More than a year after lawmakers passed a ban on all gifts from lobbyists, there is still a fog around what is and isn't allowed.
Case in point: The Florida Association of Counties a couple weeks ago wanted to throw a party at an employee's house for state Rep. Julio Robaina, R-Miami, and lawmakers on the House Urban and Local Affairs Committee he chairs.
"The counties thought under the rules that if each of the members brought something like a bottle of wine or a dessert then that would be a 'contribution' towards the dinner and therefore they would not have to report the dinner," committee director Mark Kruse wrote to the House's chief lawyer, Jeremiah Hawkes.
Wrong.
"We have not to my knowledge ever said that bartering would absolve members of responsibility under the expenditure ban," Hawkes wrote back.
He also pointed out that entertaining the entire committee at one off-campus location could raise the ire of the media, coming after critical coverage of a private meeting members had to discuss stem cell research.
"Both of these matters have been sensitive topics as of late and I would recommend that members either have the dinner somewhere the press and interested members of the public could watch, or not have the dinner," he concluded.
Afterward, the dinner was promptly canceled, FAC says.
Clear? Well, uh . . .
Two weeks earlier, House deputy counsel Steve Godwin had apparently OK'd bartering to let lawmakers get into another party for free at the home of Associated Industries of Florida lobbyist Keyna Cory.
Acceptable items for exchange would be, "for example, a bottle of wine, a bouquet of flowers, and the like," Godwin wrote.