Request By:
Mr. Charles Dibowski
Coordinator
Jefferson County Office
for the Aging
208 South Fifth Street
Louisville, Kentucky 40202
Opinion
Opinion By: David L. Armstrong, Attorney General; William L. Davis, Assistant Attorney General
This will serve to acknowledge receipt of your letter to this Office dated January 4, 1984. In your letter, you stated the following:
As we described on the telephone, our office acts for Jefferson County, in those interests that concern the elderly. Our staff, carrying on this role, discuss bills, issues, and concerns with various members of the State legislature. The issues we address are public ones, such as nursing home regulations, legislation relating to public utilities, living wills, legislation permitting programs for home repair for the elderly, and so forth.
We do not, at any time, involve ourselves in any issues relating to any private pecuniary interests.
We are, of course, on a salary and the only reimbursement involved would be for our costs of travel to Frankfort.
Since we limit our interests to public concerns, we request exemption from requirement to register as lobbyists.
Before addressing the specific issue of exemption, it behooves us to discuss some important principles.
First, lobbying has been defined as the process of soliciting members of the legislative body for the purpose of influencing their vote. 51 AM. Jur. 2d, Lobbying § 1.
However, the General Assembly has enacted laws which determine when a person must register as a lobbyist in Kentucky. A person must register as a lobbyist if he or she is both "employed" and acting with respect to "private pecuniary interests." KRS 6.250 et seq. A person is considered to be "employed" if he or she receives a salary or other compensation for his or her lobbying activities. For example, if a person is a full-time employee of a company, he or she is "employed" if the person continues to receive his or her salary while acting as a lobbyist. He or she is also considered "employed" even if the person is just merely reimbursed for expenses incurred while lobbying. OAG 76-7.
Further, a person must also be acting with respect to private pecuniary (monetary) interests before he or she is required to register as a lobbyist. In other words, a person who is interested only in legislation which affects the public is not a lobbyist within the meaning of KRS 6.250 since no private pecuniary interests are involved. OAG 74-342.
Based upon the foregoing, your staff would not be considered as lobbyists under Kentucky law since they are interested only in legislation which affects the public as a whole even though they are employed.
Therefore, it is our Opinion that your staff are exempt from registering as lobbyists with our Office. Nevertheless, we must note that if your staff do register even though they do so only as a precaution, the ministerial functions required by the pertinent regulations and statutes pertaining to lobbyists necessitate that they be treated as any other person who registered. OAG 76-7.
We hope that the Office of the Attorney General has been of some assistance in this matter. Also, we are enclosing copies of OAG 74-342 and OAG 76-7 for your convenience.