The proponents of TABOR and the excise tax cut (Questions 4 and 2, respectively) think they’ve caught Legislative leadership doing something criminal. A private meeting organized by a lobbyist between transportation heavyweights and the Senate President and Speaker of the House about TABOR and the excise tax, they say, was a veiled fundraiser, since those heavyweights, after the meeting, donated to anti-TABOR causes.

See? Blatant corruption!

Not quite.

What they’ve found is the oldest trick in the State House book: a connected lobbyist leverages access to lawmakers to build their client base and influence legislation. Attorney General Janet Mills, in later investigating whether this behavior was illegal, went the complete other direction in her conclusion. She called it “commonplace.”

The best evidence of this is the ironic revelation that the spokesman for Question 2 was also leveraging his access to Republican staffers in the State House to collect materials to benefit his campaign. The spokesman, Chris Cinquemani, told us he was utilizing resources the public may not know exist. Again, not quite.

What this is is politics as usual. It is common, as Janet Mills succinctly said, so trying to claim the traditional is now the criminal simply doesn’t work. Access is a valuable currency in Augusta, and those who have it use it.

Just because it is normal, however, doesn’t make it right. What this whole episode proves is that there is an unhealthy coziness between special interests, lawmakers and legislative staffers, which calls for clearer boundaries and safeguards.

So what do we do about it? Stronger ethics rules, for one. (Something the Legislature has resisted with near-religious fervor.) A law that says former legislators cannot return as lobbyists until two years after their term ends, similar to the one imposed on Congress, also would not hurt.

Even better: Extend the same “revolving door” restrictions that now apply to Maine’s executive branch employees to legislative employees. (This would stop ex-State House staffers from immediately returning to lobby issues in their former workplace for at least one year.)

And tighter lobbyist disclosures — such as, if a registered lobbyist used to work for a state agency, the Legislature, or other governmental entity, it is disclosed — would also go far.

Again, there’s nothing criminal happening here. This doesn’t mean, however, it is the proper way of doing things. Overly cozy relations between lobbyists and lawmakers is asking for trouble. 

Yet it is, sadly, commonplace.

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