In Georgia, lobbyists also go "catfishing."

A self-employed environmental lobbyist in the Peach State writes Dome that the word is most often used as a verb there, and not as an adjective, as in North Carolina's "catfish amendment."

"We use the term catfishing to mean bottomfeeding, finding unlikely sponsors for amendments that may or more often may not offer things that we want to see, but which will certainly screw up the bill onto which they get fastened," writes Neill Herring.

As an example, he said that a group of lawmakers were trying to pass a bill to build reservoirs. Opponents tacked on an amendment ordering the state to first build one in southern Georgia that had already been denied by the federal government.

More after the jump for the linguistically curious.

   Comments (0)