Conservative group at work in Ohio, records show

JULIE CARR SMYTH

AP State­house Correspondent

COLUMBUS — Hun­dreds of emails were sent through an Ohio lawmaker’s office last year to arrange free meals and other perks for leg­is­la­tors from lob­by­ists at events spon­sored by the con­ser­v­a­tive Amer­i­can Leg­isla­tive Exchange Coun­cil, records show.

The Ohio House sched­uler was asked to arrange ses­sion dates around coun­cil events and obliged, rais­ing ques­tions about the council’s sway at the Statehouse.

The Asso­ci­ated Press reviewed emails obtained by the Cen­ter for Media and Democ­racy. It’s part of a coali­tion of lib­eral activist groups lead­ing a national cam­paign to high­light the council’s oper­a­tions and cor­po­rate ties, as well as con­tro­ver­sial bills it has pushed, includ­ing voter iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and “stand your ground” gun legislation.

Activists com­plain the coun­cil improp­erly influ­ences the leg­isla­tive process by allow­ing cor­po­rate lead­ers to draft leg­is­la­tion along­side leg­is­la­tors. Under Ohio law, state law­mak­ers can’t take gifts worth more than $75 — but happy hours, lav­ish din­ners, con­certs and sport­ing events at coun­cil con­fer­ences are largely exempt.

For the period of the emails, those events included con­fer­ences in New Orleans and Phoenix and a Cincin­nati Reds base­ball game.

State email records show mostly Repub­li­can state law­mak­ers attended the group’s con­fer­ence in August 2011 in New Orleans, some­thing Brian Rothen­berg, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the lib­eral pol­icy group Pro­gres­sO­hio, said shows it is not a bipar­ti­san entity, like the National Con­fer­ence of State Leg­is­la­tures or the Coun­cil on State Governments.

“Clearly, this is hardly bipar­ti­san. It’s a very con­ser­v­a­tive effort to sit at the table with large cor­po­ra­tions, pro­vide model leg­is­la­tion on con­ser­v­a­tive objec­tives, and change the way Ohio laws work,” he said. As crit­i­cism has grown nation­ally, cor­po­ra­tions such as Wal-Mart and Ama­zon have dropped their affil­i­a­tion with the group.

Activ­i­ties for Ohio law­mak­ers were coor­di­nated through GOP state Rep. John Adams of Sid­ney and his aide, Kara Joseph. Adams was the council’s leg­isla­tive chair­man in Ohio, and he and Joseph were dubbed, respec­tively, the council’s leg­is­la­tor and vol­un­teer of the year.

In emails, Joseph acted as liai­son among coun­cil staff, Ohio lob­by­ists and law­mak­ers attend­ing the con­fer­ence — cre­at­ing indi­vid­ual itin­er­aries of lob­by­ist events for indi­vid­ual law­mak­ers. Those included a cigar night at “the Mount Rush­more of bars” hosted by Ohio lob­by­ist Sean Dunn’s firm and a din­ner at ritzy Antoine’s hosted by the Ohio Petro­leum Coun­cil and BP.

Leg­isla­tive Inspec­tor Gen­eral Tony Bled­soe issued guid­ance on state ethics laws in June to both law­mak­ers and lob­by­ists as a result of con­cern raised by advo­cates over coun­cil activity.

He warned that for con­fer­ence perks to be exempt from the $75 state limit, the host orga­ni­za­tion, in this case the coun­cil itself, must deter­mine who is invited, extend the invi­ta­tion and place the activ­ity on the con­fer­ence agenda.

Emails show some lob­by­ists doing the direct plan­ning of events. “Please do not sched­ule your bosses for any din­ners while at ALEC in New Orleans, Joseph wrote to her State­house col­leagues. “All din­ners are being sched­uled through me.”

Coun­cil con­fer­ences are con­sid­ered “offi­cial busi­ness” for law­mak­ers because it’s rec­og­nized by the state as a legit­i­mate pol­icy group and the state pays law­mak­ers’ dues, Bled­soe said. In that way, it is sim­i­lar to the National Con­fer­ence of State Leg­is­la­tures and the Coun­cil on State Gov­ern­ments, he said.

The coun­cil is “a long-time civic orga­ni­za­tion that pro­vides a won­der­ful forum for pol­i­cy­mak­ers and opin­ion lead­ers to share ideas,” Adams said in a state­ment given to the AP.

“It is a shame that this orga­ni­za­tion has been the sub­ject of a par­ti­san witch hunt by lib­eral orga­ni­za­tions that seek to demo­nize ALEC,” he said.

Repub­li­can State Sen. Bill Seitz, another con­fer­ence attendee and mem­ber of the council’s national board, said he pays his own dues and believes other law­mak­ers do, too.

“They have to pay real money to belong. Unlike NCSL and CSG, which are tax­payer sup­ported, ALEC is not tax­payer sup­ported,” he said. “So to have approx­i­mately 2,000 state leg­is­la­tors across the coun­try will­ing to shell out $100 for a two-year mem­ber­ship shows that there’s 2,000 peo­ple out there in state­houses who really believe in the mis­sion of the organization.”

Seventy-two of 132 law­mak­ers serv­ing at the start of this ses­sion— includ­ing every mem­ber of GOP lead­er­ship in both leg­isla­tive cham­bers — are mem­bers of the council.

The state pays a blan­ket fee to belong to the coun­cil, and many mem­ber law­mak­ers pay their indi­vid­ual dues through their cam­paign accounts, Rothen­berg said.

“Hav­ing the state pay dues is their loop­hole for not hav­ing to report these events,” he said. “It clearly flouts the ethics law.”

Seitz said it’s no coin­ci­dence the anti-ALEC push emerged after con­ser­v­a­tives took 800 new seats in state leg­is­la­tures across the U.S. in 2010.

“This is gigan­tic effort by the orga­nized left to cry sour grapes,” he said. “So they’re still cry­ing in their beer over the 2010 elec­tions to try to dis­credit ALEC from doing noth­ing more, noth­ing less than it’s done for 30-some years but now is doing more successfully.”

He notes that Ohio did not pass voter iden­ti­fi­ca­tion or self-defense gun laws that are in the crosshairs of coun­cil critics.

Posted by AP News on Aug 16 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.