Legislators are allowed to hold fund-raisers while they’re having committee hearings, but are not technically “in session.”

That can get a little dicey as well. The regulated industries chairman fund-raiser was just a mile away from the Capitol and took place an hour after the committee finished a hearing attended by numerous lobbyists.

Perhaps fundraising is a fact of political life. But if legislators want to use that to justify these events, they should be willing to prove how average citizens who don’t have $250 to contribute have just as much influence as those who do.