Is Wearing Two Hats Wrongheaded?

During the 1940s, the antics of lobbyist Artie Samish put the California Legislature in the headlines. Samish, who wielded so much power over the Legislature that he bragged to a grand jury that he was the “governor of the Legislature,” appeared in Collier’s magazine in 1949 holding a ventriloquist’s dummy named Mr. Legislature on his knee. Deeply embarrassed, the Legislature four months later banned him from lobbying in the Capitol.

More than 50 years later, California’s Legislature is again in the headlines over the antics of lobbyists and interest groups. A powerful campaign consultant, who also lobbies his legislative clients on behalf of his business clients, set off a firestorm when he threatened aides to two assemblywomen -- one of whom is the co-author of this article -- with political retaliation, saying he would use his influence to kill their legislation pending in the Senate. The outburst so angered our Assembly colleagues that Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson Jr. (D-Culver City) appointed a task force on protocol to recommend reforms of laws and rules on lobbyist conduct.

Although this incident made headlines, it is hardly isolated. Lobbying in Sacramento is often out of control, pushing right up to the edge of what is legal and what is proper. Some of our colleagues have complained of being strong-armed for votes by lobbying groups. Interest-group representatives have lobbied legislators in the back of the Assembly chambers while bills are being debated, despite rules barring such activity. Other legislators say they have been threatened with political retribution by interest groups seeking to influence a vote.

The problem of political consultants -- who actually run election campaigns for legislators -- lobbying for other clients is among the most insidious we face. Providing a full-service lobbying and campaign consulting operation under one roof creates an egregious conflict of interest in which lobbyists can exploit their close relationship with legislators to win favors. Though the Fair Political Practices Act prohibits legislators from voting on matters in which they have a financial stake, a huge loophole allows them to be lobbied on items in which a business or political colleague has a financial stake. Throw in a campaign fund-raising operation under the same roof and you have a recipe for even worse results.

Political consultants should not be profiting by lobbying the very lawmakers they helped elect. They know intimate details of legislators’ lives and are often creditors of legislators who owe them money for services rendered during a campaign. Our concern is that these consultants could leverage those debts, those dossiers and those relationships with legislators for votes on measures they are lobbying on behalf of other clients.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers came together recently to support a legislative package we wrote to clean up existing laws covering lobbying practices. Eight Democrats and four Republicans co-authored two bills, AB 1785 and AB 1784, that would prohibit political consultants from lobbying the clients they helped to elect and also bar lawmakers from allowing themselves to be lobbied by those with whom they have had a campaign business relationship.

Our bipartisan effort was supported by California Common Cause, whose director stated: “Campaign managers who helped elect, and will help reelect, legislators should not be allowed to turn around and lobby their political clients on behalf of their lobbying clients.... Allowing campaign managers to play this dual role puts legislators in an untenable position and gives unfair influence and leverage to the campaign managers/lobbyists.”

As with all efforts at political reform, those who profit from the existing system will do whatever they can to block it. But no amount of cleverness, obfuscation or intimidation can change the fact that this conflict of interest violates the public trust and must be stopped.

The input of interest groups and lobbyists is important to our democratic process, and the vast majority of lobbyists conduct themselves with great integrity. However, no legislator should be threatened or intimidated as they are about to cast votes, and political consultants should not be cashing in on their legislator clients at the expense of the public interest.

Although lobbyists’ antics today may pale in comparison with the behavior that got Artie Samish banned from the Capitol 50 years ago, we would be well served to close loopholes that allow his ghost to linger in our corridors.