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The 2021 Virginia General Assembly convened last winter as Covid infections peaked, upending the annual legislative session in Richmond.
No Action at the State Capitol
The state Capitol was nearly deserted last winter. The 40-member state Senate decamped to the nearby Science Museum of Virginia. Members of the 100-member House of Delegates stayed home and met over Zoom.
House of Delegates Appropriations Committee meets virtually on Feb. 10, 2021.
The Richmond Restaurant Scene
This shut down the evening reception circuit. But one tradition stayed alive -- lobbyists treating legislators to a night on the town. According to annual disclosure reports, lobbyists reported hosting 35 dinners with executive or legislative officials in Richmond during the General Assembly session, which began January 6 and adjourned March 1. This was down from 106 dinners the previous year.
The calendar includes all lobbying entertainment reported from May 2020 through April 2021, not those that took place in Richmond during the 2021 General Assembly
Who was entertained?
In Virginia, lobbyists can provide free meals and entertainment to legislative and executive officials. But lobbyists are required to disclose officials' names only when the cost per person exceeds $50. In practice, most lobbyist entertainment disclosures do not name names.
Not every dinner is expensive enough to trigger a lobbyist to disclose the names of officials entertained. Some meals take place in BBQ joints or pizza parlors, where one would be hard-pressed to spend more than $50 a person. Some dinners include legislators who pay for their own meal.
But the biggest reason this year was bill-splitting. During the 2021 General Assembly session, nearly two-thirds of the 33 dinners for which lobbyists named no names involved split bills. Here is how it works:
How one meal can turn into three meals
Virginia's disclosure rules allow two or more lobbyists to split the costs of a single meal. It also allows one lobbyist to distribute the cost of a single meal across multiple clients. This can drive down the per-person cost to $50 or less.
In the hypothetical example above, a Senator was treated to a $90 dinner. The lobbyist split the bill among three different clients. Later, the lobbyist filed three separate entertainment reports, each with a per-person cost of $30. As a result, there was no requirement to disclose the Senator's name.
More information on lobbyist entertainment:
Source: Lobbyist disclosure statements covering activity from May 1, 2020 through April 30, 2021 filed with the Virginia Ethics Council.
