Melissa Montgomery is employed as an HR Analyst III with the
Louisiana House of Representatives. She separately owns People by Design, a
trade name of Synergism, LLC, which provides leadership development, coaching,
workshops, and speaking services. All work for the business is performed on
personal time and uses no state resources, equipment, facilities, or accounts.
The business does not contract with the House or with any legislative entity, nor
does it reference Ms. Montgomery's state position in any marketing or
promotional material.
Ms. Montgomery will be presenting, without compensation, a
sixty-minute concurrent session at the Greater Baton Rouge SHRM Annual
Conference on September 23, 2026, at the Crowne Plaza in Baton Rouge. SHRM is a
local professional HR association, and the conference is expected to have an
attendance of approximately two hundred people, some of whom may be state
agency HR professionals.
Separate from Ms. Montgomery's presentation, People by
Design has purchased a gold-level sponsorship of the conference at the price of
$1,000, and the sponsorship entitles her to an exhibit table.
She asks whether the Code permits her to purchase the
conference sponsorship, to collect and use contact information from conference
attendees, and to offer a raffle prize consisting of a ninety-minute workshop
session for the winner's organization, delivered onsite at no charge. Ms.
Montgomery will include eligibility language on the raffle tickets which
excludes registered lobbyists, lobbyist principals, or current or prospective
vendors to the Louisiana Legislature, explicitly restricting entry to
non-governmental attendees. She asks whether such language will be sufficient to
prevent violation of the Code.
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