A Privilege Only Money Can Buy

I’m still shocked in City Council meetings when I see lobbyists send in plays from the sidelines.

Like football coaches, they perch behind the blue velvet ropes that separate the players, in this case council members, from the audience. When one of their proposals is in trouble, the lobbyists summon friendly lawmakers over to the ropes and suggest a change in strategy.

They have the power to call plays because they deliver substantial campaign contributions to the council members, money that comes from their employers, businesses and a few unions.

As is the case with football, the players don’t always go along with signals relayed from the bench. And even if they intend to, they may be unable to deliver.

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The scorecards for this political game are the quarterly reports of the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission, the watchdog of our municipal political system. They help explain what’s happening on the council floor.

The reports detail how much money clients pay lobbyists to influence legislation and the amounts lobbyists give to City Council members.

Reading the reports carefully helps explain the often twisting, incomprehensible happenings on the council floor.

For example, Councilman Nate Holden was in the news recently for leading the successful fight against Mayor Richard Riordan’s plan to use $30 million in airport funds to help finance police and other city expenditures.

When we turn to Page 4 of the ethics commission report, we learn that Holden received $2,300 in contributions from the Air Transport Assn. of America, the industry lobbying organization that is fighting the Riordan plan. Rose & Kindel, the powerful lobbying firm that represents the Air Transport Assn. in City Hall, gave Holden $4,900.

I asked Holden about it Friday. Was it the contribution that inspired his efforts? No, he said. “I believe in what I do and I believe it [the Riordan plan] was wrong.”

Both the airline industry and the Rose & Kindel contributions exceed the $500 limit on individual contributions.

It’s a legal device, but it’s not enough to give a lobbyist coach status. But the lobbyists can legally move into the big bucks category through a loophole in the law that allows a process known as “bundling.”

Ethics commission executive director Rebecca Avila explained that lobbyists “gather up lots of checks to deliver to the candidates. It enhances the influence of the deliverers because it shows they have the ability to raise money for the recipient.”

This practice is so common in Los Angeles and around the state that political reform groups have placed two contribution limits on the November ballot.

One of L.A.’s major bundlers is the big Cerrell Associates Inc., a lobbying and political consulting firm.

The ethics commission report showed that the firm and its executives donated $8,700 to Councilwoman Ruth Galanter and $5,750 to Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas in the first three months of the year.

Cerrell executive Howard Sunkin said the money was given by clients at fund-raisers hosted by him and the company’s boss, Joe Cerrell. They were “small, intimate receptions,” he said.

Most of the 16 Cerrell clients are involved with city regulators in one way or another. Cerrell operatives can usually be found among the lobbyist play-callers in the council audience.

It’s not just the council that benefits from bundling. Southern California Edison employees gave Mayor Riordan $5,000, all of it from individuals who belong to a company political action committee. Edison, said lobbyist Paul Shay, is deeply interested in how city policy affects the forthcoming deregulation of the electric utility business. No doubt Edison would like to send in a few plays to Riordan’s office or the Department of Water and Power.

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Lobbyists tell you that the contributions buy access, and nothing more.

But Mr. and Ms. Average Angeleno don’t get such access.

When they visit City Hall to complain or suggest an ordinance, they are lucky to get past a council member’s assistant, much less to get to call the signals on the City Council floor.