At the close of his State of the Judiciary speech last Wednesday morning, Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice Richard Teitelman remarked that it was never good to stand in the way of somebody and his lunch.
Lawmakers chuckled.
And, by the way, Judge Teitelman had just told the joint session of the Missouri Legislature that a free lunch was being served for all courtesy of the Missouri Bar.
There's always a free lunch in Missouri's Capitol.
Every day, one interest group or another serves up a dollop of this or a helping of that to lawmakers, thus helping them stretch their taxpayer-funded $98 per diem expense allowance. Meals are served in hearing rooms, delivered to individual offices or served in open spaces to whomever wants to stand in line.
And it's not just lunch. Evenings bring fundraisers around town, and, of course, lobbyists stand ready at virtually every restaurant in Jefferson City to pick up the check of any lawmaker who wanders in.
It's not necessarily nefarious. Lawmakers are quick to point out that they can't be bought for a barbecue sandwich or a T-bone steak or fried chicken, which was on the menu Wednesday on the third floor.
Each of the last few years, a bill has been filed to limit the free meals, if not outlaw them altogether. Limitations on such giveways are the norm in state legislatures around the country. Not in Missouri. Here, lawmakers seem downright indignant when it is suggested they should have to buy their own meals.
I'd been away from the Capitol for a few months. I went back for a couple of days last week. The disconnect between how lawmakers see themselves and how outsiders see them hit home.
In the Capitol, where elected officials spend a lot of time for five months, sometimes literally working all night, spending nights in hotels or bunked up with colleagues in cheap apartments, it's hard to see the forest through the trees.
Two years ago, right after a comprehensive ethics bill was filed, I sat in a hearing room the first week of session and watched a committee discuss a bill creating incentives for biotech businesses. They ate dinner provided by the very organization that helped write the bill. That same lobbying group had sent nearly every member of the committee to a conference the previous summer.
I wrote about the meal in the context of the ethics bill. Lawmakers were offended that I would dare make such a connection.
And yet this the scene is repeated in the Missouri Capitol every day. It's not just meals, it's also gifts, concerts, luxury suites and golf outings.
It's a lifestyle. It's a culture. And it's taken for granted.
On Tuesday, a couple of hours before the governor's State of the State address, I sat in a state senator's office chatting about a variety of topics. At one point, he leaned back in his high-back leather chair and yelled to his assistant, "Find me a free dinner tonight."
He thought nothing of how that might look from outside the confines of the Capitol's culture of corruption. And neither do most of his colleagues.
Buying somebody's meal is a personal and financial transaction. The lobbyists buying the meals know that. Every now and then, lawmakers should pause and let a moment of conscience come between them and their free meals.
— Tony Messenger
