Grove Park Inn Golf

There's an 18-hole golf course on the grounds, four tennis courts, five restaurants and three bars. A steak will run you about $50, unless you get the lobster tail to go with it. That's another $30. Cocktails at the Sunset Terrace run about $15.

(Courtesy Omni Hotels)

For more than a century the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, N.C., has been a favorite vacation place for the elite and well-heeled. William Howard Taft was the first of 10 presidents to stay there. Barack Obama was the latest. They say it even has a ghost -- the Pink Lady -- who haunts the hotel from time to time.

Now you can add to that list 15 Alabama lawmakers on a special interest group's dime. Last month the Alabama Lenders Association hosted four state senators and 11 state representatives there during that group's annual summer conference, paying for their lodging, meals and other social activities.

And here's the kicker. According to the Alabama Ethics Commission, it's all legal. Through a gaping hole in Alabama's ethics law, special interest groups can pay the way for public officials to rest easy in the Blue Ridge Mountains, or wherever else they see fit to take them.

But before we get into how special interest groups can exploit the law, let's be clear on what sort of place we're talking about in this instance.

When it opened, the Grove Park Inn might have been the sort of place Jay Gatsby would have stayed were he a living breathing man, but it was F. Scott Fitzgerald who summered there while Zelda was committed in a mental hospital nearby. The hotel has preserved one of the writer's rooms much the way he left it, but elsewhere on the premises there have been upgrades.

There's an 18-hole golf course on the grounds, four tennis courts, five restaurants and three bars. A steak will run you about $50, unless you get the lobster tail to go with it. That's another $30. Cocktails at the Sunset Terrace run about $15.

But the real attraction is the spa. A few years ago, Travel & Leisure magazine called its subterranean spa the 13th best in the world. Eighty minute treatments run from $190 to $490, depending on what day you go. I've only seen pictures, but they make Hugh Hefner's Playboy mansion grotto look like a frog pond.

This is how you vacation if you're in the one percent, and also if you're one of the lucky Alabama lawmakers and the spouses who get to go for free.

For more than a century the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, N.C., has been a favorite vacation place for the elite and well-heeled. William Howard Taft was the first of 10 presidents to stay there. Barack Obama was the latest. They say it even has a ghost -- the Pink Lady -- who haunts the hotel from time to time.

Who made the list?

Let's start with the Alabama House Financial Services Committee members, since that committee hears the legislation first that affects the Alabama Lending Association's members. That would be Representatives Jimmy Martin (R-Clanton), Mike Hill (R-Columbiana), Marcel Black (D-Tuscumbia) and Randall Shedd (R-Fairview).

I should note here that since Hill went on this trip, he is no longer an Alabama House member. He resigned earlier this month when Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley appointed him to lead the Alabama Banking Department. That's right, the guy Gov. Bentley hired to be the state's top banking regulator just came back from an all-expenses junket paid for by an industry he will regulate.

Rep. Steve Clouse (R-Ozark) was there. He's running to replace Mike Hubbard as Alabama House speaker. Minority leader Craig Ford (D-Gadsden) was there, too, representing the other side of the aisle.

Other Alabama House members included Richard Lindsey (D-Centre), David Standridge (R-Hayden), Kyle South (R-Fayette), April Weaver (R-Brierfield), Jim Carns (R-Vestavia Hills), Alan Boothe (R-Troy), Matt Fridy (R-Montevallo) and Johnny Mack Morrow (D-Red Bay).

Alabama state senators went, too, including Clay Scofield (R-Arab), Jabo Waggoner (R-Vestavia Hills), Tom Whatley (R-Auburn) and Cam Ward (R-Alabaster). All but Ward serve on the Alabama Senate Banking Committee.

But the real attraction is the spa. A few years ago, Travel & Leisure magazine called its subterranean spa the 13th best in the world. Just the pictures make Hugh Hefner's Playboy mansion grotto look like a frog pond.

The letter

Maybe the hardest thing to stomach might be how no one involved seems to see anything wrong with it.

Rep. Martin told me he'd been going to Alabama Lenders events for years, with the exception of the four years he spent on the bench after he lost one election.

