I followed up on the issue of whether the recent UH arbitration decision is a public record by repeating my request to UH, this time in writing, and expanding it to include the post-hearing legal brief filed on behalf of the university.

It will likely take several days for the letter to get through the campus mail system and for their attorneys to find some fantastic claim for why they don’t intend to provide the requested documents.

We’ll see what happens.

I also finally got around to writing to the State Ethics Commission to complain about the failure of McDonald’s Corporation to include the amounts spent on its annual Legislative Reception in lobbyist expenditure reports required to be filed with the commission.

It’s the same issue that came up earlier with the Hawaii Superferry, which admitted to failing to disclose some $350,000 spent in lobbying for its special legislation several years ago. The admission came in response to my letter to the commission spelling out the company’s omission.

I don’t think McDonald’s spending is anything like that order of magnitude, but the issues are the same, and again illustrate the ease with which lobbyists ignore disclosure requirements.

It reminded me just what a mess our lobbyist laws are in, how relatively ineffective they are, and how many gaps, loopholes, or convenient ambiguities there are for lobbyists to take advantage of, if they choose.

Just for fun, I sat down to see whether a quick and dirty search could turn up other examples of unreported lobbying expenditures.

What I did was to work back from gift disclosure statements filed by legislators.

Although state officials and employees are required to report gifts valued at over $200, a few legislators go way beyond the requirement and report all gifts they receive.

On the other side of the transaction, when a lobbyist spends $25 or more on one person in a day, that amount and the name of the official must be reported to the commission by the lobbyist or the lobbying organization.

So I looked for gifts received by legislators from lobbyists valued at more than $25, and then went back to the lobbyist expenditure reports to see whether they were disclosed in that “$25 or more” section.

This technique isn’t straight forward. Sometimes it’s difficult to tell whether a gift comes from the lobbying organization or from the lobbyist, although few lobbyists report spending their own money (rather than the client’s funds) to influence legislation.

I first examined Senate President Colleen Hanabusa’s most recent gift disclosure statement because she typically does a thorough job of disclosure.

It doesn’t take much looking to find “issues”. For example, Hanabusa reports having a lunch valued at $50 in September 2008 paid by Outrigger Enterprises, along with an $85 book.

Although Outrigger’s report for the same period includes a hefty $3,207.56 spent for “food & beverages” and $585.85 for “entertainment”, the two gifts to Hanabusa are not disclosed in the section for expenditures of $25 or more per person per day.

One Planet Energy LLC sent a $50 floral arrangement to the Senate President on opening day, but didn’t it in the section for expenditures of $25 or more.

And while Hawaiian Electric Industries report spending $25 or more for Sen. Hanabusa and 13 other legislators, Hawaiian Electric Co. didn’t report its $40 dinner for Hanabusa on March 25.

Rep. Roy Takumi, chair of the House Education Committee, is another legislator who goes far beyond the legal requirements in making full disclosure.

Takumi reports attending a January 15, 2009 reception courtesy of Hawaii Medical Service Association valued at $50.

HMSA fails to report any expenditure during the period related to a reception and does not report the gift to Takumi in the “$25 or more” section.

Looking at the documents themselves always presents the possibility of interesting discoveries.

Rep. Karl Rhoads reports receiving two tickets from the Island Insurance Foundation for a fundraising dinner benefiting Hawaii Friends for Civil Rights. Rhoads valued the tickets at $400.

The nonprofit Island Insurance Foundation is not registered to lobby, and likely reported the expenditure as simply a charitable donation to the civil rights group. Conveniently, it was able to combine charitable giving with currying favor with a public official.

When I have a chance to sit down with the folder of original reports at the Ethics Commission, it will easier to see if the Foundation did the same thing with other charitable gifts.

While none of these are big things, they represent what is probably a larger issue of spotty compliance, whether inadvertently, deliberately, or out of habit.

It’s time for a thorough evaluation of the lobbyist registration and disclosure law to see how deep the problems are and whether