The Associated Press
OLYMPIA — State lawmakers face new rules for meals that lobbyists pay for, starting in January.
The Legislature’s ethics board recently set a new limit of 12 free meals a lawmaker can accept from a lobbyist in any given year, The Olympian reported Saturday.
The rules seem less hazy than the previous understanding of the law’s allowance for “infrequent” meals from lobbyists.
Still confusion
But there are still areas of confusion, including determining the value of free food and drink at receptions.
The public-disclosure rules have changed as well, including an increase from $25 to $50 for a reportable entertainment event.
Meanwhile, the ethics board is urging the state Legislature to require more transparency.
The board voted 5-2 last week to ask the House and Senate to pass a law requiring that individual lawmakers report whatever free meals they accept.
The board wants lawmakers to list every event and the value of meal and drinks received, regardless of cost, over the course of a year.
The data would go on the personal financial disclosure statements filed yearly.
It’s not clear yet whether lawmakers will agree.
‘Honor system’
Without such a new reporting requirement, Democratic Sen. Jamie Pedersen of Seattle said, the new 12-meal limit “will be entirely on the honor system.”
“I do not know how this will be received. My anecdotal feedback from my colleagues about the 12-meal rule is mixed,” Pedersen said in an interview.
“Most people, I think, are just fine with it. They appreciate having the clarity. They want to follow the rules.”
Sen. Joe Fain, R-Auburn, who was listed among the most frequent guests of lobbyists in early 2013, says he quit accepting free fare and always pays his way at events where lobbyists offer to pick up the food tab.
Disclosure sought
He also wants better disclosure and is open to looking at the board’s proposal, Fain said.
He introduced a bill this year that would have led to more disclosure, and he still wants a better lobbyist-reporting system at the state Public Disclosure Commission that allows the public to look up what is spent on a legislator, Fain said.
He also wants a way for lawmakers to see what a lobbyist is claiming was the entertainment cost.
But Fain, the Senate’s majority floor leader, cautioned, “If a $50 meal is going to buy a vote, then people really need to replace [the] legislator.”
2 rules change
Grant Degginger, chairman of the commission, said the commission changed two of its rules in a bid to update the law and make sure rules were clear and easier to follow.
He said the public is more concerned about intimate meal settings where few lawmakers and lobbyists meet to discuss policy, and the new rules still ensure that those meals are reported by lobbyists when total outlays are above $50 for the event.
The $25 threshold for reporting had not been adjusted since it was set in 1978, and Degginger said adjusting the figure for inflation would have raised it to $80 or higher, which he said even lobbyists thought was too high.