Legislators’ Extra Income Up : Local Lawmakers Take In $227,000 in Gifts and Fees

State legislators representing the San Gabriel Valley received more than $227,000 in gifts and speech fees last year--double the amount they collected two years ago--according to statements they have filed with the Fair Political Practices Commission.

The leading recipients were Assembly Republican leader Pat Nolan (R-Glendale), who reported $19,000 in speech income and more than $25,000 worth of gifts, and Sen. Joseph Montoya (D-Whittier), who received more than $47,000 for speeches and $10,000 in gifts.

Sen. William Campbell (R-Hacienda Heights) and Assemblyman Frank Hill (R-Whittier) each earned about $20,000 for speeches. Sen. Art Torres (D-South Pasadena) picked up more than $18,000 in gifts, mostly foundation-paid trips abroad.

By contrast, some legislators accepted almost nothing. Assemblyman Bill Lancaster (R-Covina) said his only outside income was $500 for participating in a panel discussion sponsored by an insurance group.

Assemblyman Richard Mountjoy (R-Monrovia) gave no paid speeches and accepted a comparatively minuscule $466 in gifts, consisting of a parking pass at Burbank Airport, tickets from the Tournament of Roses and a trophy from the California Wildlife Federation. Others reporting no income from speeches were Sen. Don Rogers (R-Bakersfield), whose district includes part of Pasadena, and Assemblyman Richard Polonco (D-Los Angeles). Rogers reported $1,340 in gifts and Polonco $1,647, with the largest item in both cases being memberships in the Capitol Athletic Club, valued at $1,070.

Other legislators reported gifts ranging from free contact lenses to limousine service and trips abroad. Legislators earn $37,105 a year in salary, plus a tax-free allowance of $75 a day when the Legislature is in session. Some legislators say they cannot meet expenses, including the cost of maintaining residences both in Sacramento and in their districts, without taking fees for speeches or having other outside income.

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco), who received at least $124,000 in income and gifts last year from special interests having business before the Legislature, has proposed a ban on outside income as part of a plan to raise the salary of legislators to $85,000 a year.

But Sen. H. L. (Bill) Richardson (R-Glendora) said the Legislature could reduce the influence of special interests by making service in the Senate and Assembly a part-time job. If legislators had other full-time occupations, he said, they wouldn’t chase after lecture fees from special interests.

Richardson said the Legislature does most of its work in the last three months of a session anyway, so it might as well meet for just three or four months a year. Then legislators could spend the rest of the year working, paying taxes and living normal lives in their own communities, he said.

As it is now, Richardson said, legislators come to Sacramento and lose touch with the voters who elected them as they develop friendships with another constituency--the lobbyists who bestow gifts and honorariums.

Richardson said that he seldom gives paid speeches himself, but that many others find honorariums hard to resist. Richardson reported that last year he received $1,000 from the American Bureau of Economic Research for conducting an economic seminar in Anaheim and just two gifts: $198 worth of football tickets from UCLA and a $200 stuffed deer head from a taxidermy company.

Idea Endorsed

The idea of a part-time Legislature also has been endorsed by Assemblyman Nolan, but Nolan last year was one of the Legislature’s leading recipients of gifts and speech fees.

The rise in Nolan’s outside income has paralleled his rise to a leadership position. In 1984, before becoming Republican leader, Nolan received $10,000 in gifts and speech fees, or less than one-fourth of what he received in 1986.

Most gifts reported by Nolan last year were connected to his marriage in March and included donations for wedding reception and honeymoon expenses. Ralphs Grocery Co. and a San Diego seafood wholesaler contributed $6,500 worth of food. Friends donated $500 for wedding invitations and supplied free use of a condominium in Hawaii for a week.

‘A Little Embarrassing’

Anne Richards, the assemblyman’s press secretary, said that to comply with the state’s political reporting requirements, Nolan had to ask friends to assign a dollar value to their wedding gifts even though “it’s a little embarrassing.”

Thus, one can read Nolan’s Statement of Economic Interests for 1986 filed with the Fair Political Practices Commission and Secretary of State and find that the assemblyman and his bride received an abundance of china and crystal, including a $125 water pitcher from Speaker Brown and a $240 candy jar from President Reagan’s daughter, Maureen. Perhaps the most unusual wedding gift was a shotgun and a pistol, valued at $538, from a couple in Davis.

Nolan received speech income from 20 businesses and organizations, including Dow Chemical, General Electric Co., the San Diego Community College District, Security Pacific Corp. and the California Retailers Assn. Fees in the form of honorariums ranged from $250 to $2,000 per speech.

