Lobbyists Donate Record Amount in 2001

Reflecting their growing influence in city government, lobbyists last year contributed a record amount to local candidates and collected more than $15 million to influence Los Angeles City Hall, also a record.

The city Ethics Commission reported Monday that contributions by lobbyists increased 34% in 2001, reaching $853,571.

Reform advocates and ethics officials said the data indicate that lobbyists are exercising more clout over city government.

“The public is clearly getting drowned out more and more as contributions and lobbyist spending increase,” said Wendy Wendlandt, associate director of the California Public Interest Research Group.

The report underscores the need for rules that would provide more disclosure and limit influence by lobbyists, said LeeAnn Pelham, executive director of the Ethics Commission.

The commission has proposed that elected officials be required to abstain from voting on matters on which they have been contacted by a lobbyist who has given them more than $1,000 in contributions. The rules would also require recusals if lobbyists hold fund-raisers for officials and would require lobbyists to disclose fund-raising activities.

Under existing rules, the Ethics Commission was able to report Monday only on the amount that lobbyists acted as intermediaries for, delivered or directly contributed to political candidates.

The increase was troubling but no surprise to Bob Stern, head of the Center for Governmental Studies and an author of the state’s political reform laws.

Partly because of term limits, last year there were an unprecedented number of hotly contested races for open city seats, including expensive battles for mayor, city attorney, city controller and eight City Council seats, Stern said.

Those who benefited last year from lobbyist contributions include Mayor James K. Hahn, City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo and newly elected council members Dennis Zine, Tom LaBonge, Jack Weiss and Janice Hahn.

In the 2nd Council District race, for which votes are still being counted, Tony Cardenas received $25,000 from lobbyists during the last three months of 2001, while his opponent, Wendy Greuel, received $17,800, the commission reported. With about 1,200 ballots still to be counted Monday, Greuel was leading by more than 300 votes.

In the report, city candidates reported paying $274,241 last year to lobbyists for campaign help. Under the commission’s pending measure, such payments would force the official’s recusal.

The report also showed that the amount clients paid for lobbying set a record in 2001, but the increase was not as large as in the past. Since 1997, lobbyists’ compensation has increased an average of $2 million a year until last year, when it increased just $3,604 to $15.2 million.

Ethics officials said some major development proposals and multimillion-dollar city contracts were on the table last year, spurring the spending by firms on lobbyists.

The most paid for lobbying a project last year was $716,454 seeking approval of cellular antennae sites, followed by $603,564 paid to lobbyists for the Playa Vista development and $506,100 paid to lobbyists by bidders on a street toilet contract worth as much as $750 million over 20 years.

The Greek Theatre contract, the Hollywood and Highland development and bidders for cable TV franchises rounded out the top six.

Other heavily lobbied development projects include a proposed downtown sports and entertainment center, Pico Plaza, AvalonBay Communities in west Los Angeles, Porter Ranch in the north San Fernando Valley and Noho Commons in North Hollywood.

Maureen Kindel, a lobbyist whose firm received the most compensation last year--$1.2 million--said that in tight economies, companies look to government for contracts and loans, which means they turn more to lobbyists.