Freebies Give Firms Access to Legislators

When Tiger Woods won the U.S. Open last June in a historic blowout, state Sen. Bruce McPherson was watching, thanks to Pacific Bell.

When the Los Angeles Lakers mounted a magical fourth-quarter comeback against the Portland Trailblazers to reach the NBA Finals last year, Assemblyman Tom Calderon was in the stands with his son Cameron, courtesy of GTE.

When the late jockey Chris Antley rode 31-1 underdog Charismatic into the winner’s circle at the 1999 Kentucky Derby, Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg and Assemblyman Dennis Cardoza were there, thanks to the Hollywood Park racetrack.

Despite reforms a decade ago aimed at keeping gift-giving in check, California lawmakers accept free tickets to sporting events from companies and individuals with interests before the state.

The freebies are a growing way for the business elite to get cozy with powerful lawmakers and key state officials as they attempt to influence such issues as the state’s response to the energy crisis, the phaseout of the controversial gasoline additive MTBE and legislation to require safer cigarettes.

When Pacific Bell was taking McPherson to one of golf’s major tournaments, for instance, it was lobbying the California Public Utilities Commission on consumer protection rules, and lawmakers on 21 bills, including overtime rules for telephone workers, public records show.

A Times review found that the practice is widespread--at least as common as more traditional political schmoozing, such as wining and dining legislators. More than half of the state’s 120 legislators accepted free entry to some athletic event last year from groups with interests before the state, public records show. Legislative staff members and other state officials, who are not covered under the state law limiting gifts, were far more frequent recipients of free tickets.

Whether those gifts influence decisions is difficult to ascertain. The link between special interest money and political action is often circumstantial.

What is clear is that entertaining lawmakers with coveted sports tickets, travel and other gifts helps special interests forge relationships with key decision makers.

“It’s an opportunity to talk with lawmakers in a more relaxed environment,” said Ron Low, spokesman for Pacific Gas & Electric, which entertained Assemblyman Roderick Wright and several staff members at various sporting events last year.

Lobbyists are barred in California from giving lawmakers gifts worth more than $10 a month. But the interests they work for are not. Those businesses or groups can legally give gifts of as much as $320. And when politicians get tickets to a sporting event or rock concert from a corporation, company lobbyists often end up sitting in the luxury box beside them.

Wright (D-Los Angeles), the chairman of the Assembly Utilities and Commerce Committee, has been a major beneficiary.

Last year, records show, Wright accepted tickets to NBA games from a half-dozen companies including Southern California Edison and PG&E;, the two big utilities whose financial troubles helped trigger the state energy crisis. At one NBA playoff game between the Lakers and Sacramento Kings, he received $248.78 in free luxury box tickets, food and drink from Arco.

A die-hard Laker fan known to call lobbyists for tickets when his favorite team comes to Sacramento, Wright said he takes the tickets for the same reason companies offer them: to strengthen his ties with lobbyists.

“The business we are in is about relationships,” Wright said. “Many people I do things with, I do it because I want to get to know these people outside of a sterile committee room. . . . And yes, that is a two-way street.”

Some Say It Is Not a Big Deal

Many legislators reimburse their benefactors for some or all of the costs. Unless lawmakers refund gifts within 30 days, they and the companies that gave the gifts are required to disclose them.

Nearly every gift described here was reported on a public disclosure form; a few, like Hertzberg’s trip to the Kentucky Derby, were not reported as required by law, but were disclosed by lawmakers’ offices after a Times inquiry.

“I’ve never thought it was that big of a deal, frankly,” said state Sen. Jack O’Connell (D-San Luis Obispo), who attended a Lakers playoff game last year with tickets paid for by Pacific Bell. O’Connell said the tickets came from a company friend, not a lobbyist, and that they did not discuss business.

Critics say the legality of the gifts doesn’t make them ethical. They pose this rhetorical question: Do you think someone you hardly know is going to give you free 50-yard-line seats when you are no longer in office?

“What a typical legislator thinks is, ‘Look, as long as I am not going to do anything wrong, as long as I am not doing anything for this gift, it is not a problem,’ ” said Michael Josephson, an ethics expert who has provided advice to numerous political bodies, including the California Legislature.

