The PR Push in Sacramento : Politics: Public relations entrepreneurs shape opinion on legislation in ways lobbyists cannot. Term limits have made them a key part of the capitol equation.

On the day that Gov. Pete Wilson called the Legislature into special session to reform the state’s workers’ compensation system, Los Angeles businessman Michael Stennis was on “NBC Nightly News” making the case for reform.

“I can survive riots, I can survive crime,” said Stennis, who runs a family-owned chain of fast-food restaurants. “I can survive a lot of things, but I cannot survive workers’ compensation insurance.”

Stennis’ appearance on the network was no lucky coincidence. It was the work of a Sacramento public relations firm, RF Communications, run by a onetime legislative staffer and former television news producer, Don Fields, whose client was a group calling itself Californians for Compensation Reform. (Months later, the workers’ comp system was revamped.)

Fields is among a growing number of public relations entrepreneurs hired to shape the course of events here. There are about a dozen such firms at work today and their job is to sell their client’s view of pending legislation--the way other public relations agencies market laundry detergent or political candidates.

The industry is likely to be in greater demand as term limits take hold. As lobbyists rely less on long-term relationships for access to lawmakers, they will use other ways to get their clients’ views across to the decision-makers.

“What people are realizing is that you can’t just hire a lobbyist and get the job done,” said veteran lobbyist George Steffes.

Enter the public relations companies, employing old-fashioned media skills and new technology to win support or build opposition to legislation.

In recent years, these firms have been deployed in battles over the way beer is stored and distributed, which prescription drugs are available to Medi-Cal patients, investment tax breaks for business, spending on education, and smog checks for automobiles.

Even though they are openly in business to influence legislators, few of these public relations firms or their employees register as lobbyists. The rules do not require them to register because many never have direct contact with a lawmaker on behalf of clients.

Instead, they do their work indirectly, planting stories and editorials, taking out ads, organizing letter-writing and phone-in campaigns, and putting together coalitions of special interests.

Some employ the latest in computer technology, allowing them to identify sympathetic constituents in a key legislator’s district and then connecting them through a toll-free call to the lawmaker.

Practitioners of this technique describe it as “prospecting”--finding those with strongly held views identical to a client’s. With this technique, they can quickly generate thousands of postcards or mobilize a demonstration on the Capitol steps.

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Critics complain that it can be difficult to distinguish between a genuine outpouring of public interest and a display fabricated to meet the needs of wealthy clients.

“Not everybody can afford these sophisticated efforts,” said Robert Stern, co-director of the Center for Governmental Studies in Los Angeles. “The consequence is you get . . . skewed information and, perhaps, skewed support that does not really reflect how the public feels about things.”

Assemblyman Terry B. Friedman (D-Brentwood) has introduced a bill that would require more detailed disclosure of the payments made for this indirect form of lobbying.

“My quarrel is not the right of anyone or any interest group to advance their point of view, but they ought not to be able to do it under cover of darkness,” he said.

At its first committee hearing this month, the measure mustered only two of the four votes needed.

Until recently, Sacramento lobbyists lagged behind Washington in employing public relations techniques to influence legislation. In the nation’s capital, PR agencies have perfected the art of drowning congressional offices in a torrent of letters and phone calls.

Public relations firms and legislators in Sacramento say that such a brute force approach would not work so well in the state capital--where tying up a lawmaker’s phone lines can have the opposite of the intended effect.

Being successful requires an understanding of what makes California officials tick. So it is not surprising that many of those in the business have backgrounds in government or strong ties to politicians.

Take Bobbie Metzger, who runs the Sacramento office of Stoorza, Ziegaus, Metzger & Hunt, now one of the largest independent public relations firms in the country.

Metzger was a press secretary for former Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown and Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco). Her husband, Michael Galizio, is the Speaker’s chief of staff.

Her political connections have made her an object of criticism as well as envy among her peers.

Metzger said she makes it clear to her clients that she will not lobby the Speaker, other lawmakers or anyone else.

“I always say it in black and white: ‘If you are hiring me because you think I can help you with the Speaker, don’t. I can’t and I won’t,’ and I say it every time.”

But Metzger acknowledges that the Assembly leader is one of her closest friends and that her knowledge of the way he and other legislators operate can be helpful to her clients.

Because of her Democratic connections, a visitor to her office is struck by a personal letter from Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, thanking her for her firm’s help in planning his 1991 inauguration.

That is not as surprising as it seems. Partner Alan Ziegaus is a longtime friend of Wilson and a senior counsel to the Republican governor’s reelection campaign.

As at other firms, a big part of Metzger’s job is preparing information packets for distribution to the media as well as lawmakers.

Hired to fight a proposed tax on snack food, the company began sending out collections of food for nibbling to make the point that “a granola bar wasn’t a snack, but a candy bar with the same ingredients was. . . . It was so visual, so quantifiable,” she said

The snack tax passed, only to be repealed by voter initiative.

Many of the PR professionals learned their craft by working on political campaigns and regard it as a new application of campaign techniques.

“We have a campaign attitude about winning and losing, versus the traditional PR attitude, which is getting attention,” said David Townsend, whose firm, Townsend, Hermocillo, Raimundo & Usher, continues to run initiative campaigns but not partisan races.

Among his clients are the state’s grocers, who opposed a series of bills to change the way beer is distributed. The legislation backed by beer and wine wholesalers would have required all beer to be stored in licensed warehouses before delivery--making it more difficult for the big supermarkets to offer discounts.

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The Townsend company put out lengthy position papers referring to the wholesalers as “the beer barons” and arguing that the measures would raise the price of a six-pack. News reporters were given lists of campaign contributions to lawmakers from the bills’ backers.

The firm helped generate 37,000 postcards to the governor and key legislators.

In response, the beer wholesalers hired Nelson & Lucas Communications, another well-connected PR firm.

The president of the company, Donna Lucas, was an aide to Republican Gov. George Deukmejian and state Treasurer Thomas Hayes. Lucas’ partner is Robert Nelson--a Republican who headed Republicans for Clinton/Gore and served on the President-elect’s transition team.

Lucas’ firm quickly developed a counter-strategy on the beer bills, labeling the grocers as the “chain gang” and arguing that the purpose of the bills was to give mom-and-pop grocers and liquor stores a chance to compete with the supermarket chains. The agency compiled a list of more than 7,400 small retailers who supported the bills.

Only one of the seven bills in the package was enacted--requiring out-of-state beer manufacturers to post their prices.

Like other firms, Lucas’ team knows the value of putting together broad coalitions so that her client’s position will not be seen as narrow or self-serving.

The California Assn. of Ophthalmology hired Lucas to fight a bill allowing optometrists to treat patients they are measuring for lenses with prescription medications for eye diseases. The bill became a classic turf battle between the state’s ophthalmologists, who are medical doctors, and optometrists, who proposed it.

To help make the case against the bill, Lucas’ firm brought in other groups “so when you go to testify in committee, you don’t just have the ophthalmologists, who clearly have a financial stake, you have the diversity of a coalition.”

Among those contacted was the California Council of the Blind.

The group’s lobbyist, Ysidro (Cid) Urena, who is blind, testified against the measure before a key Senate committee, arguing that allowing optometrists to treat eye disease would result in more blindness. (The study he cited was done on behalf of the ophthalmologists, and is hotly disputed by the optometrists.)

The bill was defeated.