Direct Interest

At least $12,000 worth of Nolan’s gifts and speaking income came from businesses and groups that had a direct interest in state legislation last year.

Of the $57,000 in gifts and honorariums given to Sen. Montoya, at least $32,000 came from identifiable special interests, mostly from groups regulated by the Business and Professions Committee, which he heads.

He received $5,000 each from South Baylor University in Garden Grove and the P & M Realty Corp. Trust Account in Marina del Rey for speeches last year. Montoya said South Baylor University teaches acupuncture, herbal medicine and other techniques that are looked upon skeptically by the medical establishment, but which he believes have value. Montoya’s Senate committee oversees the licensing of doctors, contractors and other professionals.

Montoya said the Marina del Rey honorarium came from realty interests who were “appropriately appreciative” of his help in 1985 in sponsoring legislation to block a drive for cityhood in Marina del Rey. Montoya’s bill, which was enacted into law, was inspired by landlords’ and county government’s fears that tenants would form a city and impose rent control, depriving the county and marina developers of income.

The senator attributed his popularity as a paid speaker to the fact that he is more sympathetic to business than many of his Democratic colleagues.

“My point of view is appreciated,” he said.

Haunted by Remark

Montoya said he has been “beaten over the head” with a remark he once made to a reporter belittling his own speaking ability. He said that since he made the remark, news stories listing honorariums have often included a sentence saying that Montoya has conceded that he is not a particularly good speaker. But his self-deprecation is misleading, Montoya said.

“I may not be as witty as Bill Campbell or as intelligent as Willie Brown, but I am more relevant” on the issues he is invited to discuss, he said.

Payments to Montoya for speeches last year included $3,000 from the Encino law firm of Freeman and Golden, $2,500 from the Assn. of Physical Fitness Centers of Rockville, Md., and $2,000 each from Overseas Unlimited Agency Inc. of Los Angeles and Telephone Auction Inc. of San Jose.

Montoya’s income from speech honorariums rose sharply from two years ago, when he earned $12,400. Montoya said lecture fees are rising because legislators read the public reports showing their colleagues’ earnings from speeches and insist on receiving at least that much or more.

Speaking in the third person, Montoya said: “If Joe Montoya gets $5,000, Willie Brown is bound to think, why not command $10,000?”

Ban ‘Hypocritical’

Montoya said Brown’s proposal to raise salaries and ban outside income is “hypocritical” because it has no chance of passage. He said he favors a return to a part-time Legislature and is willing to vote for any reform measure that comes before the Senate.

The gifts reported by Montoya included a trip to Guadalajara, paid for by a medical school there, and hotel stays and meals in Lake Tahoe, Carmel, Palm Springs, New York City, New Orleans and Colorado, paid for by various companies and organizations. The California Cable Television Assn. paid Montoya $750 for participating in a panel discussion and spent $4,000 on air fare, hotels, limousine service and meals for the senator and his family.

$6,100 for Speeches

Assemblywoman Sally Tanner (D-El Monte), who heads the Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials Committee, earned $6,100 for speeches last year, including $1,000 each from Dow Chemical, the Industrial Environmental Assn. of San Diego and the San Francisco law firm of Orrick, Herrington and Sutcliffe. She received less than $900 in gifts, including an airport parking pass valued at $306.

Sen. Torres, who heads the Senate Toxics and Public Emergencies Committee, reported taking four trips abroad last year at the expense of various organizations. Euro-Mark, a foundation in London, paid $5,647 in travel and other expenses to bring Torres to London to talk to members of Parliament and others about toxic waste and water contamination.

California Co-Composting Systems Inc., a trade group based in Marina del Rey, spent $6,200 to give Torres a tour of German and Austrian plants that turn waste into building materials and other products. The Jewish Federation Council of Los Angeles spent $1,745 to enable Torres to go to the Soviet Union to meet with dissidents. And a university foundation paid $3,245 for Torres to visit Israel to talk with experts about desert farming and water management.

Torres said all of his trips had a legislative purpose but could not have been made without private support. He said that the state doesn’t have the money to send legislators abroad but that the trips gave him an understanding of how other countries are handling problems that face California.

Paying for Trips

“We’re lucky to have companies and foundations” to pay for such trips, he said, because otherwise “how do you get policy-makers to understand what’s going on?”

