sums each year to entertain politicians and contribute to

sums each year to entertain politicians and contribute to their campaigns. There are several recurring measures his industry doesn’t want enacted and his job is to prevent their passage.

Yet this particular lobbyist, a veteran of the Richmond scene, thinks things have gotten out of hand. “It used to be that you could donate a few hundred dollars and be thought well of for it. But now that’s chickenfeed. Give less than $500 and you’re considered a piker.”

Not only that, says the lobbyist, but there are more hands than ever reaching out for the cash.

‘The Republican and Democratic caucuses have more and more receptions or golf tournaments or whatever and you’re expected to buy your fair share of tickets. Hell, I buy 10 tickets at a hundred bucks a throw to a reception and end up using only a couple of them. That means we’re paying a thousand dollars for a couple of drinks and a few pieces of shrimp.”

The lobbyist says members of his board of directors sometimes question the escalating cost of being kind to politicians and, “I have to try to educate them. The public interest groups and the press think we’re people who are anxious to shovel money at politicians and beg them to take it. But it works the other way. The politicians come up with new ways all the time to dig deeper into our pockets.”

Unlike federal election laws and the laws of some other states, the sky’s the limit when it comes to political contributions in Virginia. Fitting a limit on how much any individual or group could give in a specified period would be one way of forcing politicians, particularly incumbents, to try to broaden their appeals for donations instead of focusing mainly on well-heeled contributors.

Again the fact is that the largest contributions to seekers of state office come from wealthy individuals