Okay. I may not have this completely accurate, but this is my general understanding of some items I wondered about. Feel VERY FREE to leave a comment correcting me.

I have wondered for awhile, since reading the calendar data of Sid Miller, how lobbyists taking legislators out to lunch or dinner works. I saw that in January of 2007, for example, Miller was taken out to dinner by Debbie Keel, lobbyist for AT&T. I looked at her lobbyist report for that month but it really didn't tell me anything. The list was sort of like "I spent X money on some senators" without showing WHO she spent the money on. I thought I'd call up the TEC and ask them about it, as in, is there a way to kNOW who and how much a lobbyist is spending lunch money on ?

I was told that each legislator has a per diem amount that includes gas food, etc and that' amount if $151 per day. The lobbyist amount is 60% of that or a little more than 90 bucks. And, for food, there's no annual limit on how much a lobbyist can spend per legislator on food, but there is on entertainment (I think 500 bucks annually per on entertainment, like freebie football tickets, etc). IF a lobbyist stays under that 90 amount for a dinner, he or she doesn't have to put details on how or who. I told the TEC guy that I don't think staying under 90 bucks for a dinner ought to be very hard-in fact, staying under about 35 bucks per person ought not to be hard. The campaign finance reports only list the amounts that the campaign pays for, not the state per diem or someone's personal expenses.

The TEC doesn't look at receipts for what a candidate or officeholder claims. So, on my second question, which is, how come Kip Averitt has American Express fees more than once a year? What are the rules for detailing what the heck that is?