“The reason for this gift is not a quid pro quo,” he said. “I don’t think [corporations] expect they are buying a vote. But they are buying access, they are buying goodwill.”

The Fair Political Practices Commission, created to enforce campaign finance and ethics laws after passage of the state’s Watergate-era Political Reform Act, is supposed to take action against those who violate gift limits.

But the cash-strapped commission does not review all disclosure reports. It typically looks into potential violations only after someone, usually a political opponent, registers a complaint.

Some states have laws considerably tougher than California’s; Minnesota bans most gifts. And there are those who say such states are too restrictive and actually invite politicians to sidestep the rules. California, they say, has struck a reasonable middle ground.

“It minimizes the schmooze effect,” Josephson said of California’s law. “It’s not good; no gifts are. But I am not sure the republic is in danger.”

Wright said he has had detailed policy conversations with lobbyists at sporting events and on the golf course, over dinners and in other venues and that there is an implicit understanding that they are there to enjoy themselves first and talk business second.

He said he does not believe such gatherings affect his judgment.

“If I sell out because someone gave me a basketball ticket, the story is not that I took a basketball ticket,” he said. “The story is that I am an idiot.”

Some lawmakers believe they receive such gifts because they are important--celebrities of sorts. Others say their presence is required because they represent the region where an event takes place. McPherson (R-Santa Cruz) said he and his wife accepted a pass to the U.S. Open because Pebble Beach is in his state Senate district.

“It was a very exciting event, but it was a district event,” McPherson said.

And for every ticket given by a corporation to a legislator, three or four are handed to powerful behind-the-scenes people in government: chiefs of staff, policy consultants, Cabinet members.

When Cadiz Inc., a company that wants to extract and sell water from land it owns in the Mojave Desert, entertained officials at the estyle.com Classic Tennis Tournament in August, the guest list was not limited to politicians such as Assemblywoman Carole Migden (D-San Francisco) and Sen. Jim Costa (D-Fresno).

Susan Kennedy, Gov. Gray Davis’ deputy chief of staff, and Rusty Areias, director of the state Department of Parks and Recreation, were invited to eat, drink and watch Serena Williams beat Lindsay Davenport in Manhattan Beach the weekend before the Democratic National Convention. The event cost Cadiz $20,000, according to its quarterly lobbying report.

Giving sports tickets to legislators is especially common at the capital’s hottest attraction, the Sacramento Kings. Numerous special interests--including Philip Morris; Edison International, the parent company of Southern California Edison; and Anheuser-Busch Co.--entertain lawmakers and their staff at Kings games.

On Jan. 8 of last year, for example, Philip Morris, which shares a luxury box at the arena, reported giving basketball tickets worth $90.42 apiece to Assembly members Tony Strickland (R-Moorpark), Bill Campbell (R-Villa Park), Ken Maddox (R-Garden Grove), Rod Pacheco (R-Riverside), Sam Aanestad (R-Grass Valley) and former Assemblymen Richard Ackerman (R-Irvine, now a state senator) and Keith Olberg (formerly R-Victorville, no longer in the Legislature).

The most generous giver of Kings tickets was Arco. In the first six months of 2000, Arco gave 135 Kings tickets to legislators, aides and other bureaucrats. It also handed out tickets to an ice skating event, a motocross race, a Tina Turner concert, and a Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young rock show, among other attractions.

Arco and BP Amoco, which took over Arco in 2000, lobbied legislators, state Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer and Davis’ office on numerous issues last year.

They included bills to rein in gasoline prices, state air quality regulations, and next year’s phaseout of the gasoline additive MTBE, which has been linked to cancer in laboratory animals.

Likewise, Philip Morris stated in its report that it was lobbying on several bills last year, including a measure by then-Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) to set a fire safety standard for cigarettes, the nation’s leading cause of fire deaths. The company eventually took a neutral stand on the legislation, which died in committee.

In Los Angeles, the new Staples Center has become a major gift-giving attraction, particularly when the glamorous Lakers are in town, but also for other marquee events.

Lawmakers Are Guests of Staples Center

When Oscar De La Hoya fought “Sugar” Shane Mosley for the World Boxing Council belt last summer in a highly hyped matchup of Southern California fighters, several lawmakers were in the house, courtesy of L.A. Arena Co., the company that runs Staples.

