For the Virginia state capitol press corps, lobbyists' expense reports are a one-day story. The Roanoke Times/Virginian Pilot decided to delve deeper into the reports, looking for specific ways in which lobbyists influence the legislative process. The story, which ran July 12, began with a hunch: One sure way to a legislator's heart is through his or her stomach. To get the story, I built a database using FoxPro.
The Virginia disclosure law requires lobbyists to report certain details of any meal or entertainment costing $100 or more. The lobbyist must indicate the number of lawmakers present, but need not name names. I created six fields: Name of company, name of individual lobbyist, date of expense, location of meal, number of legislators present, amount spent. The database contained 149 records, representing 42 companies.
The next step was to look for any correlation between the dates a company took lawmakers to dinner and the dates when lawmakers voted on bills affecting the company. We logged onto the Legislative Information System to confirm the dates each vote reached a key committee or floor vote. The data revealed some interesting patterns. Virginia Power Co. entertained five lawmakers on Feb. 22, a day when the electric utility's centerpiece bill was unexpectedly stalled.
The lack of lawmakers' names made it virtually impossible to establish a connection between lobbyists' generosity and lawmakers' votes. The loophole shifted the focus of the story to an all-too-common fact in Virginia politics: Disclosure laws that lead to less-than-meaningful disclosure.