Capitol Alert

Ever wonder how it is that the same bill pops up simultaneously in statehouses across the country? One way is through the work of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group that promotes business-friendly model legislation for state lawmakers to introduce in their respective Capitols.

The organization known as ALEC gets the Bill Moyers treatment tonight during a free screening in Sacramento of the documentarian's investigation called "The United States of ALEC." The film illustrates how the group brings together corporate executives and state lawmakers to craft policies that benefit business.

"Politicians and lobbyists at the core of this clever enterprise figured out how to pull it off in an organized, camouflaged way -- covering their tracks while they put one over on an unsuspecting public," Moyers says in opening his piece.

He illustrates why ALEC has become a bogeyman for the left -- through its efforts to encourage free markets and limited government, while curbing collective bargaining.

The free screening is being put on by Common Cause, which has filed a federal complaint over ALEC's nonprofit status, alleging that it unfairly allows ALEC to avoid lobbying registration requirements. The movie shows at 7 p.m. at the Crest Theatre, 1013 K St., Sacramento. A shorter version of the documentary is available online at this link.

Secretary of State Debra Bowen has rebuffed a request from advocacy and news organizations to allow direct, daily Internet access to her office's campaign finance database, citing legal hurdles that would make it prohibitively expensive.

Data on the flow of political money is readily available on the secretary of state's website, but it is broken up into discrete forms for different transactions. There is no comprehensive document or file online that includes all the information -- the full database is available only on a CD-ROM that costs $5.

Several organizations pushing for more transparency in politics, including MapLight and California Common Cause, sent Bowen a letter asking that Bowen's office upload a single copy of the database online every day. The Sacramento Bee, the Los Angeles Times and the California Newspaper Publishers Association also signed the letter, as did Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco.

Mercury Public Affairs' Sacramento team is set to grow, with a well-known state lobbyist and a state Senate chief of staff joining the staff roster.

The public and governmental affairs firm is announcing this week the hiring of lobbyist Duncan McFetridge and Adam Keigwin, chief of staff and political consultant to state Sen. Leland Yee.

McFetridge, who will serve as managing director alongside Mercury lobbyist Paul Bauer, previously worked as an attorney and contract lobbyist for Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, LLP. He has also worked in the state Capitol and for former state Treasurer Phil Angelides.

Keigwin, a 10-year veteran of the Capitol, will join the firm as a senior vice president. He will focus on providing strategic advice and public affairs work for clients and will not be a registered lobbyist.

Mercury, led by former Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez and former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger Deputy Chief of Staff Adam Mendelsohn, has offices in California and throughout the East Coast.

PHOTO CREDIT: The State Capitol in Sacramento on Monday December 11, 2006.
Sacramento Bee/ Randall Benton

Funeral services for Willie Washington, a lobbyist for California manufacturers for more than a quarter century, will be held Friday.

Washington, who retired from the California Manufacturers and Technology Association in 2006, died March 19. He was 77.

Washington, a native of North Carolina, served 22 years in the Air Force , much of that time in Sacramento, before joining Lockheed Aircraft Service Co. in 1977, working for the company in Iran and experiencing the country's bloody revolution in 1979. He returned to the United States that year and moved back to Sacramento as a lobbyist for Pittsburgh-Des Moines Steel.

Eight years later, he joined the manufacturers' association and represented its 400 members in the Capitol for the next 19 years. He once told an interviewer for the Sacramento Business Journal that his pet peeve was encountering "preconceived assumptions of my views on social issues" because he was black.

"People look at me and if they are blacks or liberals, assume that I have the same views on issues that they do," Washington told the Journal in 2001. "Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't."

Sacramento filmmaker John Kenneth Wagner didn't have to look far to find the subject for his next project.

As a 57-year resident of California's capital, Wagner has heard plenty of stories about the role of lobbyists.

He decided to shine a spotlight on Sacramento's influence peddlers in a new fictional Web series he's calling "The Lobbyist."

Wagner plans to produce and post 13 episodes, each 10 minutes long, for the first season of the show, which chronicles the professional and personal dealings of the fictional Elliot Richards.

