JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – The Missouri Ethics Commission (MEC) ruled Friday that a group of lobbyists improperly reported food and drink gifts to five legislators as group expenditures for a dinner last summer.
Fifteen lobbyists registered with the MEC that they attended the State Night dinner for Missouri at the Dallas Chop House during the American Legislative Exchange Council in Dallas, Texas. The dinner was also attended by state legislators, who were invited there by lobbyists. In previous years, written invitations were sent to every member of the General Assembly, but in 2014, not every member of the General Assembly received an invitation.
The total cost of the dinner for 37 individual attendees was $5,686.72 or $153.69 for each attendee. Instead of writing off the expenses made to individual legislators, the lobbyists cited the entire General Assembly as the recipient in their expenditure report, something the MEC found unlawful.
The MEC found there was “probable cause to believe that Respondents violated Section 105.473.3, RSMo, by reporting the expenditure for the State Night dinner as a group expenditure to the entire General Assembly, when the expenditures were required to be reported on behalf of the public official.”
The punishment for this violation, however, will simply force the lobbyists to amend their filings to cite the specific legislators at the dinner.
Executive Director of Progress Missouri Sean Nicholson, who filed the complaint to the MEC which prompted the investigation says the organization is glad the MEC is making the lobbyists disclose how much they “spend on freebies to legislators” but he holds some reservations that the ruling allows for lobbyists to continue to hide donations or gifts to certain politicians by calling them as gifts to the entire General Assembly.
“We are quite concerned that the MEC’s ruling on this matter provides a blueprint for lobbyists and politicians to continue hiding important information from constituents in the future,” Nicholson said. “As I read the Commission’s letter, any future gift can be reported as going to a group, even if only a handful of politicians accept the free food or booze, so long as there’s some evidence that all the other legislators in that group got a written invitation.
“So lobbyists and legislators can continue to party together on luxurious junket, know exactly who takes the gifts, and then dishonestly tell the Missouri public that the ‘entire General Assembly’ was there — so long as they keep their paperwork straight.”
