Special Interests Help Powerful Lockyer

While emerging as the most powerful Democrat in state government, Senate President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer raised more than $5 million in campaign funds over the last two years--much of it from special interest groups with a financial stake in bills before the Legislature.

No lawmaker collected more.

As he helped increase the Democratic majority in the state’s upper house, Lockyer received substantial sums from gambling interests, the health care industry, the legal profession and unions, his campaign filings show.

Over lunch in San Francisco, he accepted a $100,000 check from the nation’s largest chain of psychiatric hospitals and clinics. The chain had been seeking a change in the state’s hospital licensing laws.

While raising money in Southern California, he received $50,000 from out-of-state businessmen planning a 100,000-square-foot card club casino in the city of Bell. A month before, Lockyer had killed his own gambling regulation bill, which contained a provision that could have blocked the project. This month he introduced a revised bill that omitted the objectionable paragraph.

Although most of the money Lockyer collected for his Lockyer for Senate Committee/Senate Majority ’96 went to electing Democrats to the Senate, he reserved a portion for local elections in his own Alameda County district. This year, Lockyer, who controls the committee funds, donated $30,000 of the money to the Superior Court election campaign of a friend he had dated a few years ago.

Rounding up campaign dollars--for what former Assembly Speaker Jesse Unruh called “the mother’s milk of politics”--is standard operating procedure for top political leaders. Ambitious officeholders use the donations to advance their own careers and win the loyalty of colleagues who are less adept at raising money.

Lockyer works particularly hard at it, reserving most Wednesdays during the legislative session for fund-raising trips.

“Here we are in a society in which money is like gravity: It is a basic fundamental force,” he said in a recent interview. “Obviously it is in the world of campaigns.”

The Hayward Democrat said he carefully separates any discussion of legislative action from any talk of campaign donations. “Frankly, most of the time I have nothing to do directly with the receipt of monies,” he said. “It’s a little embarrassing, and I guess it would be unwise for someone to admit this to my donors, but a lot of times I don’t even know they’ve contributed.”

State law prohibits donors and lawmakers from linking contributions to legislation. But to examine Lockyer’s fund-raising over the two-year legislative session is to look at the subtle--and sometimes not so subtle--rites of courtship between special interests and the politicians who control the outcome of legislation.

“The irony in this business,” Lockyer said, “is that it’s your little district, small contributor who says the inappropriate thing. You know, ‘I gave you a hundred dollars, you’d better vote this way.’ It’s embarrassing and you have to say to them, ‘Look, I’m sorry.’ ”

The influence of money in California politics has grown ever more pervasive, said Robert M. Stern, co-director of the California Commission on Campaign Financing. “People are not giving to Bill Lockyer or [former Republican Speaker] Curt Pringle because they necessarily want Democrats or Republicans to win,” Stern said. “They are giving because these people are in power and could affect their livelihoods and interests.”

Stern hopes that the passage in November of Proposition 208, which he helped draft, will reduce the flow of special interest funds. The initiative couples contribution limits with voluntary spending ceilings. But one court challenge has been filed against the initiative, and politicians and lobbyists are already beginning to consider ways to circumvent it.

Lockyer has pushed to change the fund-raising system: Two years ago, he authored a bill to cap individual contributions at $2,000 and provide partial public financing for campaigns. The measure was vetoed by Gov. Pete Wilson, who opposes the use of tax dollars for political races. However, Lockyer opposed Proposition 208, which caps contributions in legislative races at $250 per individual or company--double that if the candidate accepts spending limits.

As Lockyer rose in the legislative hierarchy, so did his ability to raise money from special interests.

When he assumed his title as Senate leader in January 1994, he was overshadowed by then-Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco), a master of fund-raising. Once Brown left to run for mayor of San Francisco, said one Capitol lobbyist, Lockyer “became what Willie Brown had been . . . Bill Lockyer became the gatekeeper.”

With Republicans in control of the governor’s office and the Assembly last session, Lockyer’s official biography declared him “the most powerful Democrat in California politics.” As Senate leader and chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, Lockyer can move a bill from the floor to a committee where it can be stalled, killed or amended to his liking.

