I’ve complained about the State Ethics Commission’s system of lobbyist disclosure. It’s a system that divides responsibility between lobbyists and their employers or clients, making it easy for both to fail to report their expenditures and, if questioned, claim they thought the other guy was supposed to disclose.

Here’s what I wrote in April 2009:

If these disclosure reports are taken at face value, it would appear that almost no lobbyists have cell phones. Nor do they drive cars or incur parking fees when at the Capitol. They never have lunch or dinner meetings, either with other lobbyists, legislators or staff, their own employers, interest groups, or others. They never buy a beer for themselves or others while talking business or making contacts. Few give gifts, although I wonder where all those things come from on the legislature’s opening day.

Few ever attend meetings, conferences, conventions, or banquets for lobbying purposes. And only very, very rarely does any lobbyist have lunch or dinner with a legislator or staffer where the total bill was more than $25.

I’m driven to the conclusion that the lobbyist disclosures are simply not credible, except in the case of fees being paid directly to lobbyists.

Later that year, I suggested using gift disclosures as a starting point for cross-checking whether lobbyists are actually disclosing what they spend influencing public officials.

With the June 30 deadline for gift disclosures looming, I decided to take another stab at the same technique.

The result–immediate questions.

Example. House Speaker Calvin Say, who maintains a very complete record of gifts, reported having dinner on August 5, 2010 with David Rae, lobbyist for three related companies–the James Campbell Company LLC, Kapolei Property Development LLC, and Aina Nui Corporation. Also at the table, according to the speaker’s gift disclosure, were Campbell executives Richard Dahl, Brad Myers, and Steve MacMillan.

Say estimated the value of his meal at $75, well over the $25 threshold at which lobbyists have to disclose the expenditure and the public official who received it. And if all the meals were of comparable value, the cost of the dinner was nearly $400.

So was this lobbying expense reported by the companies involved?

Kapolei Property Development LLC’s lobbyist expenditure report for the period from May 1-December 31, 2010 was filed by David Rae. According to the report, the organization paid $2,094.24 in fees to its lobbyists, but the entire amount went to John Radcliffe. Rae, who is also registered to lobby for Kapolei Development, was not paid for lobbying during the period, according to the report.

Kapolei Development reported no expenditures of $25 or more per day associated with lobbying any public official.

The company’s report was signed by Brad Myers, one of those who had dinner with the Speaker.

Aina Nui Corporation’s expenditure disclosure reported no lobbying expenditures during the period. Zero was entered in each category. The report was also signed by Brad Myers.

And I don’t see any expenditure report filed by the James Campbell Company for that period.

It’s the same for the Speaker’s more recent dinner with David Rae in March 2011, this one estimated by Say to have cost $100. Rae’s employers, Kapolei Development and Aina Nui, report no spending on food or entertainment during the period,and nothing valued at over $25 per day to anyone. Again, apparently no report was filed by the James Campbell Company LLC.

It’s possible that Rae’s individual lobbyist disclosure included the dinners with the Speaker, but those usually contain little information and require a trip downtown to the commission office.

Update: I made a quick stop at the Ethics Commission office to check Rae’s expenditure report for the period that shoudl have included the dinner last August. It reports nothing spent on lobbying during the period.

Here’s a photo taken with my iPhone. Click if you want a larger view.

So is lobbyist disclosure working? Not very well.