COLUMN ONE : Wielding New Clout in Capitol : Despite efforts to curb excesses, lobbyists remain a formidable force in Sacramento. Their big-money power game grows as term limits, staff cuts make lawmakers rely more on outside help.

Forty years ago, California liquor lobbyist Artie Samish posed for a photograph with a ventriloquist’s dummy on his knee. “That’s the way I lobby,” the portly Samish explained to a reporter. “That’s my Legislature.”

Sitting there with his boater tilted rakishly atop his head, Samish was everyone’s image of a lobbyist--a corpulent deal-maker, cynical string-puller and secretive political boss.

A few years later, he was in federal prison on tax charges, as much a victim of his intemperate boasting as of his failure to report all his income.

Much has changed since Samish bragged that he could tell in an instant whether a lawmaker needed “a baked potato or a girl or money.”

New laws governing lobbying curb many of the excesses of the past. Methods have been updated, techniques refined.

But make no mistake about it: Lobbying remains what it has been since statehood--a formidable and mostly hidden force in California’s Capitol.

Indeed, the influence of lobbyists appears to be on the rise as legislative term limits, staff reductions and cost cutting have their impact--making lawmakers more dependent than they’ve been in decades on these special interest advocates for information and direction.

It is no exaggeration when legislators and lobbyists alike refer to the 1,055-member registered lobbying corps as the Third House of the Legislature--a partner in the making of laws with the Senate and the Assembly.

Lobbyists write bills, work out deals among conflicting interests, befriend legislators and sometimes draft speeches for them. Lobbyists also work the executive branch, urging the governor to sign or veto legislation and trying to influence the way agencies administer laws and draft regulations.

Nowhere in this nation, outside Washington, is more money spent trying to influence government, according to figures compiled by the nonprofit Council of State Governments. Special interests spent almost a quarter of a billion dollars lobbying in Sacramento during the last two-year legislative session--matching the amount that taxpayers spent to run the entire state legislative branch.

The eye-popping amounts paid to lobbyists are not surprising, given the stakes involved. California’s government has vast power over the economic life of 30 million residents--over every factory, office and mom-and-pop store.

And in a democracy, where all voices have a right to speak out, those willing to spend the most are usually able to speak the loudest. The wealthiest interests hire cadres of lobbyists and back up their efforts with substantial political contributions--often directed by their lobbyists--to keep sympathetic officeholders in Sacramento.

Money does not always prevail in the state Capitol, but it opens doors, it is respected and it buys clout.

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Few here have the clout of Dennis E. Carpenter, a onetime Republican state senator from Orange County who has been a lobbyist since 1980.

A lawyer and ex-FBI agent, Carpenter, 64, heads a firm with a gold-plated client list including insurance, tobacco and oil companies as well as trash haulers and a lottery supplier. These firms donated $1.6 million to legislators in 1992, according to Capitol Weekly, an insider publication that runs a campaign-contribution database.

His clients pay Carpenter and his four colleagues handsomely for their efforts--$2.3 million last year, the most earned by any lobbying firm in the Capitol.

A big, genial man, quick with a quip but deadly serious about his work, he describes how he discovered lobbying’s power to shape government action.

“As minority (party) member in the Senate, I couldn’t get things done,” he said in a recent interview, “but as a lobbyist I could.”

Carpenter staunchly defends his profession.

“You people in the press think that lobbying is an evil act and best be eliminated, but it’s just a way for people to be represented,” he said. “Thirty million people can’t do it themselves, and I figure that everyone has six or seven (lobbyists) representing them here.”

He conceded that not all interests are represented equally in the Capitol, but added, “If (an issue) is worth fighting about, usually two sides are represented, sometimes in excess.”

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Many legislators worry that the influence of lobbyists, beaten back over the years by attempts at reform, is undergoing a resurgence, particularly now that the Legislature has been forced to cut its staff by Proposition 140, the term-limits initiative. There is also concern that a new crop of inexperienced legislators will be more easily swayed by lobbying.

Lobbyists say they more often write bills and prepare speeches for legislators to deliver during floor debates, and are generally doing things once done by legislative aides.

Today’s lobbyists are more likely to consider themselves professionals than political kingpins. Increasingly they are women--30% of those registered compared to 6% in 1975. Large numbers are attorneys. Many of the most influential have come through the revolving door; they are former legislators, aides to governors, and legislative staff members.

“Writing a bill isn’t hard,” said Karen Coker Keeslar, who became a lobbyist for the California State Assn. of Counties after years of representing private and government clients. For her, not being a lawyer isn’t a problem: “You don’t have to be a cook to write a recipe.”

Dressed in conservative suits and dresses, Sacramento’s lobbyists resemble salespeople peddling their wares from one legislative office to another, toting satchels of position papers and endorsement letters.