At 55 and facing term limits, he is considering a run for state attorney general in 1998. It would be his first statewide political race.

Contributing to a candidate is “a way to demonstrate friendship,” Lockyer said. “And it’s not buying votes.”

In October, over lunch at Silks restaurant in San Francisco, Lockyer met with Michael Skredynski, a friend since the early 1970s when both were legislative aides. Lockyer told a reporter that for years he was aware that Skredynski, a governmental affairs consultant, had been raising money for Brown. “I’d see that Mike would be helping Willie and I’d kind of whine a little,” Lockyer explained.

Now, Skredynski was ecstatic, Lockyer said, because he had brought a major contributor to the Senate leader. He presented Lockyer with a check to his committee for $100,000 from Magellan Health Services, a mental health conglomerate based in Atlanta that operates eight hospitals in California under the name Charter Medical Corp.

Just weeks before, Magellan’s lobbyists had been pushing a last-minute amendment to a health care bill that would have allowed psychiatric hospitals to operate under combined licenses. “The ability to consolidate will enable Charter Medical Corp. to keep two acute psychiatric facilities open in San Diego County,” stated the Senate floor analysis.

The measure won final Senate approval on the last day of the legislative session, only to be vetoed by the governor, because as drafted there were concerns that it could cost the state Medi-Cal program $4.2 million.

Lockyer said in an interview that he knew nothing about the bill, although Senate records show he did vote for it.

Magellan spokesman Robert Mead said there was no connection between the bill and the contribution--which he said was the company’s only donation in the state last year. “We felt a single contribution to the majority fund [operated by Lockyer] was an efficient way to support the leadership in the California Senate, where issues obviously concerning our industry have been and continue to be debated,” he said.

Said Skredynski: “For a company to choose to give to the Senate majority is because of [Lockyer’s] efforts. He has worked to make the office a responsible office.”

Lockyer said he later called E. Mac Crawford, Magellan’s board chairman and president, to thank him for the contribution.

On a fund-raising foray into Southern California in October, Lockyer said he met over dinner with Texas businessman Billy Bob Barnett, once the operator of Billy Bob’s in Fort Worth, reputedly the world’s largest honky-tonk. Records show Barnett is an associate of the West Bell Group, which has agreed to pay $11 million for property owned by the city of Bell, where it plans its Pacific Casino.

A week after the dinner, Lockyer’s committee received a $25,000 check from Secured Asset Management, a Dallas-based company headed by J. Christopher Mallick, who is described in city records as a managing member of the card club group.

Later that month, Lockyer met again with Barnett, who was accompanied by C. Martin Dixon, a participant in the development group. Dixon gave Lockyer a personal check for $25,000 to the Senate leader’s committee, according to a Lockyer spokesman.

Dixon, a Pennsylvania businessman, could not be reached for comment; Barnett did not return calls. Mallick, when asked why he contributed the money to Lockyer, said, “I’m for good government all over America.”

Lobbyists for the West Bell Group as well as lobbyists for the city of Bell worked against a provision in a major gambling regulation bill carried by Lockyer this year.

The key section allowed a new statewide regulatory authority to deny a gambling license to a proposed card club if the club would create “an undue concentration of gambling establishments.”

The site of the proposed Pacific Casino was within a mile of two of Southern California’s largest card rooms, the California Commerce Club in the city of Commerce and the Bicycle Club in Bell Gardens.

Angry over last-minute changes made to the measure in the Assembly, Lockyer said he chose to adjourn the Senate on the final night of the 1995-96 session without taking up the bill, in effect killing it.

This month, he reintroduced the bill without the “undue concentration” language. He explained that he was not singling out the provision, but had ordered his staff to strip out all the sections that “provoked and involved special interest argument” during the last session.

Other gambling interests have contributed close to $300,000 to Lockyer’s committee. The Commerce Club, which actively supported the gambling regulation bill, sent more than $92,000.

“Everyone that has any stake in California gambling regulation has an interest in my bill,” Lockyer explained. “Everyone.”

He said he had no qualms about taking campaign contributions from gambling interests, even though the money could prove a liability in a race for attorney general--the office that regulates legalized gambling. “I’m delighted to have friends in every walk of life and every business,” he said.