But as with politics, money is the mother's milk of the movie business. So Wagner put three of his actors' lobbying skills to work during a six-minute video seeking cash for the project.

Elevator jazz accompanies their pitch on a crowd-funding website called IndieGoGo, which you can watch here.

Actor Brian Jagger, who plays Richards, describes the series as a " 'West Wing' meets 'Dallas' take on the California political structure."

In what could be seen as method acting, the three spend much of the video embracing the talents of the locally sourced cast, mainly themselves.

"Yeah, they're fantastic actors, but damn it if they don't look good, too," Jagger says.

As it turns out, Jagger has experienced the rougher side of the rough and tumble of politics first hand.

The former aide to Placer County Supervisor Kirk Uhler pleaded guilty in 2011 to scheming to steal more than $20,000 from campaign accounts of Uhler and two other candidates running for local office.

Jagger's defense attorney said at the time that he had suffered from personality changes after experiencing substantial weight loss and sustaining a concussion in a fall, according to a report in The Auburn Journal. He was ordered to pay a restitution and a fine and was sentenced to 36 months' probation, including six months of home monitoring with a GPS ankle bracelet.

Jagger said in an interview that dealing with medical issues he says contributed to his behavior in the wake of his arrest has allowed him to pursue his passion for acting.

"A project that happens to combine politics, a world I was very intimately familiar with, and acting was a great avenue and I'm excited to bring my experience -- both good and bad -- to the project," he said.

Wagner said he was aware of his run-in with the law, but has had nothing but positive interactions with the actor since they began working together last summer.

While Wagner hopes the show focuses more on the personal relationships behind lawmaking than political corruption, he said Jagger's past could make the character even better.

"Every actor draws on his or her experiences in life and work and business and that sort of thing," he said. "I think it's a tool that he's going to use."

EDITOR'S NOTE, 5:45 p.m.: This post has been updated with information about Brian Jagger's court case and adds both his and John Kenneth Wagner's comments about it.

PHOTO CREDIT: The California state Capitol in Sacramento, Thursday, Dec. 25, 2008. Michael Allen Jones / Sacramento Bee file photo

Longtime California lobbyist Mike Kahl, who founded the firm that became Sacramento powerhouse KP Public Affairs, died Sunday of Parkinson's disease. He was 71.

Journalist Greg Lucas chronicled Kahl's career in an obituary posted to his California's Capitol blog:

Principled, strategic and tenacious, Kahl and his partner Fred Pownall, built one of the most respected and one of the biggest grossing lobbying firms in Sacramento, representing the oil industry, water districts, and timber concerns, among many other clients.

Kahl pioneered a lobbying style grounded more in the policy of an issue than in political contacts. He was successful at it because, in most cases, he had studied the homework twice while his opponents were skimming the Cliff Notes.

"He preached to all of us that you had to deal with good public policy. This wasn't going to be about whether you were a good guy or if people liked you," said K.C. Bishop, a long-time Chevron lobbyist who worked closely with Kahl. "Good, solid public policy would win in the end but you needed to do the work to get there."

Services will be held Saturday in El Cajon, where he lived at the time of his death with his wife Judy, according to Capitol Morning Report. Click here to read Lucas' full obituary.

Editor's note: This post was updated at 11:30 a.m. with Kahl's age.

Two California political power brokers are expanding their stake in the North Bay newspaper market.

Sacramento lobbyist Darius Anderson and former Democratic Rep. Doug Bosco are reportedly part of a group of investors purchasing the Santa Rosa Press Democrat from its current owner, Halifax Media Group.

The Press Democrat reports:

The same group, called Sonoma Media Investments LLC, earlier this year bought the Sonoma Index-Tribune, the Sonoma-based newspaper that publishes twice a week.

The sale by Halifax Media Group includes the weekly Petaluma Argus-Courier and North Bay Business Journal in Santa Rosa and affiliated websites for The Press Democrat and the two weeklies.

The terms of the deal were not announced. The purchase is expected to close early this month.

