Many BOPTROT convictions related to corrupt relationships between some legislators and some lobbyists. Lobbyists for business, corporations and organizations are irreplaceable sources of information for legislators who, by the very nature of the job, are generalists. This relationship needs protection in the form of carefully constructed guidelines so that neither entity, whether legislator or lobbyists, seeks or receives special privileges.

Government impacts business every day. It is necessary that organizations’ lobbyists observe activities of government to protect their own fair interests. It is good sense, too, that legislators take care to avoid personal aggrandizement at public expense.

Reform legislation creating the legislative Ethics Commission protects the legitimate interests of legislators, lobbyists and most of all, the public interest. Commission members and citizens can initiate ethics investigations. The commission receives frequent requests for official opinions from legislators, lobbyists and legislative candidates. They ask opinions before taking action, looking before they leap, making frequent reprimands unnecessary. Most want to be ethical. ALL want to appear ethical. The reforms seem to be working.

Last year, Larry Sabato, distinguished professor at the University of Virginia and frequent CNN commentator on political ethics, visited Kentucky. After reviewing Kentucky’s legislative ethics code, Sabato declared it the strictest legislative code in the country.

Does Kentucky’s legislative conduct code work? It does. It is strict and fair. Though born out of scandal, even scandals and illegal conduct can serve a purpose – the purpose for fundamental reform of a political system grown corrupt.

Third Century jurist Julius Paulus wrote, “What is right is not derived from the rule, but the rule arises from our knowledge of what is right.” What is right is a good solid ethics code for government officials and lobbyists and aggressive enforcement.

Henry Clay, Kentucky’s distinguished statesman, said in 1852, “Government is a trust and the officers of the government are the trustees, and both the trust and the trustees are created for the benefit of the people.” The 1992 FBI visit proved that Clay’s wisdom had fallen on deaf ears of some legislators and lobbyists.

Communications must be opened between public officials and all people, including lobbyists. This communication must be above board to guarantee a moral authority to govern. Hopefully, the system set up by ethics reform will help assure ethical legislative conduct into the foreseeable future.

However, troubling clouds are on the horizon with FBI probes of corruption in our state’s Transportation Cabinet. Do we have to relearn ethical conduct every 10 years?

Pat Freibert is a former Kentucky state representative from Lexington.
editorial@lanereport.com

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