Although some of the salesmanship takes place in crowded public committee hearings, the sales are more likely to be clinched behind closed doors in private meetings between lobbyist and legislator.

“Bills are not passed or killed in committee,” said former Assemblyman John P. Quimby (D-San Bernardino), who became a lobbyist after leaving public office two decades ago. “They are done one on one.”

Pitching clients can be as much a part of lobbying as courting legislators. The final outcome, the success or failure of an individual bill, may be less important than demonstrating that a lobbyist has opened doors and gotten past secretaries to make the case directly to legislators.

Although lobbying styles are tamer than they were when Artie Samish kept a supply of steaks and liquor in his hotel room, the essence is the same--using every tool available to get legislators to act in a client’s interests.

“My job for my clients is getting people in government to do what my clients want them to do,” said George R. Steffes, who began lobbying in 1971 after serving as legislative aide to then-Gov. Ronald Reagan. Today, he heads a lobbying firm that took in $1.6 million last year from a long list of clients, including Burger King, Bechtel, IBM and several newspapers--among them the Los Angeles Times.

The old hands, like Steffes and Carpenter, have known many of the legislators for years and appear to have little difficulty gaining access.

“The good ones learn your habits,” said state Sen. Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward). “They know when you come in, where you have lunch, when you have a committee meeting. There’s an art form to it.”

At times, the competition for legislators’ attention is intense.

During the last two-year legislative session, special interests ranging from organized medicine to oil companies, teachers to manufacturers, United Way to the Sierra Club, reported spending $234 million directly on lobbying--more than double a decade before.

Today, there are 1,055 registered lobbyists working the Capitol, compared to 576 in 1973.

And the bare numbers underestimate the size and cost of the business because of the state’s narrow definition of what constitutes lobbying. Those who make fewer than 25 contacts to influence legislators or other state officials in any two-month period do not have to register.

On one recent afternoon, scores of lobbyists were jammed into narrow halls outside the Assembly and Senate chambers, watching the floor sessions on overhead television monitors. One lobbyist scribbled a note on her business card, then pressed her mouth against it, leaving behind a lipstick imprint. A sergeant-at-arms matter-of-factly carried the card into the Senate chamber, and a few minutes later a flustered senator shuffled out to be greeted by a pitch for a bill.

Such behavior is atypical, but at least for some lobbyists, what counts is what works. The troubling image of lobbyist as master manipulator, as ventriloquist, persists.

Privately, many lobbyists say they are concerned about conduct they see in the Capitol. One member of a major lobbying firm, who asked not to be identified, said that reforms and the threat of prosecution have not eliminated corruption. “A lot of rules that were violated in the past are still being violated,” he said.

One of the most successful lobbyists in the Capitol, Clayton R. Jackson, whose firm took in $2.1 million last year, was indicted on federal political corruption charges earlier this year. One allegation is that he used client campaign contributions to bribe former Democratic state Sen. Alan Robbins, now in the federal prison camp at Lompoc after pleading guilty to related charges. Jackson has denied wrongdoing and is preparing for a mid-October trial.

Aware of their public reputation, some lobbyists declined to speak with The Times because they could not see how it might benefit their clients. Many lobbyists are touchy these days, bristling at the suggestion that they represent special interests.

“The Catholic Church has a lobby,” said Aaron Read, a veteran lobbyist who represents Highway Patrol officers, state attorneys and engineers, dental hygienists and others. “The Girl Scouts have a lobby.”

Indeed, the Girl Scouts’ lobbyist in Sacramento, Catherine Sizemore-Barankin, fought for and won an exemption to the short-lived sales tax on snacks. Without the exemption, the Girl Scouts would have had to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in snack taxes from cookie sales, Sizemore-Barankin said.

As with the snack tax, the stakes in many of the most fiercely fought lobbying battles are financial.

“Everything boils down to cash,” lobbyist Keeslar said.

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Whenever a bill is hotly contested--whenever two or more interests face off--Capitol wags call the measure “a full-employment act for lobbyists.” And at any given moment, there are dozens of such measures before the Legislature, generated by lobbyists on behalf of their clients.

One of those is a proposal this year by the California Optometric Assn., Assembly Bill 2020. The aptly numbered measure would allow the state’s 7,000 optometrists, who are licensed to examine eyes for glasses and contact lenses, to prescribe medications for treating eye diseases.

There are no signs that this is a burning issue for most Californians.

But because the bill would give optometrists a share of the health care business that has gone exclusively to physicians, the issue has erupted into a lobbyist’s version of territorial warfare.

For the California Medical Assn., the bill is the latest attempt by non-physicians to breach the ramparts of organized medicine.

