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October 01, 2005
TFP Spreads Love Myth
Today's Metro section story about William Cotton's arrest keeps alive the impression regarding Charles Love that Tennessee's lobbyists want you to have. The story, credited to Kathleen Baydala and Candice Combs, calls Love an "unregistered lobbyist."
Lobbyists understandably want to put as much distance between themselves and Love as possible. They don't want there to be any sort of public perception that lobbyists regularly engage in handing illegal money from clients to legislators. (Heck, they don't even want you to believe that they regularly hand legal money to legislators. They're all about "research" and "issue analysis," to hear them tell it.) Lobbyist John Lyell proclaimed that Love wasn't registered, when Lyell was a surprise panelist at the Citizens Advisory Group on Ethics in Government's Chattanooga session.
There's only one problem. If you go to the Tennessee Registry of Election Finance's web page, click on "Lobbyists," then open the 2005 listing by lobbyist, you'll see on page 22 of the PDF one Charles Edward Love of Talley Road in Chattanooga. I think the TFP's confusion comes from the fact that you won't see the fake computer salvage company the FBI used in the "Tennessee Waltz" sting (E-Cycle Management) listed as one of Love's clients. In fact, the only "client" listed there is Charles Love & Associates. The simple point is that he is a registered lobbyist. I don't know of any rules that govern whether he can remain a registered lobbyist now that he is a convicted felon. From what I understand, being a lobbyist is just about as simple as saying you're one, and listing one client.
There are more problems in this story, but they aren't necessarily the fault of its writers or publishers. I'll cover them in the next post.
Government | By joe lance | 08:19 AM