Senate committee OKs bill closing loophole extending ban on former lawmakers

By Brian Lyman;

The Senate Constitution, Campaign Finance, Ethics and Elections committee Wednesday approved a bill aimed at discouraging lawmakers from quitting in the middle of their terms to take jobs as lobbyists.

The bill, sponsored by Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh, R-Anniston, would close a loophole in the state’s ethics law that allowed members of one legislative body to resign and lobby the other one. Under current law as interpreted by the Alabama Ethics Commission, a member of the House could quit in the middle of their term and would be banned from lobbying the House for two years, but could lobby the Senate during that time.

That issue became particularly relevant last summer. Three House members, including former Reps. Jay Love, R-Montgomery, and Barry Mask, R-Wetumpka, resigned from the House to take jobs that at least partially involve lobbying.

Marsh’s bill would extend the lobbying ban to both houses. The senator told the committee Wednesday that it was an individual members’ right to pursue other opportunities, but that early departures required special elections that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“The taxpayers have to pay for that special election,” he said. “It (the bill) will encourage people to fulfill their term before they seek another career.”

In November, voters elected Montgomery County commissioner and restaurant owner Dimitri Polizos, a Republican, to succeed Love.

The loophole was opened up after the Legislature in 1995 revised the state ethics law, creating separate definitions for the House and the Senate. Hugh Evans, general counsel for the Alabama Ethics Commission, said the commission “had no choice but to interpret (the law) as it was written.”

The bill passed out of the committee unanimously. It now goes to the full Senate, and could come up for a vote as early as today.