Most of the money Lockyer collects is intended to help keep a Democratic majority in the Senate, he said. “But a portion of contributions is really for Bill Lockyer.”

He spent some of the money in his home county, supporting Democratic candidates at all levels and boosting their careers.

This year he intervened in a hotly contested Alameda County Superior Court race between probate court commissioner Barbara J. Miller and prosecutor Richard B. Iglehart.

Lockyer endorsed Miller and in the two weeks before the election spent over $30,000 of his committee’s funds on her campaign, which she won handily. The two dated for a few years, and say that they remain friends. Lockyer said he supported Miller partly because “if the woman didn’t win, there would be an all-male Superior Court in Alameda County and I don’t think that’s appropriate.”

He also said the race turned into a battle with his chief Democratic rival in Alameda County politics, former Supervisor Don Perata, who was elected to the Assembly this year and who supported Iglehart.

Once he decides to help a candidate, Lockyer said, “I’m going to be committed to try to help do whatever is necessary to win that campaign.”

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Lockyer’s Big Contributors

Senate President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward) has raised more money than any other state lawmaker in the last two years, helping Democrats increase their majority in the state Senate. Here is a sampling of his largest contributors with a description of what they sought in the 1995-96 legislative session.

CONTRIBUTOR: Consumer Attorneys PAC

AMOUNT: $164,000

WHAT THEY WANTED: Trial lawyers group successfully fought Republican efforts to make it tougher to recover damages in civil suits.

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CONTRIBUTOR: Magellan Health Services

AMOUNT: $100,000

WHAT THEY WANTED: Atlanta-based chain of psychiatric hospitals wanted a law to allow nearby facilities to operate under a single state license. Governor vetoed bill.

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CONTRIBUTOR: Southern California District Council of Carpenters

AMOUNT:

WHAT THEY WANTED: fought efforts to end the state’s prevailing wage law, which establishes pay floor for workers on government construction projects. Bills died; governor considering further action.

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CONTRIBUTOR: California Commerce Club

AMOUNT: $92,225

WHAT THEY WANTED: Card club casino backed Lockyer bill to regulate gambling industry--and limit competition. Bill died.

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CONTRIBUTOR: Professional Engineers in California Government

AMOUNT: $89,250

WHAT THEY WANTED: Public employees union fought efforts by Gov. Pete Wilson to contract out engineering services. Battle continues.

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CONTRIBUTOR: California Teachers Assn.

AMOUNT: $87,000

WHAT THEY WANTED: Teachers union generally supports Democrats. Sought increased funding for public education while fighting Republican efforts to weaken teacher tenure. Successful on both fronts.

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CONTRIBUTOR: Secured Asset Management/ C. Martin Dixon

AMOUNT: $50,000

WHAT THEY WANTED: of a proposed card club casino in the city of Bell, they sought changes in a Lockyer gambling bill that could have blocked construction. Issue unresolved.

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CONTRIBUTOR: Browning Ferris Industries

AMOUNT: $32,250

WHAT THEY WANTED: Company backed bill that will allow landfill operators to use lawn cuttings and other green waste to cover garbage and still count it as “recycled.”

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CONTRIBUTOR: Probate Referees

AMOUNT: $12,200

WHAT THEY WANTED: More than 60 probate referees gave up to their legal limit of $200 per candidate. They opposed a bill, killed in the Senate, to abolish their jobs.

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CONTRIBUTOR: Glass Packaging Institute

AMOUNT: $10,000

WHAT THEY WANTED: Trade association won support for freezing recycled content of glass containers at 35%. Without change, requirement would rise to 65% recycled content by 2002.

Sources: Secretary of state, state Senate records, interviews

The Money Sources

Lockyer raised $5.2 million during the 1995-96 session. Here by category of giver is where he raised the biggest share of the money.

* Unions $1.2 million

* Lawyers $657,000

* Gambling interests $325,000

* Health care $258,500

* Other senators $225,000

* Liquor industry $130,000

* Insurance companies $122,000

* Tobacco industry $90,500

Source: Secretary of state