Free drinks and food easy to find for legislators

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Posted 8:36AM on Monday, March 18, 2002

ATLANTA - Thousands of oysters and 320 pounds of shrimp helped Savannah businessmen run up a $42,000 tab wooing state lawmakers in January, kicking off the three-month schmoozefest that occurs at the Legislature every year. Lobbyists spend the session wining and dining legislators in hopes of getting a friendly ear for bills they want passed. The reports for January, released last week, show they spent more than $176,400. The Savannah Area Chamber of Commerce reported the highest lobbying bill that month for its seafood dinner, considered a social highlight of the session. Many cities in Georgia host receptions where the state's elite enjoy free alcohol and food, often barbecue or another local dish. The dinners give local politicians or businessmen a chance to rub elbows with the people who decide what laws get passed and who gets state funding in the budget. Savannah Chamber CEO Bill Hubbard said the expense on food and drink is necessary to draw lawmakers and influential state officials. ``It's a social environment, but our people are very well prepared to discuss our business priorities,'' he said. The buffets also allow city officials to descend on Atlanta all at once and pitch why they think their priorities should become law. ``If you don't see people from an area and don't talk to 'em, how do you know anything about them?'' said Anne Mueller, a longtime Republican representative from Savannah. Not that the receptions always do any good beyond showing city pride. Mueller pointed to a park renovation project for which Savannah hoped to receive $8.5 million this year, not the $25,000 or so it appears is on the way from the state. ``To say that if you put big money in, you get big bucks out, that's just not true. This year we didn't get a hill of beans out of it in the budget,'' Mueller said. Not all believe lobbying is quite so benign. Sen. Vincent Fort, D-Atlanta, has been railing against predatory lending for years and blames banking industry lobbyists for the fact that his bills have not yet passed. ``Corporations and large businesses that have the resources to lobby have the upper hand,'' he said. The Georgia Bankers Association spent $9,176.23 in January on receptions and dinners for lawmakers. The Community Bankers Association of Georgia also spent several thousand dollars. ``The wealthy and the powerful use those receptions for their own material profits and to influence the system,'' Fort said. ``Until we have a system where the wealthy cannot have influence out of proportion to their numbers, then it's all dependent on money. And the needs and wants of regular folks go unheeded.'' The president of the Georgia Banking Association conceded that fancy dinners are used to draw legislators for talks on policy and the bankers' point of view. But Joe Brannen said it's easy to blame lobbyists when something doesn't go as planned, when in fact lawmakers vote to please their constituents, not big business. ``If I were in their position, I'd probably say that, too. But the reason their bills aren't going anywhere is that there are problems in the bills,'' Brannen said. Sometimes lawmakers are feted individually or in small groups. Dinners, tickets to sporting events, even flower deliveries were listed on the January report. Rep. Pam Stanley, D-Atlanta, had the priciest personal gifts that month, accepting a $300 dinner and Atlanta Hawks tickets worth $260, all from Georgia Power Co. Sen. Charles Walker, D-Augusta, also took hundreds in gifts that month, including a $136 golf outing courtesy of a hospital group. Walker's total take was valued at $427.97 for January. On the Net: Read the lobbyist disclosures: http://www.ethics.state.ga.us