2006 Wis Eth Bd 09 - LOBBYING

The Ethics Board advises that consistent with the statutes that the Ethics Board
administers:

1. As long as a business that employs a lobbyist accords the privilege of
      serving clients on its premises and using its facilities to all members of a
      legislator’s profession living in the area of the business, and the
      legislator remains a member of that profession, the business may
      continue to extend that privilege to the legislator.

2. For a lobbying principal’s sibling corporation, the members of whose
      board of directors are identical to the principal’s board of directors, to
      furnish salary, compensation, or payment to a legislator, these two
      conditions must be present:

  a. Any salary, compensation, or payment that a sibling
        corporation provides or arranges for the legislator is
        independent of any services he provides for, at the behest of,
        or for the benefit of the lobbying principal.

  b. The principal’s sibling corporation must arrive at its decisions
        about whether to employ the legislator, and to determine his
        salary and compensation, and the nature, scope and hours of
        his employment, independent of the principal. As long as both
        organizations are under the direction and control of boards of
        directors comprising the same people, the Ethics Board thinks
        it likely that as a matter of law, the sibling corporation cannot
        meet this condition.