L.A. Arena was pushing legislation last year to cap the fees that boxing promoters such as Bob Arum and Don King had to pay the state on big-ticket events. In practice, such fees are paid by arenas as part of their deals with promoters, so L.A. Arena was essentially seeking a fee cut for itself.

All four lawmakers who saw Mosley beat De La Hoya, courtesy of Staples--Sen. Kevin Murray (D-Culver City), and Assembly members Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles), Marco Firebaugh (D-Los Angeles) and Sarah Reyes (D-Fresno)--later voted for the boxing bill.

Under former Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, lawmakers commonly accepted lavish gifts, speaking fees and paid trips to foreign cities from groups with interests before the Legislature.

But after the capital’s corruption scandals of the late 1980s and early 1990s--the most infamous being the “Shrimpscam” affair in which FBI agents pushed phony shrimp business legislation to reel in crooked pols, and got it all the way to the desk of former Gov. George Deukmejian--lawmakers came under pressure to clean up their act.

So, among other reforms, they limited gifts to $300 from a single source (it rose to $320 this year).

In practice, however, that amount is easily exceeded. Two special interests can split the costs of entertaining a lawmaker, which is how former Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa went to the Oscars in 1999.

The Alliance of Motion Picture & TV Producers paid for his ticket. The Motion Picture Assn. of America paid for transportation, reception and dinner, and Villaraigosa, now a candidate for mayor of Los Angeles, watched as “American Beauty” won best picture.

There are other loopholes.

When O’Connell attended the first game of the Lakers’ second-round playoff series against the Phoenix Suns last May, he was there courtesy of Pacific Bell, with his wife, Doree, and daughter Jennifer.

The price of admission would have exceeded the then-$300 limit--if he had been the recipient of all three tickets. However, the gift law allows the company to give tickets individually to O’Connell and his family members, and only one ticket is charged against him.

Another quirk is that lawmakers are charged face value for any tickets they receive, although getting a ticket for that amount to many top events is all but impossible.

Sen. Joe Dunn (D-Santa Ana) received tickets to one of the hottest music events of 1999--Bruce Springsteen’s string of concerts christening Staples Center--from the hospital chain Tenet Healthcare.

The Springsteen shows had sold out. Scalpers sold the coveted tickets for hundreds of dollars.

Under the gift law, Dunn was charged the $65 face value.

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Entertaining Lawmakers

Companies with interests before the California Legislature frequently give lawmakers gifts, including tickets to major sporting and entertainment events. More than half of the members of the Senate and Assembly accepted at least some tickets last year. Examples from the last few years:

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RECIPIENT EVENT TICKET PROVIDER Sen. Bruce McPherson U.S. Open Pacific Bell Sen. Jack O’Connell L.A. Lakers playoff Pacific Bell Assemblyman Tom Calderon L.A. Lakers playoff GTE Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg Kentucky Derby Hollywood Park Assemblyman Dennis Cardoza racetrack Assemblywoman Carole Migden; Sen. Jim Costa; Susan Kennedy, governor’s deputy chief of staff; Rusty Areias, Department of Parks and Recreation Estyle.com Classic Cadiz Inc director Tennis Tournament Assemblymen Dick Ackerman, Sacramento Kings Philip Morris Tony Strickland, Bill vs. Indiana Pacers Campbell, Ken Maddox, Keith Olberg, Rod Pacheco, Sam Aanestad Assemblyman Jim Battin, Sacramento Kings Philip Morris then-Assembly candidate vs. L.A. Clippers Lynn Daucher Sen. Joe Dunn Bruce Springsteen Tenet Healthcare concert Sen. Richard Polanco, L.A. Dodgers vs. Pacific Bell Assemblywoman Dion Aroner, San Francisco Giants Sen. Patrick Johnston, Sen. Bill Morrow Sen. Kevin Murray, Oscar De La Hoya L.A. Arena Co. Assemblymen Gil vs. Shane Mosley Cedillo, Marco Firebaugh, Assemblywoman Sarah Reyes Assemblyman Roderick Wright L.A. Lakers playoff Arco Assembly Speaker Antonio Academy Awards Alliance of Motion Villaraigosa, Assemblyman Picture & TV Rod Pacheco Producers Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante Rose Bowl AT&T; Assemblyman Bill Leonard U.S. Olympic trials A.G. Spanos Co.

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