California officials report more than $929,000 in gifts in 2009

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state lawmakers received more than $929,000 in gifts last year, including overseas trips, boxes of cigars, bottles of wine, clothes and tickets to sporting events and concerts. Many of the gifts came from groups lobbying state government.

The largesse, shown in filings required by state law, dismayed government watchdog groups and even some state legislators who are advocating a $10 monthly limit on gifts from corporations and other interests that hire lobbyists to influence government officials.

“It doesn’t serve them well in the public’s eye when they accept gifts,” said Kathay Feng, executive director of California Common Cause. “There always is an appearance of influence no matter how small the gift.”

Schwarzenegger received the most gifts by far -- $585,000 worth -- almost all of it travel expenses paid by a nonprofit group of supporters to cover trips that he and other state officials took to represent the state in Germany, Denmark, Israel and Iraq.

The governor also was showered with cigars, bottles of schnapps and wine, jackets, books, pictures and even action figures from a Japanese toy company, he disclosed in his annual report to the state Fair Political Practices Commission.

Some gifts came from groups that routinely lobby state government, including the shipping company Maersk, the German engineering company Siemens and the head of Cisco Systems Inc.

The California State Protocol Foundation, which pays for the governor’s foreign travel, last year accepted donations from special interests that lobbied the state, including oil firm ConocoPhillips, United Airlines and Pacific Gas and Electric, according to documents on the governor’s website. Feng said the arrangement was an indirect way for groups to try to influence the governor.

Aaron McLear, a Schwarzenegger spokesman, defended the foundation’s decision to pick up the governor’s tab.

“The governor is interested in saving taxpayer dollars whenever he can so he’s happy that, just as they have done for past governors, the protocol foundation funds overseas trips,” McLear said in an e-mail.

State lawmakers reported $344,000 in gifts.

Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) reported nearly $3,000 in gifts, including $170 tickets to a Giants baseball game from the team, $250 in tickets from Google to attend a presidential inauguration reception (he was one of nine legislators who received such tickets from the Internet company) and a $111 ticket to a January 2009 Chargers’ football game from the team president.

Chargers executive Dean Spanos has been weighing whether to move the team to a proposed new stadium in the City of Industry that was made possible by legislation Steinberg pushed last year.

Steinberg declined to take a position on the proposed gift limit. His spokeswoman, Alicia Trost, said he believes that “gifts received by lawmakers should be disclosed.”

Trost said there was no conflict of interest in Steinberg’s having promoted the stadium bill, noting that the proposed legislation did not exist when the Senate leader accepted the football ticket.

Sen. Ron Calderon (D-Montebello) reported $5,400 in gifts, including $1,084 in travel and lodging paid for by the Assn. of California Insurance Companies to speak at one of its conferences. Calderon, who is chairman of the Senate Banking, Finance and Insurance Committee, did not return calls for comment.

Inglewood Sen. Curren Price Jr. disclosed $15,997 in gifts last year, an amount that topped that of every other legislator. Among the 35 items he listed: an $8,259 trip to China and Hong Kong from the California Foundation on the Environment and the Economy; a $4,100 trip to Israel from the Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California; $373 in basketball tickets and stadium snacks bought by Verizon and State Farm Insurance; and $275 for admission, access to the director’s room and valet parking for opening day of the racing season at the tony Del Mar Thoroughbred Club.

Price did not respond to calls for comment.

Big gift givers included the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn., which provided $22,000 in meals to 56 legislators; the Walt Disney Co., which gave Disneyland passes, movie tickets and meals worth $8,700 to 20 lawmakers and their aides; and the California Tribal Business Alliance, which spent $93,000 on meals for more than four dozen legislators and their aides.

A handful of elected officials, including Sens. Dean Florez (D-Shafter) and Dave Cogdill (R-Modesto) and Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, reported no gifts last year.

patrick.mcgreevy@latimes.com

jack.dolan@latimes.com

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