The full Press Democrat piece is posted at this link.

An organization of tribes and card rooms formed two years ago to lobby for legal Internet poker in California has disbanded after spending more than a million dollars on the unsuccessful effort.

The California Online Poker Association announced today that it dissolved, a day after rumors began flying that it was disintegrating because of infighting among members.

"The decision was based upon insufficient progress within the Legislature toward the passage of an online poker bill," Ryan Hightower, the group's spokesman, said in a statement.

A handful of bills over the last three years have proposed regulating and taxing online gambling within California. But they collapsed after the state's gambling interests fought over who would profit from the new business.

Those special license plates for retired lawmakers might spark some nice treatment from a restaurant valet. But they didn't come in too handy last week when former lobbyist and Assemblyman Richard Robinson crashed his BMW in Sacramento and was later booked on suspicion of drunk driving.

Robinson, a Democrat who represented the Garden Grove area in the Assembly from 1975 to 1986 and then worked as a lobbyist for many years, was driving an SUV with special plates indicating he's the retired District 72 assemblyman when he crashed Wednesday night. Fox 40 TV news caught the aftermath on tape.

With just a week left for Gov. Jerry Brown to decide the fate of two off-reservation casino proposals, opponents are arguing that approval of one of them could hurt public employee investment funds.

Brown has until Aug. 31 to decide the fate of casinos proposed by the Enterprise Rancheria near Marysville and the North Fork Rancheria near Fresno. Members of both tribes have property in the mountains but want to build casinos miles away, along freeways on the valley floor. Opponents call it reservation shopping, while the tribes say they have historic connections to the valley locations. The federal government has OK'ed the projects and sent them to the governor for final approval.

Last week, 17 state senators sent Brown a letter urging him to reject the North Fork proposal. The senators -- including Democrats Kevin de Leon, Lou Correa and Juan Vargas, as well as Republican Tony Strickland -- said a North Fork casino on Highway 99 near Madera would threaten the viability of the nearby Chukchansi Gold casino in the foothills east of Madera. That, they argued, puts the retirement funds that have invested in the project at risk. Their letter says:

"We recently learned of another major concern about this proposed off-reservation approval, which is that publicly-issued California bonds, which represent major investment in the Chukchansi Gold casino, would be at risk if the Chukchansi Gold casino were to default. The investment firms which invest these bonds include those who manage assets for the benefit of university endowments, pension plans and retirement funds, including those organized for the benefit of public employees in California and other states... Our retired employees and educators cannot afford to have their hard-earned funds put at risk, and no actions should be taken by our State which could create such risks."

Casino opponents would not say which public employee funds are at risk or how much money is at stake.

"I can't quantify it but it's substantial," said lobbyist David Quintana, who represents the tribe that runs the Chukchansi casino as well as others opposing the projects.

The lobbyist for the North Fork tribe called the investment fund argument a red herring and said opponents are grasping at straws. Rick Lehman, a former congressman who is now North Fork's lobbyist, said the federal government spent eight years studying the North Fork proposal.

"They vetted all the impacts on Chukchansi and concluded they were not significant enough to deny the project," Lehman said.

California labor unions and a few employers are pushing for an end-of-session bill that would change the workers compensation system by increasing payments to permanently injured workers and limiting the fees that can be charged in processing claims.

"A group of representatives from labor and management are negotiating a deal to bring better efficiencies and benefit delivery to the workers comp system," said Angie Wei, a lobbyist with the California Labor Federation.

"We're going to find cost savings in the system by establishing fee schedules where they didn't have them before."

The bill is not yet in print, but Wei said she expects one to be introduced shortly. She said her group has been in talks with the chairs of the Senate Labor and Assembly Insurance committees. Unions and employers had been negotiating over the issue for months, Wei said, though just three and a half weeks remain in the legislative session.

California has overhauled its workers compensation system about once a decade for the last 30 years. The last time was in 2004 under then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

"Injured workers have suffered under the deep cuts in benefits that were never expected and never intended under the Arnold Schwarzenegger reform," she said. "The time is long overdue to rectify the injustice for these injured workers."

Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed several workers comp bills last year, writing messages that wanted to see comprehensive changes to the system, not a piecemeal approach. In vetoing Assembly Bill 947 he wrote:

"Workers compensation reforms ... need to be addressed on a broad and balanced scale -- ensuring workers receive adequate and timely benefits and treatment, while also ensuring that the costs of the system are sustainable."

A coalition of California Indian tribes is asking the Legislature not to rush an Internet gambling bill through in the final weeks of session.

"Last minute, back-room brokered deals on an issue that is vital to our tribal governments is the type of action that we must, and will, oppose until the final minute of this legislative session," the California Tribal Business Alliance wrote in a letter sent to lawmakers today.

The group supports legalizing Internet gambling but opposes the most recent bill on the issue -- Sen. Rod Wright's Senate Bill 1463, which hasn't made it out of its policy committee.

The Legislature has been batting around online poker proposals for three years. Gambling tribes -- who are big political donors -- are divided on the details, but they all want to profit from a new form of legal gambling. Tribal leaders from around the state are meeting today at the Sheraton Grand Sacramento to discuss the issue.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg said Monday that division among tribes is the main logjam in moving forward with an Internet poker bill. He said it was unlikely -- but still possible -- that a bill would come together this month.

Lobby firm revenue for the first half of the year is down ever so slightly compared to the same period last year, with Sacramento firms taking in $85.5 million so far this year.

The firm bringing in the most money during the first half of 2012 is Lang Hansen O'Malley Miller, according to the latest reports from the Secretary of State's Office.

Joseph Lang's company picked up several new clients in recent months, including the American Council of Life Insurers, Pacific Ag Management and the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (part of the AFL-CIO).

Filings show the firm earned substantial fees and retainers during the second quarter from horse racing tracks, a group that promotes the use of flame retardants, the Altria cigarette company and Education Management Corp., which runs several for-profit colleges.

Here's a look at revenues from the 20 lobbying firms that have brought in the most money so far this year. Click on the blue bars for details:

And here's a look at total lobby firm revenues for the first two quarters over the last eight years. Click on the red dots for details:

Editor's note: This post was updated on Friday Aug. 3, 2012, with data for individual firms from the first half of 2012.

The final weeks of this year's legislative session are almost upon us, and for influence peddlers in California's Capitol, that means a calendar full of fundraising events.

During the week of Aug. 6 alone, legislative candidates have scheduled four fundraisers on Monday, 10 on Tuesday and five on Wednesday.

Enter ContributionTrack.com. a website aimed at lobbyists.

Wavelength Automation Inc., the West Sacramento company behind the site, is marketing a new version that allows customers to see fundraising event fliers, add events to their personal calendars, suggest where their clients direct campaign contributions and manage how close those donations are getting to FPPC limits.

"ContributionTrack was designed for California's Third House," an ad says. A subscription costs $159 a month.

A sales team is pitching the product during two sessions Aug. 2, just before the Legislature returns from its summer recess. Click here for more information.

The firm also runs the website CapitolTrack.com.

Western States Petroleum Association topped the list of big spenders for lobbying in the first three months of this year, forking out $948,840, according to newly released state records.

The petroleum association had its hand in numerous issues, ranging from a low-carbon fuel standard to waste discharge requirements and implementation of a landmark state law to reduce greenhouse gas emissions substantially. It also lobbied for or against more than a dozen bills, records show.

Since the two-year legislative session began in January 2011, however, the California Teachers Association has spent the most money for lobbying, $7.1 million, state records show. The California Council of Service Employees is second, $5.6 million; and the petroleum association is third, $5.2 million.

Cumulatively, Capitol interests have doled out $66.9 million for lobbying in the first quarter, California Common Cause concluded Wednesday after analyzing disclosure statements. The total is a near-record for the first three months of a year, topped only by $68 million in 2008, said Phillip Ung, the group's policy advocate.

Ung said that interest groups lobby in good times to expand benefits they receive in state tax breaks or other assistance, and they lobby in bad times to protect such benefits.

