As many of you may know by now, I've been filing complaints for almost three weeks now about various lobbyists who are not in compliance with the City of Madison Ordinance. (Complaints can be found on the Isthmus Daily Page Forum, Local Government Section.)

Many have asked why? The answer is simple, there is alot of lobbying activity going on by a variety of folks and no one is in compliance with the law. Therefore, the public's right to know is being denied.

What would it take to be in compliance? Well, anyone who hires a lobbyist is a "principal." Principals are required to authorize the people who are being paid to lobby for them, and they are "lobbyists." These "lobbyists" then have to fill out "expense statements." These expense statements have several pieces of information on them.

First, the expense statement says who was contacted. The people who have to be noted are the mayor, the alders, the mayor's staff and department and division heads. The date and number of contacts and subject of the contact is noted. The second piece of information is that they indicate how much they were paid.

Why is this all important? Last year I had 180 contacts by people who I think were lobbyists. (It is true, in many cases, even those being lobbied don't know if someone is getting paid and by whom they are getting paid.) Those 180 contacts were not done during public meetings - they were completely outside the view of the public. I have no idea how many contacts the mayor, mayor's staff, department and division heads and other alders had, and it is near impossible to find out. I figure it would be staggering if we knew the full extent of activity. The only way we are ever going to find out is if people start complying with the law.

We tried to tighten up the law over the last six months, but the council couldn't reach agreement. I don't know if we'll ever make the changes that need to be made, but in the meantime, let's at least get people complying with the law.

After all of what has gone on lately at the State Capitol and in the federal government, let the sun shine in, at least here in Madison, Wisconsin.