Gotta start somewhere:
Washington Sports and Entertainment, which owns the Washington Wizards basketball team and Verizon Center, yesterday blasted Democratic plans to kill a sports ticket loophole from lawmakers’ $50 gift limit, saying it would damage an important local business.
“We support the concept of full and open disclosure on the part of lobbyists and lawmakers to comply with ethics standards,” said Matt Williams, senior vice president at WS&E. “However, we oppose a total ban on all corporate entertainment opportunities. And this ban of tickets to sporting events as gifts will cause a negative impact on our business.
“Probably more than any other franchises in professional sports, Washington, D.C.-area teams count business from lobbyists as a contributing factor to our bottom line. This ban will certainly negatively affect the business we do with one of the major industries in our region — the federal government.”
...The new House rules eliminate the wiggle room that stadium and arena officials have created for themselves by leaving prices off tickets to luxury suites and skyboxes.
“A gift of a ticket to a sporting or entertainment event shall be valued at the face value of the ticket or, in the case of a ticket without a face value, at the highest cost of a ticket with a face value for the event,” stated the new rule, which Democrats circulated yesterday.
It remains to be seen whether lobbyists or other benefactors can continue holding fundraisers for lawmakers. Such events are considered in-kind contributions to campaigns, and their propriety would depend on whether the value of the contribution exceeds campaign contributions. Now that the House has re-evaluated the worth of luxury box tickets, the Federal Election Commission could revisit in-kind contributions.
House Democratic leaders have thrown a new twist in the ethics rules for the 110th Congress by ending the long-standing exemption of certain sports and music tickets from the $50 limit on gifts that lawmakers and their aides are allowed to accept.
The new rules will take place just in time to foil the hopes of any House officials dreaming of free tickets to next month’s Super Bowl in sunny Miami. Likewise, young staffers hoping to catch the Red Hot Chili Peppers at the Verizon Center later this month, or older aides looking forward to Rod Stewart’s performance the following evening, will have to pay their own way if the tickets cost $50 or more.
... In recent years it has been common practice for lawmakers and members of their staffs to accept tickets, often to the best seats in the arena, from lobbyists and other would-be friends, even though House rules prohibited them from accepting gifts worth more than $50. That’s because House ethics officials had accepted the arguments of lobbyists that individual event tickets that are part of a season-long rental of luxury suites could be valued below the limit. But to good-government groups it was clear that the tickets were really worth more.
Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen, said lawmakers often accepted free tickets from lobbyists.
“They did a lot, particularly for very important events like the Super Bowl, for which tickets would be normally impossible to get,” said Claybrook, who added that lawmakers and aides often received tickets after they were sold out to the general public and would be “extremely expensive” to purchase from other vendors.
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