Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 17, 1993 TAG: 9307170161
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
Bates told the legislative subcommittee on ethics and campaign reform Thursday that he is simply doing his job.
Bates recently changed the conflict-of-interests forms that lobbyists must file each year, broadening them to include such campaign contributions as the purchase of tickets to political fund-raisers and other events. The changes call for a closer accounting of lobbyists' expenditures.
"An absurdity" said Del. Alan Diamonstein, D-Newport News, of Bates' changes. "Your ideas are good but [the new requirements] are unworkable or unnecessary."
House Majority Leader Richard Cranwell, D-Vinton, said Bates had exceeded his authority and that it was arrogant for the government to impose such rules without clear statutory authority.
Cranwell said Bates should get any changes cleared through the attorney general's office. Bates said later he had cleared them with an official in the office.
"They're taking their cue from the lobbyists," Bates said of the subcommittee after the hearing. "I'm taking my lead from the public."
Defending his changes, Bates told the panel that "the public has a right to know the extent of legislators' relationship with lobbyists."
One lawmaker asked Bates why he hasn't proposed requiring lobbyists to report their contributions and gifts to members of the executive branch, including Gov. Douglas Wilder.
"You're ignoring the executive branch of government. There should be uniformity of application," said Del. Glenn Croshaw, D-Virginia Beach.
Bates, a former director of the House Democratic Caucus, was appointed to the post last spring by Wilder. He also was deputy manager of Wilder's short-lived presidential campaign.
Croshaw complained that Wilder had not provided details of the $1 million he raised and kept from his inaugural. Croshaw also said it was unfair that lobbyists did not have to report their contributions, if any, to a Wilder appreciation party held last month for Wilder on the Eastern Shore.
Wilder's own ethics commission, which contained no legislators, had recommended that lobbyists' expenditures on the executive branch should be reported in the annual statements.
The General Assembly this year killed that and other major commission reforms, claiming that it hadn't had time to study the proposals.
The subcommittee was established to study the proposals and report their findings to the 1994 session of the assembly.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB