Ethics and pornography are very much alike, at least in one regard. Nobody is exactly sure how to define them, but everybody knows what they are when they see them.
In seats of power, that is not always the case, especially when it comes to ethics. Take, for instance, the argument raging in Juneau over how much lobbyists can spend on a meal or drinks for lawmakers before the expenditures must be reported to the Alaska Public Offices Commission. The individual limit, hammered out by stampeding legislators in 2007, is $15.
To be fair, it is impractical, but then, this argument is not really about the limit; it is about the reporting requirement for anything more than $15. It is about lawmakers balking at telling you who is buying them what and the hassle of reporting.
Some want the limit jacked up to $35, or even $50 to give a little wiggle room. As it stands, the limit is a constant, stressful worry, some lawmakers say, even dominating dinner talk. It is painful, they fret, and so much so that it sometimes interferes with the ambiance of their free meal. It is difficult to enjoy the tartar of Kobe beef with Imperial Beluga caviar and Belon oyster or the Dom Perignon White Gold Jereboam -- and then have to spill the beans to APOC.
When the silly limit was chiseled into stone in 2007 -- by lawmakers now anxious that it go away -- it was self-defense, tinged perhaps by self-loathing and self-flagellation. Scandal was howling with its hair afire through the hallowed halls of government, taking heads, killing careers. The feds were everywhere. Earnest men and women poking into drawers, searching desks, looking for smoking guns -- even hats. Bill Allen. Veco. Subpoenas. Hidden cameras. Tapes. Bribery. Rumors. Who, everybody wanted to know, was next? What can we do to make it all go away? Oh, God, when will it end?
Gov. Sarah Palin, never one to sidestep an opportunity to toss somebody, virtually anybody, under the bus, quickly cast a long corruption shadow on the Legislature. Surely those bums were guilty of something. She was going to clean up the mess and Alaskans loved her for facing down corruption and Big Oil and crooked politicians. Intimidated by her 80 percent approval ratings, legislators searching for anything that would make them look clean latched onto ethics like ticks on a hound. They were cowed into doing dumb things -- the $15 limit immediately comes to mind -- as part of Palin's clear and transparent ethics snow job. Three years later, and now weary of all the silliness, they are trying to raise the limit or stave off the reporting -- take your pick. The public is angry and the limit remains much too low to be practical anywhere but a McDonalds.
There really are only a few fixes -- discounting outright dishonesty, of course -- and only two that make any ethical sense, even in Juneau.
The first approach? Lawmakers would take absolutely nothing from lobbyists. Not a nibble. Not a drop. No reporting. No bills. No tabs. Lawmakers could eat whatever they want and pay for it with their per diem, which, for 57 of them last year, was $189 a day. Those who live in Juneau got less.
The second? Report everything. No minimum. No maximum. Lawmakers could eat and drink whatever they want -- and decorum allows -- with lobbyists paying the tab. The only requirement? It would be put immediately on the electronic public record by a beefed up APOC. It eliminates confusion and the appearance of trying to weasel out of a reporting requirement. It stops the bellyaching, which appears to spring from an entitlement mentality -- "I want the stuff; I just don't think I should have to tell you who bought it for me."
Either way, they win, we win. Each alternative just reeks of ethics. In one, lawmakers refuse to accept any lobbyist's food or drink, paying for their own. In the other, disclosure is satisfied and the public can decide. Either option appears to safeguard the Legislature's honor and people's sensible expectations.
Pay or disclose. Pick one and move on to issues such as Alaska's Clear and Equitable Share oil tax that is killing the state or the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act or any of the other economy-crippling legacies left behind like time bombs by the Palin administration.
Bon appétit.
Paul Jenkins is editor of the Anchorage Daily Planet.
PAUL JENKINS
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