An Act To Exempt Volunteer Lobbyists from State Disclosure Requirements
Maine Legislature, Session 124, LD 1448
Committee: Legal and Veterans Affairs

Legislative Document 
No. 1448 
S.P.534 
In Senate, April 7,2009 
An Act To Exempt Volunteer Lobbyists from State Disclosure 
Requirements 
Reported by Senator SULLIVAN of York for the Corn:mission on Governmental Ethics and 
Election Practices pursuant to the Maine Revised Statutes, Title 1, section 1009. 
Reference to the Committee on Legal and Veterans Affairs suggested and ordered printed 
under Joint Rule 218. 
Printed on recycled paper 
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JOY J. O'BRIEN 
Secretary of the Senate 
Be it enacted by the People of the State of Maine as follows: 
Sec. 1. 3 MRS A §312-A, sub-§10, as repealed and replaced by PL 1993, c. 691, 
§5, is amended to read: 
10. 
Lobbyist. 
"Lobbyist" means any person who is specifically employed by 
another person for the purpose of and who engages in lobbying in excess of 8 hours in 
any calendar month, or any individual who, as a regular employee of another person, 
expends an amount of time in excess of 8 hours in any calendar month in lobbying. 
"Lobbyist" does not include a lobbyist associate. 
"Lobbyist" does not include an 
individual who receives no compensation for lobbying other than reimbursement for 
lobbying-related travel within the State. 
Sec. 2. 3 MRS A §317, sub-§2, as amended by PL 2007, c. 630, §15, is further 
amended to read: 
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2. Annual report. Thirty days following the end of the year in which any person 
lobbied pursuant to section 3l3, the lobbyist and the lobbyist's employer shall file with 
the commission a joint report that must contain the information required in subsection 1 
for all lobbying activities for the year. 
The infonnation in the reports required by subsection 1 must be &igHea approved by the 
lobbyist or by a person designated by the lobbyist in section 316, subsection 1. The 
information in the reports required by this subsection must be &igHea approved by betft 
the lobbyist or the designated person and the employer. 
If the date any report required by this section is due falls on a day other than a regular 
business day, the report is due on the first regular business day next following the due 
date. 
In addition to the amounts identified in subsection 1 as compensation received or 
expenditure made for the primary purpose of lobbying, this annual report must include 
the total amount of compensation received by the lobbyist or the lobbying finn, or 
expended by the employer, except compensation received or expended for purposes not 
related to lobbying. 
SUMMARY 
The bill exempts from the definition of "lobbyist" individuals who received no 
compensation for lobbying other than reimbursement for travel within this State. 
Organizations providing such reimbursement would not need to register these individuals 
as lobbyists with the Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices. The 
bill also eliminates the requirement that annual reports filed by lobbyists be signed by . 
their clients, since those reports are primarily filed electronically on the commission's 
publicly accessible website. 
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