Legislature to the rescue: Lobbyists savor reprieve from the big gubernatorial candidate squeeze

For many a lobbyist, the beginning of the legislative session — and its attendant ban on fundraising from lobbyists — inspired the biggest sighs of relief of their professional lives.

A record sum of nine sitting legislators has been running for governor, along with several former legislators who know how the game is played. Every legislator asking for money and every lobbyist deciding if and how much to give knows this much: The unspoken threat behind every such solicitation is that failure to make a contribution will be remembered at some key decision-making point in the legislative process. For the lobbyist, the perceived danger of not giving is measured against the power of the legislator asking. So, when the Senate Tax Chair (Bakk), or the House Health Care & Human Services Committee (Thissen), let alone the House speaker (Kelliher) or former House minority Leader (Seifert) come calling, it’s very tough to say no.
And call they did. Many an exasperated lobbyist told us that legislators-cum-gubernatorial candidates called their offices, their homes and their mobile phones. One lobbyist told us that his checkbook register looks like a legislative roll call. (Click to enlarge)

So how much did gubernatorial aspirations cost key lobbyists and lobbying firms? The following chart highlights the donation activity of key lobbying firms and a few solo practitioners. The numbers represent the total of contributions given to gubernatorial candidates by both individual staffers and a firm’s PAC. (Click to enlarge)

Do note that much of the candidate squeezing happened in January and the first few days of February. We won’t have those numbers until the next reports have to be filed, before the primary, in August (or sooner, if the legislature moves the primary to August).

Analyzing all the contributions…

We pored through all of the 2009 candidate reports and broke out all the registered lobbyist lobbyist contributions, along with most of the political funds and PACs. We wanted a clearer picture of the dynamics mentioned in the previous item — i.e., who got squeezed the most and how much juice did they have to produce?

Another reason requires more explanation. Those of us at PIM believe lobbying is a noble profession, since everyone does have the right to organize and petition the government for a redress of grievances. But, too often, lobbying gets slammed by a public who doesn’t understand it (and doesn’t recognize that every profession and hobby is well-represented by lobbyists in both the state Capitols and Washington).

But since “lobbyist” remains a popular devil-term, many a candidate tries to have it both ways: Slam the lobbyists on the stump and call them ad nauseam in private. In the 2010 gubernatorial election, the worst offender was Rep. Marty Seifert (R-Marshall).  More about his conduct here.

Other candidates aren’t the least bit gun-shy about courting lobbyist dollars (think Bakk and Rukavina). They don’t slam lobbyists — and even sing their praises — and work every angle to get them to contribute.

Finally, as you peruse our breakdown, there’s another strain of anti-lobbyist and anti-lobbyist money thinking to sort through. Call it the  Sen. John Marty (DFL-Roseville) line of thinking: All lobbyist money is bad and you can track why special interests give to which candidate(s). Marty is right about the latter: You can track giving by specific interest groups and their lobbyists to the candidates with power over their issues.

Here’s the chart (PDF). Some notes. We excluded all registered labor lobbyists and their PACs. Lining up union support has been job one for many of DFL candidates and much has already been written about it. A great deal of  “special interest” influence buying is hidden in the reports under individual contributions, and is not reflected in our tally. Perhaps the best example of this is one we’ve analyzed before — Dr. Robert Haselow and the company he founded, Minneapolis Radiation Oncology. Haselow and his wife made a number of individual contributions to 2010 gubernatorial candidates, yet they are not, and never have been, registered to lobby. We’ll have more on Haselow when the Campaign Finance Board completes its entry of individual contributions into searchable databases. We’re told that will take at least a month or two.

2 Responses to “Legislature to the rescue: Lobbyists savor reprieve from the big gubernatorial candidate squeeze”

1. Joel Clemmer Says:
   February 6th, 2010 at 4:36 pm

   Sarah Janecek does Minnesota a great service with this research and article. Special interest influence over our legislature through campaign donations is probably the best example of a problem that everybody complains about but does not know how to get a handle on it.

   Note her reference to the unusual stance taken by Senator John Marty and the fact that he does not appear at all in her chart of lobbyists’ donations to candidates. It turns out that he is the only viable candidate to refuse donations by lobbyists and PACS. So, now we know the extent to the problem and have an opportunity to do something about it!

2. Colin Lee Says:
   February 8th, 2010 at 10:29 am

   I do not believe that all lobbyists are bad, nor that corporations spending PAC money to share their perspective through lobbyists is a bad idea. Indeed, speaking in person is the best way to reach legislators with your message and this form of speech must be protected at all costs. However, recent behavior by Congress should make clear that when lobbyists switch hats from the role of advisor to that of contributor– the result is thinly-veiled quid pro quo.

   With all due respect to Sarah Janacek, who works hard to produce good journalism, I feel that this part of the story is too often muted by the media even when they care to cover the story. When lobbyists contribute to a candidate, all informed citizens must assume that the candidate has agreed to work on behalf of that contributor, even when those interests starkly conflict with the interests of the people the politician was elected to represent. We can’t rely upon our politicians to have the ethics of Mother Theresa. We can’t expect them to accept lobby money and then be able to tell their contributors, “no,” when it truly matters.

   To take the money and ignore constituents is a betrayal. I call on all Minnesota politicians to follow the lead of John Marty by rejecting all improper influence through campaign cash. I certainly will.