On January 13, the Kauai County Council will begin looking at legislation regulating lobbyists. Currently, Kauai County is the only county in the state without a lobbying ordinance.

The new ordinance will require lobbyists to register annually with the county clerk and to report annually lobbying expenditures and what the expenditures were for. Any lobbyist providing testimony at a public hearing will also be required to disclose his or her status as a lobbyists before testifying; this disclosure will have to be made each time a lobbyist testifies.

The bill will also ban all gift-giving by lobbyists. Councilman Gary Hooser, who introduced the bill, said this provision may be amended in later drafts to exclude gifts of aloha, which are items such as cookies, cheese platters, or flower leis.

The Seal of Kauai County courtesy of Collection of Chris on Wikimedia Commons.