Lucy Morgan, writing in the SP Times, clued me in on a practice I was unaware of:
House Speaker Johnnie Byrd passionately tried this week to defend fundraising in the middle of an important special session on medical malpractice.
He doesn’t seem to understand how unseemly it looks for lawmakers to be debating the hottest issue of the year one minute and putting out their hands for contributions the next.
Government shouldn’t tell candidates what they can do, Byrd insists. It’s enough to ban fundraising during the regular session, he says.
The Leg. banned this practice several years ago when it became embarassingly clear that lobbyists were, in essence, trading money for votes:
…former Sen. Malcolm Beard, R-Seffner, who compared session fundraising with “shooting quail on the ground.”
Beard noted how easy it was to raise money from a lobbyist who wanted his vote.
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