Keep ethics train moving

We knew at the end of the last legislative session that the ethics-reform bills lawmakers passed were only a start. The first reporting period under new lobbyist-disclosure rules bears that out.

If a way exists around having to list the specific names of lawmakers who received a gift or a meal, a lobbyist currying favor will find it. And the new laws provide plenty of ways. All you have to do is invite an entire committee or caucus and the entire meal becomes anonymous, regardless of how much it cost and regardless of who showed up. Also, meals under $25 are exempt.

And yet it would be easy to focus on the loopholes here and miss the progress. The new rules are tighter than the old. You no longer have to spend as much on meals or a gift to trigger a detailed report that names names. And Jazz tickets must be reported, along with the name of the lawmaker who accepted them. This used to be the big, fat exemption that allowed lobbyists to anonymously treat legislators to a valuable night on the town.

In addition, lawmakers no longer can simply enrich themselves by pocketing leftover campaign money when they leave office, and they won't be able to walk out the door one minute and turn around and come back the next minute as a lobbyist. A one-year waiting period is in effect.

Those are big steps for a lawmaking body that has been reluctant to even glance at suggestions to tighten its own ethical rules. But the impressive push for these rules by new legislative leaders must not wane. More needs to be done.

One change ought to be simple. The state's Web site should be modified so the public can search under a lawmaker's name to see specifically what he or she accepted, and from whom. Currently, the public can search only by lobbyist or organization. This should be a simple search-engine configuration. Voters need to know this information in order to stay informed.

Ideally, all minimum reporting limits should disappear, as should the exemption for any meal to which a group of lawmakers was invited.

Some will argue, as former lawmaker, now lobbyist, Kelly Atkinson told this newspaper, that meals are not influential — that campaign contributions are what count. And yet influence is impossible to quantify. There is something intimate about a shared meal. It tends to build relationships and, over time, trust. If that were not true, we doubt the practice would be so prevalent. A constant reporting requirement would remind all involved that the people's business comes first.

Full disclosure, easily accessible and searchable by lawmaker, whether of meals, gifts or campaign contributions, helps to build bonds between voters and their elected servants. These new laws move the state in the right direction. That momentum must continue.