When Chris Thyer describes a bill as a blow for better ethics, you have to know it’s virtually meaningless. And so it is with Robert Thompson’s pitiful sham of a bill to delay legislators from becoming lobbyists, beginning in, oh, 2011. I hope Thyer is right, that the people I know who are talking about an initiated ethics act can get it together. This will be one more example of a legislature unable to do right by the people. preferring to serve, first, three dozen or so current legislators hungry to go to work soon for people they are now helping pass legislation.
In this vein, they could outlaw lobbyist entertainment beginning in 2013, after current freshmen have left office (or make that 2021, after they’ve served full tenures in House and Senate). But even that isn’t likely to happen because the lobbyists won’t allow it.
I’ve written this week about a roster of common sense ethics ideas. DOA in this legislature, needless to say.