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Local lobster hiring examined

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Illinois

* I’m not sure that this bothers me all that much…

With a looming meltdown of the Chicago Transit Authority atop the 2007 legislative agenda, transit agencies spent the most in Springfield: nearly $700,000.

The transit system was facing a fiscal meltdown, so dumping money into lobbyists is a natural reaction for anyone under siege.

* Here’s where that number came from…

The Illinois Campaign for Political Reform found that local governments and public agencies in Illinois paid $5 million to lobby state government over the course of a year.

The group identified 110 government bodies that hired contract lobbyists. The contracts went to 65 different lobbying firms in a 12-month period ending June 30, 2007. […]

Cynthia Canary, the non-profit group’s director, called the $5 million a significant outlay in public funds but a fraction of the money special interests spend to pass or kill legislation and to influence the actions of the executive branch.

Emphasis added to make a point. It does look like a lot of cash, but it isn’t in the grand scheme of things.

* The more important question is whether these local governments got anything for their outlays, either in the budget, or through special legislation. That wasn’t looked at by ICPR, but the Post-Dispatch did check out one contract between the Madison County Regional Office of Education and former Rep. Steve Davis…

“The state representatives that represent our region are great people,” but can’t realistically be expected to keep up with every issue facing schools in Madison County, said Robert Daiber, who heads the Edwardsville-based Office of Education.

He credits Davis for helping convince lawmakers to maintain hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of state special-education funding that had been slated to end. “That’s well-invested money” in the lobbying contract, Daiber said.

* ICPR had a reason for doing the research…

The voluminous research released Monday by the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform found discrepancies in the required reporting and suggested state lobbying laws be tightened.

* But at least one of those “discrepancies” wasn’t. According to the State Universities Retirement System, they did fully disclose their lobbying contract, contrary to what ICPR reported.

* One of the reforms pushed by ICPR as a result of this study was restricting “revolving door” lobbying - requiring a waiting period of six months to a year before a legislator could begin lobbying. Yet there weren’t really any horrible revelations that I saw in the report which would buttress that demand.

Still, I do commend the hard work by ICPR staff with filing all those FOIA requests with local governments and crunching the numbers. It’s good to have this info about how tax dollars are being spent as reforms are drafted.

Read the full report for yourself.

posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Apr 22, 08 @ 10:57 am

Comments

It bothers me.

The RTA, CTA, Metra, Pace all spent money on their own lobbyists. If there had to be such expenditures, couldn’t they have been coordinated by RTA — isn’t that what they are supposed to do? I’ll let you all in on a secret — these groups who are charged with providing regional mass transit service — don’t play nicely together. Fiefdoms.

Second, what did the paid lobbyists do that the staffs and executives of the FOUR transit services, and the legislators in the service areas, couldn’t?

Comment by wordslinger Tuesday, Apr 22, 08 @ 11:15 am
One thing that I don’t understand is why the government entities don’t have to file who they hire just like associations and companies do (unless they are suppose to and they just don’t). This also means they don’t show who their exclusive, in-house employee lobbyist is. The city of Chicago, Cook Co and others hire tons of lobbyist but don’t report. The lobbyist themselves usually list them as clients but their in-house people don’t file. I only want to know to make it easier to figure out who is representing who so you know who you can trust on a matter. One reason they probably don’t bother to file & report is because their employees all have government issued ID’s so they can by-pass the metal detectors upon entering the capitol. I am sure if they couldn’t use those ID’s their in-house people would have them file so they could be issued a lobbyist ID.

Comment by Anon Tuesday, Apr 22, 08 @ 11:17 am
Interesting in some instances all the credentials required to gain access to the Governor or his staff was not knowledge of the issues or the lobbying process but how to fundraise. Great job Wyma, Milan etc.

Comment by Anon Tuesday, Apr 22, 08 @ 11:39 am
The root of this problem is the same issue that “Phil Collins” brought up yesterday.

Governmental entities should not be funding other governmental entities. If the municipalities had to raise their revenue from their own constituents because the state only funded state projects, there would be no need to waste their money on lobbyists.

Comment by Balance Tuesday, Apr 22, 08 @ 11:46 am
Two comments about the ICPR report: 1) What’s really a shame about it is the notion that one level of government has to hire people to lobby another level of government. With as many members of the General Assembly who have served on local governments at some time in their careers, you would think there would be more of a partnership between the locals and the state. That used to be the case 10-15 years ago.

2) $5 million being spent on lobbying by 110 local governments is peanuts when compared to what private companies are spending. Let’s see a study on that. I would love to see, for example, what AT&T paid out to the lobsters last year to get the Cable and Video Competition Law passed. In fact, most of the lobbyists identified in this latest ICPR report were under contract with AT&T in 2007 as well as their local government clients!

Comment by Springfield Alum Tuesday, Apr 22, 08 @ 11:55 am
In response to Balance’s comment at 11:46, the municipalities would be overjoyed to raise their own funds and not be subjected to the unfunded mandates of state governmment. Local elected officials continually face the wrath of the voters for local taxes that have to be raised to pay for additional services that state government forces them to provide. But don’t expect to see such a scenario in our lifetime. State officlas will give you the stearn lecture about how local governments are “instruments” of the state that only exist at their pleasure.

Comment by One of the 35 Tuesday, Apr 22, 08 @ 1:56 pm
How can an individual school board rationalize money for a lobbyist instead of putting the money towards classroom education?

If they need help working on a special local issue, they should hire someone to train them (and administration and staff and parents) in lobbying techniques and strategies.

Besides it’s much cheaper to hire a grassroots lobbyist than some former bigwig.

Far wiser to spend tax dollars teaching local people how to fish.

Comment by Anonymous Wednesday, Apr 23, 08 @ 7:42 am