“Physicians have been put in the position of 4th-Century Rome,” said the medical association’s chief lobbyist, Steven M. Thompson, once chief of staff to Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco). “You have to protect a broad frontier. The Visigoths could breach the walls in one place. The Vandals in another.”

The optometrists and their allies have deployed at least seven lobbyists, but are outgunned by the physicians, said the optometric group’s top lobbyist, Norma J. Dillon. “They’ve spent a fortune,” she said. “They’ve got the highest-priced people in town.”

Each side has hired a public relations firm to help plan strategy and whip up support, including editorials and letters to newspaper editors.

Both sides contribute heavily to elected officials’ campaigns. Last year, the California Medical Assn. and the California Assn. of Ophthalmology, which represents medical eye doctors, gave more than $1 million to state politicians compared to $300,000 from the California Optometric Assn.

Both groups also make sure their members make direct contact with lawmakers in their home districts.

The optometrists “are everywhere,” said Assemblyman Philip Isenberg (D-Sacramento), who is carrying their bill.

So far in this eyeball-to-eyeball combat, the medical doctors are winning. After sailing out of the Assembly, the bill was stopped 4 to 6 in the Senate Business and Professions Committee.

The optometrists are hoping the bill can be revived.

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Some lobbyists argue that two decades ago such contests between conflicting interests were easier to resolve. Legislators and lobbyists became friends on a nightly circuit of bars and restaurants, or on fishing trips and overseas jaunts, with clients picking up the tab.

“It was great how it made the system work better, when members and lobbyists got to know each other better on a personal basis,” said longtime lobbyist Donald Carlton Burns. “We took care of our friends. The last thing that was ever done was to lead someone astray.”

The Political Reform Act, an initiative on the 1974 ballot that was overwhelmingly approved, tried to put an end to such cozy relationships between legislators and the Third House.

A key provision barred a lobbyist from either giving or arranging gifts of more than $10 to a legislator in a month.

But the act contained no limit on how much the company or trade group that hired the lobbyist could spend.

“Corporate folks have people brought up just to pick up big dinner tabs,” Sierra Club lobbyist Michael Paparian said.

One of those accustomed to picking up the check was former state Sen. William Campbell after he resigned from the Legislature in 1989 to become president of the California Manufacturers Assn.

The group has a stable of lobbyists, but Campbell was not one of them because he did not make enough contacts to qualify under the official definition of a lobbyist. Thus he could freely exceed the $10 limit.

As recently as Jan. 4, he picked up the check for Assembly Speaker Brown’s $36 meal at Biba’s, said to be the Democratic leader’s favorite Sacramento restaurant.

A week later, Campbell registered for the first time.

After filing, he said, he asked Brown to reimburse the cost of the meal “just to be safe.”

Why did he need to register?

This year the manufacturers are pushing a bill of such importance to them--a $900-million-a-year sales tax break--that Campbell undertook a more active lobbying role.

The author of the bill is Speaker Brown and it won easy passage in the Assembly last month, despite concerns about a drop in revenues as the statewide recession continues. The measure has run into trouble in the Senate, but so far the manufacturers have been able to keep it alive.

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Lobbyists and legislators say that high turnover in the Legislature caused by term limits will inevitably affect the way the lobbying corps wields its power.

Many of the 27 new members who entered the Assembly this year say they have little time for meeting lobbyists and even less for socializing with them.

Several lobbyists complain bitterly that they have had difficulty seeing freshmen legislators except at campaign fund-raisers.

“What I see is that these people treat us as a cash conduit,” said a lobbyist invited to 159 fund-raisers in the first six months of 1993. “It used to be I’d never talk about a bill at a fund-raiser. But if you don’t do business there, you don’t do business.”

Many lobbyists know they will be seeing fewer familiar faces as term limits begin to take effect, and they are worried.

“It’s a scary thing for me,” lobbyist Steffes said. “I’ve spent 30 years building a reputation and in six years I’m going to lose much of the advantage I have.”

But others believe the influence of the lobbying corps will grow stronger.

“They will be the experts compared to the constantly turning over of legislators,” said the Senate’s Bill Lockyer. “They’ll just have a natural advantage of expertise.”

Assemblyman Burt Margolin (D-Los Angeles) said: “We’ll have less access to expertise within our own staff. . . . Members may be more easily misled.”

Growing Corps of Lobbyists

The number of lobbyists working in the state Capitol has grown steadily since voters approved the California Political Reform Act in 1974, which put stricter controls on conduct on lobbying. The number of legislators being lobbied has remained constant at 120. 1973: 576* 1978: 608 1983: 750 1988: 899 1993: 1,055 * Figure for 1973 predates passage of California Political Reform Act, when current reporting standards went into effect.

Sources: California Secretary of State’s Office, Legislature’s Lobbying Directory.