Sen. Newton Russell (R-Glendale) reported that he received courtesy memberships, worth a total of $4,320, in four private clubs: the Altadena Town and Country Club, Lakeside Golf Club, Oakmont Country Club and Verdugo Club. The Assn. of California Insurance Companies gave him a free trip to London last March at a cost of $4,285, and Cal-A-Vie, a health resort in Vista, provided $3,000 worth of lodging, meals and health spa use in July.

Russell, who is vice chairman of the Senate Banking and Commerce Committee, said the London trip was in company with other legislative leaders to talk with representatives of Lloyds of London about problems in the insurance industry. He said he and his wife visited the Vista health resort at the invitation of one of the owners, a friend from childhood.

Entertaining Speaker

Sen. Campbell, who has a reputation as one of the most entertaining speakers in the Legislature, accepted payment for 15 speeches at fees usually of $1,000 or more. He received $2,500 each from the Armenian Athletic Assn. of Pasadena and Pepperdine University and $2,000 each from E. R. Squibb and Sons, the San Diego Community College District and an oil industry organization.

Campbell also received a wristwatch valued at more than $2,000 from the California Coin Dealers trade association and the free use of a car from Puente Hills Toyota, an arrangement valued at $1,800.

Assemblyman Charles Calderon (D-Alhambra) reported $3,300 in speech income, including $1,000 from the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn., and $3,453 in gifts, including nearly $1,000 in meals and theater tickets during a trip to New York City in November. Calderon, who played a key role in legislation opening California to banks from other states, was among a group of Assembly members, wives and aides who dined at the 21 Club in Manhattan as guests of three New York banks. The restaurant’s bill for 21 people amounted to more than $6,000. Calderon reported his share at $492.

Free Airport Parking

Sen. Ruben Ayala (D-San Bernardino) reported $350 in speech income and $1,044 in gifts, including $433 worth of free parking at Ontario International Airport. Assemblyman Charles Bader (R-Pomona) was paid $2,800 for speeches and received $1,073 in gifts, including $396 worth of UCLA football tickets.

Assemblyman Hill attended a national cable television convention in Dallas in March as guest of the California Cable Television Assn., which paid nearly $2,000 for his meals, lodging and transportation. Pfizer Pharmaceuticals paid $3,756 to bring the assemblyman to Florida with legislators from other states to advise an organization called Portfolios of State Issues. The organization, which is underwritten by corporate sponsors, prepares audio tapes on major issues and invited the legislators to suggest future topics.

Hill also reported receiving $59 worth of contact lenses from Pearle Health Services Inc., a $1,070-membership in the Capitol Athletic Club and an assortment of football, basketball and baseball tickets.

G-Tech Corp., which provides computer equipment for the state lottery, paid Hill $1,500 for a speech and $3,170 in expenses incurred on a trip to Massachusetts. Hill, who is vice chairman of the Governmental Organization Committee, which has jurisdiction over horse racing and other businesses that involve wagering, also received honorariums for speeches of $3,000 from Quarter Horse Racing Inc. of Los Alamitos, $2,500 from the California Beer and Wine Wholesalers Assn., and $2,200 from the Huntington Park Casino.

Hill said he doesn’t see any public support for raising legislators’ salaries and banning outside income. And he points with pride to the fact that he has never voted for a pay raise for himself nor accepted payment from the state for out-of-state trips.

Hill said that the public’s interest is protected by disclosure and that he has no qualms about accepting trips from private interests “as long as everyone knows where you are going and who’s paying for it.”

GIFTS AND HONORARIUMS TO LEGISLATORS

Gifts Honorariums Assembly members: Charles W. Bader (R-Pomona) $1,074 $2,800 Charles Calderon (D-Alhambra) 3,453 3,300 Frank Hill (R-Whittier) 13,767 20,775 Bill Lancaster (R-Covina) 0 500 Richard Mountjoy (R-Monrovia) 466 0 Patrick J. Nolan (R-Glendale) 25,645 19,000 Richard Polonco (D-Los Angeles) 1,647 0 Sally Tanner (D-El Monte) 892 6,100 Total 46,944 52,475 State senators: Ruben Ayala (D-San Bernardino) 1,045 350 William Campbell (R-Hacienda Heights) 5,359 19,350 Joseph Montoya (D-Whittier) 10,430 47,364 H. L. (Bill) Richardson (R-Glendora) 398 1,000 Don Rogers (R-Bakersfield) 1,340 0 Newton R. Russell (R-Glendale) 13,432 1,000 Art Torres (D-South Pasadena) 18,378 8,450 Total 50,382 77,514 Combined totals 97,326 129,989