The Senate Ethics Committee hearings over state funds being used to pay for state agency and public university lobbying have come and gone. So have the PEER Committee reviews of contracts between consultants and state agencies — or at least a couple were reviewed.

Gracious, is anyone really shocked by any of this?

I hear lots of sizzle in this issue, but I don’t smell any bacon. Do you? Lobbying is big business in Mississippi. Huge. Take a look around.

In recent years, several major law firms and ad agencies in metro Jackson alone have expanded into the “governmental relations” or “consulting” business.



Big business

Back in 1995, records in the secretary of state’s office showed that Mississippi had 482 registered lobbyists who spent $3.8 million seeking to influence public policy.

By 2000, those numbers had grown to a phenomenal 645 registered lobbyists who spent $8.1 million. In 2007, the total compensation for Mississippi’s even larger group of lobbyists was $19.8 million. Former state legislators are begging to become lobbyists.

One of the last state journalists to conduct an exhaustive review of lobbying expenditures in Mississippi back in 2001 is now a lobbyist.

After 25 years of covering state politics, I have my own opinions about lobbyists. The majority of them perform a valuable service and are an integral part of the public policy process.

Why? Because, no offense, not all of the state legislators we elect and send to Jackson are exactly Masters of the Universe when it comes to public policy.

Like some folks in journalism, they need the benefit of hearing advocates on both sides make informed arguments for and against pending legislation. With time, they learn which lobbyists shoot straight and which don’t.

But make no mistake, there are a few of those lobbyists out there who live down to the stereotypes. There are still a few “lobbyists” who do their best work pouring whiskey with one hand and picking up dinner tabs with the other.



Their real function

But most lobbyists serve another, more effective function — they are there when legislative business is being done and that matters.

I will never forget a 1995 meeting with the House leadership and a group of state journalists over the eventually-successful effort to open legislative conference committees to the public and press.

In one of the more outrageously candid confessions in modern Mississippi political history, then-House Speaker Tim Ford said:

“Philosophically, I support open meetings and I support the concept of opening the conference committees to the public and to the press. What I am hearing from the members is that they don’t fear having the media present during conference committee meetings, but they are concerned about having to vote in front of the lobbyists. It’s hard to negotiate a bill and reach consensus and then have to vote with the lobbyists learning over your shoulder.”

Does anyone seriously entertain the fantasy that 174 lawmakers who are the focal points of $19.8 million worth of attention from lobbyists are going to vote to significantly limit lobbying?

Not happening, Bubba.

But it is reasonable to expect that tax dollars not be expended by state agencies to lobby the Legislature for more tax dollars and that universities use self-generated funds to pay for their lobbying.

Contact Perspective Editor Sid Salter at (601) 961-7084 or e-mail ssalter@clarionledger.com. Visit his blog at clarionledger.com.