"As far as our invitations to something like this, it is something that has been going on for many years," Martin said. "I had a four-year sabbatical because I got defeated, but then I came back and went right back on their invitation list."

At the very least, Sen. Ward was somewhat contrite. "If you're going to go to these conferences, you have to be ready for it when somebody sees you," he said.

Maurice Shevin, a Birmingham lawyer and director of the Alabama Lenders Association, insisted that paying the way for lawmakers to attend the Asheville conference was worthwhile for their trade association, but not a way of buying influence.

"Rationale for the attendance is so that our members have an opportunity to educate members of the legislature about traditional installment lenders," he said.

All I spoke with drove one point home: The Alabama Ethics Commission had given its blessing, called a precertification, making the event legal.

Last month the Alabama Lenders Association hosted four state senators and 11 state representatives there during that group's annual summer conference, paying for their lodging, meals and other social activities.

And the law

Let's be clear here. Although this junket breaks the needle on the Gag Meter, the Alabama Lenders Association isn't the only group culprit. Lots of interest groups routinely hold dinners and cocktail hours for lawmakers and even invite them to their state conferences, while picking up the tab.

But how is this one in particular legal? At first blush, Alabama ethics law seems pretty clear.

Lawmakers may attend so-called "educational functions" which the law defines as "A meeting, event, or activity held within the State of Alabama, or if the function is predominantly attended by participants from other states, held within the continental United States, which is organized around a formal program or agenda of educational or informational speeches, debates, panel discussions, or other presentations concerning matters within the scope of the participants' official duties or other matters of public policy, including social services and community development policies, economic development or trade, ethics, government services or programs, or government operations, and which, taking into account the totality of the program or agenda, could not reasonably be perceived as a subterfuge for a purely social, recreational, or entertainment function."

Emphasis mine.

It seems pretty simple, right? Educational, good. Recreational, bad. In Alabama, legal. Outside Alabama, illegal -- unless it's a national event.

But the body charged with interpreting and enforcing this law, it's never so simple. I asked Ethics Commission Director Tom Albritton how lawmakers attending a non-national event out of state could be legal.

According to Albritton, after the Alabama Legislature passed sweeping ethics reforms in 2011, the Ethics Commission classified events like the Alabama Lenders conference not as educational events, but rather as "widely attended events."

"You are correct that it would not qualify as an educational function but it does qualify as a 'widely attended event' which does not have to be within the State of Alabama," Albritton wrote in an email. "A widely attended event can occur anywhere because the language of the Code allowing them does not restrict its application."

What's more, the Alabama ethics law -- and at this point, it's an ethics law in name only -- exempts travel, lodging, meals and hospitality at educational events as a "thing of value" under the law when a lawmaker participates in a "widely attended event."

So what does "widely attended" mean? The law defines "widely" as 12 or more, but the event organizers need only to "reasonably expect" 12 or more people will show up.

Under Alabama ethics law, if teachers accepts gift baskets from students at Christmas, they'd better make certain those holiday presents cost $25 or less. Otherwise, they're breaking the law.

But if a special interest group wants to take their favorite lawmakers and their spouses to Paris, to Hawaii, to Timbuktu or Kalamazoo, they can pick up the tab at four-diamond hotels and five-star dining -- as long as they invite 12 people.

There was one lawmaker who couldn't make it to the Asheville conference, though. Their first full night there, the 15 Alabama lawmakers followed along on their phones as a Lee County jury returned a guilty verdict against Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard. The Democrats were giddy, one lawmaker said. The Republicans, not so much.

In that moment you could see not only the pretty vistas of Asheville or the grotesque patronage of special interests, but also the inanity and insanity of Alabama ethics.

Under Alabama's ethics laws, you can go to Paris or you can go prison.

For the careless, the law rewards them with a trip up the river.

But for the careful, it can spirit them into the cool blue hills.

Correction: A previous version of this column said that the Ethics Commission found that event hosts must "reasonably expect" 12 or more to attend an event for it to qualify for "widely attended" exemption. In fact, "reasonably expect" is part of the Alabama Code's definition, not the Commission's and the column has been corrected to reflect that. Also, a previous version included state Rep. Alan Baker among the lawmakers in attendance. He was not. A correction has been made, and I apologize for the error.