The state legislature is entering another week of debate over the proposed ethics bill. Lawmakers were originally supposed to have finished last week, but it became clear that finishing work on the bill will not be easy.
House members proposed well over 60 amendments last week including requiring all roll call votes to be put online, and watered down the ban on cash contributions – allowing donations up to 50-dollars.
Regulating lobbyists is a major part of the bill and some legislators think lobbyists should be prevented from buying lawmakers anything. Nurse Betty Wallace has been following the debate on talk radio. As Wallace shops at the Farmers’ Market on Sunday, she says she’s not against lobbyists buying small things such as dinner.
“Dinner, coffee, maybe. Trips to the Bahamas and all these extravagant perks, absolutely not. The fact that the legislators are accepting per diem expenses when they live less than fifty miles from Nashville I think should be eliminated.”
Another person, Calvin Quarles worries that penalties for violating ethics laws aren’t strong enough.
“If they put jail time up at the top of those rules, they’ll stop doing it. If they don’t put jail time, or they don’t put it where they can go into the courts and get into trouble with the courts and half to pay fines and maybe have to go to jail, they’re not going to stop doing it.”
The leadership of both houses hopes to have the proposed legislation in conference committee by the end of the week, where lawmakers will work out the differences in their versions of the bill.