Orange County Lobbyist Seems to Fit the Job

It was a vintage Denny Carpenter deal. A couple of years ago, the state parks department threatened to uproot the denizens of the funky beach cottages at Orange County’s Crystal Cove. The oceanfront residents who lease the rustic abodes from the state called on Carpenter--one of Sacramento’s most storied lobbyists--for help.

Carpenter quickly cut to the core. The parks department had grand plans for opening the cottages to the public, but had no money to do it right away. In the meantime, why not let the residents be? With that argument, the silver-haired lobbyist got lawmakers to extend the lease for Crystal Cove.

That little legislative victory in 1993 was nothing new for Carpenter, who has ranked among the most influential lobbyists in the state Capitol for more than a decade. But now the 66-year-old deal-maker faces perhaps his greatest challenge--to help push through a controversial batch of bills designed to yank one of his longtime clients, the County of Orange, from the jaws of bankruptcy.

It is an assignment for which Dennis E. Carpenter carries perhaps the perfect resume.

In recent years, his firm, Carpenter, Snodgrass & Associates, has ranked as the top lobbying organization in the state, routinely racking up more than $2 million in annual gross revenues. Carpenter typically represents big business--Arco and R.J. Reynolds are among his clients.

A former state senator from Orange County who still spends weekends at his Newport Beach home, Carpenter has been an FBI agent and an attorney. Like the county he is trying to help, Carpenter once had to file for bankruptcy but pulled himself up by the bootstraps and, fueled by his lobbying income, now co-owns a 20,000-acre cattle ranch in Oklahoma.

He also has chaired the California Republican Party’s state central committee and enjoyed serendipitous friendships with luminaries ranging from Walter Knott of Knott’s Berry Farm fame to former President Ronald Reagan.

Perhaps most important for Republican-dominated Orange County, Carpenter enjoys remarkably good relationships with powerful Democrats in the Capitol, notably Assembly Speaker Willie Brown. Although the Speaker has already voiced resolute opposition to the Orange County recovery legislation, Brown remains an inveterate Carpenter fan.

“He’s big! He’s big! He’s huge!” Brown chimed, holding his arms outstretched to illustrate both Carpenter’s robust physique and his stature in the Capitol. “He’s very effective. He never takes himself seriously. He’s able to grasp a volume of information and synthesize it. And he’s got integrity. He never lies to you. I don’t think there’s any better.”

Even some who have been on the opposite side of the battle lines in the Capitol’s legislative wars praise Carpenter’s intelligence, integrity and wit.

“He’s a great lobbyist, not the sort you really want to be on the other side of,” said Judith Bell, a legislative advocate for Consumers Union, the nonprofit group that publishes Consumer Reports. “But in my experience, he’s a straight shooter.”

Perhaps the most pointed critique comes from legislative watchdogs who criticize Carpenter and other Capitol lobbyists for their representation of organizations that flood lawmakers with campaign cash. Since January, 1993, Carpenter’s clients have contributed more than $2.3 million to Sacramento lawmakers.

“He represents some of the heavy hitters, some of the largest contributors in the Capitol,” said Ruth Holton, executive director of Common Cause, a nonprofit group seeking campaign finance reform. “When he walks into the room, legislators are well aware of his ability to steer contributions in their direction.”

For his part, Carpenter plays down the role he has in setting his clients’ agenda of campaign giving, noting that probably only half a dozen of the 40 firms that he represents give lawmakers any cash. Although campaign contributions are a part of the Capitol mosaic, “more important is knowing what you’re talking about,” he said.

Carpenter learned that sort of plain-spoken lesson early in life. The son of a high school math teacher and coach in rural Minnesota, Carpenter grew up in a house equipped with kerosene lamps, a wood-burning cook stove and an outdoor latrine. “You could stay constipated all winter,” he quips today.

But despite the impoverished upbringing, Carpenter doesn’t recall “missing any meals; we had a good family relationship.”

An all-state football player, he opted for the Army after visiting the University of Minnesota football coach. “I told him I didn’t think I was big enough,” Carpenter recalls. “He told me, ‘Son, you’re a perceptive young man. You’ll go far.’ ”

Carpenter moved on from the Army to school at UCLA, working nights at a Lockheed plant running a hydro press. There he started a friendship with Jesse Unruh, who would later become a powerful Democratic Assembly Speaker and state treasurer.

Back then, Carpenter says, “I was a Democrat. I was a Democrat half my life.” It was only after law school, a four-year stint with the FBI, practicing law in Orange County for about 15 years and raising a family that Carpenter began dabbling as a volunteer in political campaigns in the late 1950s. Among those he helped was Caspar W. Weinberger, the former Reagan Administration defense secretary who at the time was running for California attorney general.

An affable sort, Carpenter caught the eye of Walter Knott, who took on the challenge of getting the young Democrat to switch to the GOP. Carpenter eventually relented, and Knott immediately pulled strings to get him elected chairman of the Orange County Republican Central Committee.

Reagan also proved to be a mentor. As governor, he helped propel Carpenter onto the state central committee and, in 1970, pushed him to run in a special election for a state Senate seat in Orange County.

Carpenter quickly rose through the ranks, becoming Senate minority leader and for a time vying for the 1976 U.S. Senate seat eventually captured by S.I. Hayakawa. It was an opportunity he wishes had turned out differently.

“If I had gotten into the U.S. Senate, I probably would have stayed there to this day,” he said, noting that federal lawmakers “have the ability to truly influence big things.”

He left the state Senate in 1978 to tend to a development business that he had established in the Sacramento area. But his renewed focus on the flagging firm couldn’t help; booming interest rates left him with dozens of unsold houses in the Sacramento suburbs. Carpenter filed for bankruptcy.

His life quickly turned around. In 1980, Carpenter was approached by several Southern California businesses about lobbying on their behalf to get the Peripheral Canal built. He told them he was too busy. “They started talking to me about how much they pay,” he recalls, “and I said, ‘You know, I’m not that busy.’ ”

A new career was born. “I discovered I liked lobbying,” Carpenter said, noting that the challenge of handling a variety of topics and interests proved particularly enticing.

Today, Carpenter said his tactics are simple: Know the topic, keep focused and avoid getting bogged down by the minutia of each industry he represents. He works hard to get to know all the Capitol lawmakers, invariably with meetings in their offices. With rules against lobbyists giving meals or gifts to lawmakers, “the old wine-and-dine theory is gone,” Carpenter said. “Besides, I don’t think you can buy people with a free lunch anyway.”

Carpenter’s specialty is the soft sell.

“He’s not an aggressive, in-your-face person,” said Maureen DiMarco, Gov. Pete Wilson’s education secretary. “When you deal with him, it’s, ‘Let’s sit down and find a solution.’ And if he gives you information, he doesn’t try to job it around. He’s forthright about the pros and cons and advocates for rational solutions.”

He also enjoys a network of contacts that includes numerous officials in the governor’s office, Speaker Brown and Senate Democrat Leader Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward) and key Republicans.

“What he knows is the system,” said Assemblyman Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove). “He’s lived in it so long, both as a politician and lobbyist. He probably knows the system better than anyone else in Sacramento.”

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