"Our experience is that the influence industry seems to be recession proof," Ung said.

The first quarter's $66.9 million in cumulative spending compares to $66.7 million in the first three months of 2011, Ung said.

As the Legislature moved into high gear last year, so did lobbying expenditures: $76.4 million in the second quarter, then $73.3 million in the third quarter before the total dropped slightly to $70.0 million in the fourth quarter, Ung said.

In addition to the Western States Petroleum Association, The Bee has compiled the following list of the biggest spenders for lobbying in the first three months of 2012, based on state records:

Former Sacramento County Sheriff John McGinness has agreed to work with the California Peace Officers' Association as a lobbyist, according to a statement on the organization's website.

McGinness retired from his sheriff's post in 2010 after a 31-year career in the department. He currently hosts his own talk radio show on KFBK and teaches as an adjunct professor at California State University.

The association, which represents law enforcement in state, local and federal government, said in a statement on its website that he "will bring great depth of knowledge to the role of advocating for CPOA on public safety issue."

McGinness, who has not yet registered as a lobbyist according to records on the Secretary of State website, told The Bee that he is still working out the details of whether he will work in-house with the association or help them on a contract basis. But he said whatever the role, he is excited to help promote the work and mission of the association.

"I'm certainly very enthusiastic about stepping in and helping," he said, noting that he is a past president and longtime member of CPOA.

He said he expects to formally start working with the group March 1. He plans to continue to teach and host his radio show in the near future.

Editor's note: This post was updated at 1:57 p.m. with quotes from McGinness.

PHOTO CREDIT: File photo of former Sacramento Sheriff John McGinness. Paul Kitagaki Jr., Sacramento Bee.

A former Assembly majority leader has joined one of Sacramento's top lobbying shops.

Former Democratic Assemblyman Alberto Torrico is working as an "of-counsel" attorney for Capitol Advocacy, the firm confirmed today. It said in a statement that Torrico, who is not a registered lobbyist, will "provide Capitol Advocacy and its clients with strategic advice on political and policy issues."

The Sacramento-based firm, which represents major Capitol players such as the California Retailers Association, the California Hospital Association and Chevron, ranked No. 5 in California lobbying firm revenues in the first three quarters of 2011.

Torrico, who left the lower house due to term limits in 2010, will retain his private law practice. The Newark Democrat, who ran unsuccessfully in the 2010 Democratic primary for state attorney general, also serves on the state Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board. He was appointed to a six-figure post on the panel by Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez in early 2011.

Torrico joins a group of roughly 50 former legislators working to shape California policy either as registered lobbyists or general policy consultants, according to a 2011 Bee analysis.

RELATED POSTS:
Ex-Assemblyman Torrico appointed to unemployment board
KP no longer tops in California lobby earnings
California lawmakers-turned-lobbyists cultivate relationships under the dome

PHOTO CREDIT: Alberto Torrico campaigns for attorney general. Associated Press file photo, 2010.

Yolo County Supervisor Mike McGowan has been elected to a one-year term as president of the California State Association of Counties, moving up the ladder from first vice president.

CSAC, based in Sacramento, is the chief lobbying arm for the state's 58 counties, and has been deeply involved in the realignment of some state services to counties, particularly incarceration and parole for low-level felons who had previously been sent to state prison.

Counties are receiving several billion dollars from the state this year to pay for the realaigned functions, which also include some health and welfare programs, but they are demanding that financing be guaranteed by a constitutional amendment.

Separately, the California School Boards Association announced that Jill Wynns, a member of the San Francisco Unified School District board, has been elected president of that organization, which is based in West Sacramento and is a major component of the Education Coalition that lobbies the Capitol on school finance issues.

Schools are targeted for major cuts if the triggers in the current state budget are pulled because revenues fall short of the budget's estimates. Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed a tax increase for next November's ballot that would restore some funding to the schools.

PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Mike McGowan, Bee file 2009.

