The majority leader of the Kansas House wants his GOP colleagues to really listen to the folks who matter: the lobbyists.
“Do remember when we have lunches, breakfasts, dinners and things like that, the folks that are sponsoring those dinners are sponsoring to spend time with you, to get to know you,” the majority leader, Chris Croft, told the House Republican caucus a few minutes before the start of this year’s legislative session. “That’s part of the deal, is that since you have to eat, this is the time you get to sit there and talk to them.”
The request, as reported by the Topeka Capital-Journal, was one of those rare moments when the curtain slips a bit and we get a glimpse of what is really going on in the hearts and minds of those elected to represent us, and the picture wasn’t pretty.
Croft, a Republican from Overland Park, knows a thing or two about free lunches — he received $2,669 in meals and gifts from lobbyists in 2023, including a $100 football game ticket from an Evergy lobbyist, according to reports on file with the state’s Governmental Ethics Commission. Remember that when you’re paying your electric bill. When’s the last time Evergy treated you to a football game? Yeah, me neither.
But Croft didn’t stop with just telling his colleagues to listen to lobbyists. He went on to encourage his fellow GOP lawmakers in the House to be respectful and to talk about their problems.
“So be respectful for them, that they’re paying for that brunch and be there talking about their issues and the problems that they have,” Croft said. “Don’t just grab it and leave, because that kind of defeats the purpose. So if you’ll help us out there, that’d be great.”
The deal is that lobbyists expect a return on their investment in lawmakers and that return is influence. A political scientist would say that what the lobbyists are gaining with their free dinners and gifts and whatnot is access, but access doesn’t come with an agenda.
– Max McCoy
Holy smokes, this guy Croft talks like Luhnberg from 1999’s “Office Space.” All he needs is a blue shirt and red suspenders. If you could just go ahead and sit there and listen, that’d be great.
But the comparison is unfair. While Luhnberg is a fictional manager who mumbles meaningless work speak, Croft is a nonfictional elected official who uses several key words that reveal the truth that nobody is supposed to talk about, especially when he refers to “the deal.”
The deal is that lobbyists expect a return on their investment in lawmakers, and that return is influence. A political scientist would say that what the lobbyists are gaining with their free dinners and gifts and whatnot is access, but access doesn’t come with an agenda. A lobbyist might say that what is being pushed isn’t agenda, but rather information about an issue that would help a politician make an informed decision. A lawmaker would say their votes are not for sale (that would be illegal!), but one doesn’t have to look very far to find a case in which lobbying seemed to translate into law.
To be absolutely clear, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle regularly help themselves to the whatnots. Lobbying is a nonpartisan gift basket that keeps on giving.
Here’s a list of value of the eats and whatnots some of the leaders in the Kansas Senate received last year: Ty Masterson, R-Andover, senate president, $2,080; Rick Wilborn, R-McPherson, senate vice president, $1,301; Larry Alley, R-Winfield, senate majority leader, $1,320; Dinah Sykes, D-Lenexa, senate minority leader, $920.
For leaders in the Kansas House: Dan Hawkins, R-Wichita, speaker, $1,779; Blake Carpenter, R-Derby, speaker pro tem, $2,717; and Vic Miller, D-Topeka, house minority leader, $2,051. All of these figures come from the Kansas lobbyist expenditure report searchable database.
Unlike state employees, lawmakers can enjoy a $146 dinner paid for by the Missouri Kansas Concrete Pipe Association (Sykes) or $105 in eats courtesy of Indigov (Carpenter), where “the efficiency of customer service meets the next generation of gov’t.” Whatever that means.
Kansas state employees are barred from receiving nearly any kind of gift. Forget the high-dollar dinners or tickets to football games. “As a state employee, you are prohibited from soliciting or accepting any gift because of your official position,” according to the Kansas ethics commission guidelines. “This includes, but is not limited to speaker’s gifts, pens, key chains, mugs, and flowers.”
For state employees, that is how it should be. It’s also true for journalists, where most outlets prohibit their staff from accepting anything more than a cup of coffee, to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest. This is part of the Kansas Reflector’s code of ethics as well.
Now, I can imagine what some of you may be thinking. Not all lobbyists fit the stereotype, some are good and helpful people, lobbying is just a way of life now in politics. Just because you’re a lobbyist doesn’t mean you’re Jack Abramoff. Don’t organizations that contribute to the common good, like the American Cancer Society or the concrete pipe industry, need lobbyists just as much as the tobacco companies and big pharma and climate-denying fossil fuel megacorps?
A few years back federal lobbyist and political operative Lanny Davis made those points and more in a chat with NPR. He went on, in the NPR interview and other venues, to call for more transparency in lobbying, including real-time reporting of the time lobbyists spend with lawmakers.
“The elephant in the room is money,” Davis said during the radio program. “Money paid to lobbyists, money lobbyists and their clients give to politicians creating an appearance of a quid pro quo which is corrupt. If you pay money and get something in return to a public official, that is a crime on both sides. We have no answer to getting rid of money in politics yet.”
Exactly. When you’re talking about lobbying, or really politics of any kind, money is the irresistible force that commands influence. Let me give you an example of what happened just a couple of years ago in Kansas.
In November 2022, the New York Times published an investigation into how a lobbying “blitz” resulted in laws allowing sports betting across the country. The centerpiece of the story was how Kansas lawmakers had been treated to a lavish party and plied with Irish whiskey and expensive cigars.
“In state after state, while lobbyists for sports-betting firms, casino companies and professional leagues cultivated friendly relationships with lawmakers and regulators,” the Times reported, “the interests of taxpayers and people at risk of gambling problems were often on the back burner, if they were represented at all.”
The sports betting rush began in 2018, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that federal prohibition of sports betting was unconstitutional and left the matter up to the states. An army of lobbyists fanned out, and by the time they were finished, according to the Times, 31 states had legalized online or in-person betting.
“The vast and largely unopposed influence of the gambling lobby has been on especially stark display in Topeka this year,” the Times dryly noted. “Lawmakers in Kansas rewarded major political donors, some of whom used networks of shell companies and political action committees to skirt campaign finance laws, with legislative handouts and lucrative licenses.”
The bill Kansas lawmakers passed was “an outrageous giveaway” that halved the tax rate on gambling companies’ revenues. When the law went into effect on Sept. 1, 2022, Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, placed the first legal sports bet in Kansas history. She praised the bipartisan effort that resulted in betting just in time for football season.
In 2022, lobbyists spent $760,000 getting to know Kansas lawmakers, according to the annual report from the Governmental Ethics Commission. There were 600 registered lobbyists in the state, outnumbering lawmakers by a near 4-1 margin. The annual report for 2023 isn’t ready yet, but preliminary figures from the state database indicate lobbyists spent half a million dollars on meals and gifts.
So it is unsurprising that Croft, the House majority leader, would exhort his colleagues to show respect to the lobbyists who provide all those free lunches where they can talk over their troubles. After all, they’re running the show.
You can bet on it.
Max McCoy is an award-winning author and journalist. Through its opinion section, the Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.
Excerpts or more from this article, originally published on Kansas Reflector appear in this post. Republished, with permission, under a Creative Commons License.
