Monday, March 20, 2006

Because they do so much

Report indicates lobbyists spread the wealth with legislators
From steak dinners to "Lion King" tickets, legislators raked in perks from lobbyists in 2005, according to a review of lobbyist spending reports by The Associated Press.

Oregonians for Food and Shelter, a pesticide-industry advocacy group, for example, sent New Year's Eve flowers to three top-ranking Republican lawmakers: House Speaker Karen Minnis, Senate Minority Leader Ted Ferrioli and House Majority Leader Wayne Scott.

Democratic Secretary of State Bill Bradbury had dinner at the Bandon Dunes golf resort, courtesy of AAA of Oregon/Idaho.

In 2005, the state chapter of the Service Employees International Union, which represents about 18,000 public employees, was the biggest spender at $289,655.

After a long hard day of doing the citizens business, you know, passing Jessica's Law to protect our children, making Oregon's drivers licenses secure, not passing ridiculous 20mph speed limit rules and then recinding them a short while later, our legislators clearly deserve a nice steak dinner and some expensive wine.

Wait a minute...

5 comments:

BEAR said...

Hey, sue k., how about the whole state shouting about bradbury's screwup re the "disabled voting machines?" He is busy undermining the initiative process, and wasting $1,000,000 on another computer fiasco!

Anonymous said...

Be fair, Oregon is far from the only state to fail to get these done on time and it sounds like its largely the vendor's fault, not the state's.

Anonymous said...

Or how about Atkinson's being one of the top trough feeders for lobby money in his career, only to now campaign on getting rid of these special interests?

MAX Redline said...

"Or how about Atkinson's being one of the top trough feeders for lobby money in his career, only to now campaign on getting rid of these special interests?"

Interesting - though it'd be much more so if you had anything to back the allegations.

The Gentle Cricket said...

Daniel, how about an update on Your Academic Study