Look at how much interest groups spent on lobbying during the third quarter of the year, and it appears the San Manuel Band of Indians was a big player. The tribe was the fourth-biggest spender among more than 2,000 groups that employed lobbyists in California between June and September, declaring $1,008,620 in lobbying expenditures on disclosure forms released this week.

But the vast majority of that money -- a cool $1 million -- went toward throwing a private party at the tribe's San Bernardino County casino featuring a performance by country-music star Carrie Underwood. Three assemblymen -- Tim Donnelly of Twin Peaks, Curt Hagman of Chino Hills and Mike Morrell of Rancho Cucamonga -- and a legislative staff member were among the aproximately 1,000 invited guests who attended the July 14 party. Each one enjoyed $300 worth of entertainment, food and drinks, according to reports filed with the Secretary of State.

It would appear, then, that the tribe spent $1,200 on entertaining politicians and their staff. But San Manuel was correct to report the entire $1 million event as a lobbying expense, said Lynda Cassady, chief of technical advice at the Fair Political Practices Commission -- even though doing so catapults the tribe from its place near the middle of the pack on lobby spending in the past two quarters to almost the top this quarter.

"That number sort of skews it because it really wasn't used for lobbying, but the way the law reads is you have to provide the full cost of the event and (the government official's) pro rata share," she said.

The full amount must be disclosed, Cassady said, because the party was an invitation-only event. If Underwood's concert had been open to the public and San Manuel gave tickets to a few lawmakers, only the cost of the tickets would have to be disclosed.

PHOTO CREDIT: Carrie Underwood performs at an outdoor show in Nashville, Tenn., Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2009. Associated Press/ Mark Humphrey

KP Public Affairs has slipped from its long-held position as Sacramento's top-earning lobby firm, disclosure forms released this week show. That title now goes to the Nielsen, Merksamer firm, which brought in the most money -- $4,957,730 -- during the first three quarters of the year.

KP came in second, raking in $4,626,826 between January and September, according to lobby disclosure forms filed with the Secretary of State.

Nielsen Merksamer appears to have benefited from its contract with the City of Vernon, which was the top spender among lobbyist employers during the third quarter. Vernon spent $1.6 million on lobbying during that time, while the Western States Petroleum Association, which employs KP, spent just over $1 million.

Nielsen's new position as the top earning firm for the first nine months of the year reverses a trend of at least 10 years, when KP brought in the most money among California lobby firms.

The top 10 earners from the first three quarters of 2011 are:

Lobbying Firm Name Total Payment
NIELSEN, MERKSAMER, PARRINELLO, GROSS & LEONI, LLP - $4,957,730
KP PUBLIC AFFAIRS - $4,626,826
LANG HANSEN O'MALLEY AND MILLER GOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS - $4,519,243
AARON READ & ASSOCIATES, LLC - $3,908,427
CAPITOL ADVOCACY, LLC - $3,399,326
SLOAT HIGGINS JENSEN AND ASSOCIATES - $3,303,854
PLATINUM ADVISORS, LLC - $2,879,756
TOWNSEND PUBLIC AFFAIRS, INC. - $2,303,688
GOVERNMENTAL ADVOCATES, INC. - $2,072,956
THE GUALCO GROUP, INC. - $2,058,653

A former employee of Norwood and Associates charged with stealing from the lobbying firm has been sentenced to two years in prison.

Bee colleague Cathy Locke reports:

Linda Marie Wells, 50, was sentenced Wednesday by Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Gary Ransom.

Wells was employed as an office manager by Norwood and Associates, a lobbying firm. From 2004 through August 2010, she increased her salary by more than $95,000, according to a Sacramento County District Attorney's Office news release.

Officials said Wells used the company credit to make nearly $40,000 in personal charges, and transferred close to $75,000 from Norwood and Associates bank accounts into her own account and to a friend's account. Wells took a total of $219,771.

Wells had pleaded no contest to grand theft charges.

The Sacramento-based firm represents Comcast Cable and many large insurance companies and groups, including Liberty Mutual Insurance Group and Pacific Life Insurance Co.

Read the full post at Bee crime blog Sacto 9-1-1.