Lobbying in IL: The numbers lie

Last week, Sunshine Review released a study showing over $6.2 million in taxpayer-funded lobbying by counties in Illinois. $6.2 million is a lot of money no matter how you look at it, and regardless of the benefits and consequences of taxpayer-funded lobbying, this information should be proactively disclosed: governments should tell citizens upfront how much they’re spending on lobbying, why, and what they’re lobbying for.

The numbers uncovered by Sunshine Review are significant. Even more significant is the fact that they aren’t complete totals for the counties, only partial figures.

For example, one of the most open counties was Champaign County. Champaign was the only county that didn’t find Sunshine Review’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request “unduly burdensome” and sent information for all of the county. Most people don’t consider the sheer size of a county: a county has several departments and agencies, not to mention offices of individual officials. And most counties wont accept a FOIA request for countywide information. But Champaign County accepted my request as a county-wide request, and sent it to all of its departments and offices asking them to comply. This was the only county I did not have to negotiate my request with. For most counties, my original request was cut back greatly after several phone calls and e-mails. Champaign, however, just sent me information, including e-mails between lobbying entities and the county.

Even then, it was unclear whether Champaign has no lobbying contracts or whether they just didn’t send any. Every separate department in the county responded to the individual items I requested, but there was no general letter explaining what was and wasn’t applicable to the county. This is not a complaint about the county’s response, about which I’ve been gushing throughout this blog; rather, it’s a complaint about the complicated, convoluted nature of public records requests for items that should be public in the first place. After requesting lobbying records from counties, I should be able to answer whether a county contracts lobbyists or not. But I can’t, not conclusively.

This uncertainty makes it clear that while our report shows a good picture of lobbying in Illinois counties, it is not a complete picture. And citizens and journalists shouldn’t have to guess where their money goes: governments have a duty to report to us.

Illinois taxpayer-funded lobbying and lobbying transparency

The Illinois Policy Institute recently wrote about the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform’s report on Illinois taxpayer-funded lobbying:

[The report] found that “taxpayers paid lobbyists nearly $6.4 million to influence their own state government last year.” The money was spent by cities, counties, and other public bodies to lobby state government.

This, of course, is not the total amount of Illinois taxpayer-funded lobbying. The Illinois Campaign for Political Reform requested information from 195 political entities, excluding smaller entities. The report also focused on contracts with lobbyists, not taxpayer-funded lobbying associations through which local governments also seek to influence legislatures and which also hire lobbyists. This, of course, means that the total for taxpayer-funded lobbying in Illinois is much greater.

This work encourages transparency in taxpayer-funded lobbying, which is important; many people aren’t even aware that the practice even exists. The Illinois Policy Institute recommends Illinois follow in the steps of Minnesota, whose auditor compiles and publishes information on local entities’ lobbying activities each year.

At Sunshine Review, we’re hoping to do just that: to encourage local governments to be more open about where they spend taxpayer dollars, and to educate citizens on what it is that their money goes to fund. Lobbying isn’t bad, but a lack of knowledge is.

New Jersey taxpayer-funded lobbying confuses taxpayers and Senator

The National Taxpayer’s Union is a little irked about taxpayer-funded lobbying. They way they describe it, the practice boils down to governments “spending tax dollars to persuade the state Legislature to give them…more tax dollars.” And NTU asks two important questions:
*Couldn’t that money be used more wisely?
*Why do towns even need these lobbyists?

Two questions governments have a duty to answer to taxpayers. NTU also noted a common argument against taxpayer-funded lobbying: “Municipalities should be a priority for their state legislators, who are elected to represent those very towns.”

The main problem for NTU, however, isn’t necessarily government lobbying, but rather the lack of transparency and accountability. Laws on public lobbying are not as demanding as those on private lobbying. It therefore becomes easy to obscure the already-convuluted chain that taxpayer dollars go through in order to end up as payment to lobbying firms. The solution is better legislation. State Senator Loretta Weinberg in New Jersey (D-Bergen) has introduced a bill in the New Jersey legislature that would require towns to report any lobbyists they hire, the purpose, and how much the firm was paid.

The senator, like NTU, is also confused by the practice and questions the necessity of taxpayer-funded lobbying. “Why do they need a middle man? Municipalities are our most important clients. Towns don’t need a lobbyist to come to my office. I can’t remember a single time when I thought they were getting their money’s worth [by hiring lobbyists].”

At Sunshine Review, we’ve been working to find and compile information about taxpayer-funded lobbying and taxpayer-funded lobbying associations. Please join us in adding to public understanding about what it is that your government does.

For more New Jersey resources, see the links below. And be sure to join us at #FOIAchat on Twitter tomorrow from 2-3 pm EST, where we’ll be live chatting about FOIA in the news.

*New Jersey state website transparency evaluation
*New Jersey cities
*New Jersey counties
*New Jersey school districts
*New Jersey taxpayer-funded lobbying

Taxpayer-funded lobbying in California gives glimpse of other states

I’ve written before about taxpayer-funded lobbying and how obscure that information can be. A lot of taxpayer-funded lobbying is hidden, not reported, or not acknowledged as such.

A new research paper by the Pacific Research Institute clears some of that obscurity up. State-Level Lobbying and Taxpayers: How Much Do We Really Know? focuses on California while also surveying other states and gives insight as to the general nature of taxpayer-funded lobbying. The paper looks at lobbying in California for 2007 and 2008.

One interesting thing that may be generalized to taxpayer-funded lobbying as a whole is the amount of adjustments the writers of the paper had to make in order to try and get an accurate figure for taxpayer-funded lobbying. For example, of the $30.9 million reported as spent by labor unions, $8.1 million can be properly classified as taxpayer-funded lobbying. And this pattern continues in sectors “Government”; “Public Employees”; and “Education.”

It study breaks down the amount spent on taxpayer-funded lobbying in a powerful way: one in every four dollars spent on lobbying in California was taxpayer money.

The study ends up concluding that there is a need for further research in taxpayer-funded lobbying. The authors recommend improved lobbying disclosure laws that are stricter and more transparent and making accessibility a focus of these laws. We couldn’t agree more.

Missouri tries to ban taxpayer-funded lobbying

In Missouri, there’s a bill that would end the practice of taxpayer-funded lobbying. Representative Shane Schoeller’s bill would prohibit any entity that accepts tax dollars from using that money to influence the passage or defeat of legislation.

Schoeller, R-Willard, filed the legislation last year in response to the Missouri Department of Transportation sending 20 employees to the Capitol pressure legislators to pass a primary seat belt law on taxpayer time. Legislators ultimately did not support the bill, partially because the agency’s tactics annoyed them.

The bill would not outright ban recipients of tax dollars from hiring lobbyists, but the lobbyists would be forbidden from influencing legislators to vote a certain way on a bill. “You can monitor, you can educate, but you can’t advocate,” said Schoeller. The legislation would work by penalizing any registered lobbyist who accepted tax dollars to advocate a position by barring them from lobbying for up to two years, and by fining governments from $1,000 to $5,000 for using tax dollars to pay for a lobbyist.

Lobbyist Randy Scherr said it would be virtually impossible to allow lobbyists to educate a lawmaker on an issue while forbidding them from advocating a position, noting that the distinction between “education” and “advocacy” is nonexistent. It isn’t just the lobbyists that don’t think the bill will work. Representative David Day, R-Dixon.”I support the concept, I really do. But I don’t think it will change much.”

The doubts are consistent with the broad nature of lobbying. It is difficult and next to impossible to remove influence from the legislative process, since it can take many forms. Schoeller said he doubts his bill will be included in the final product. While the cause of ending the practice does seem lofty, the proposed bill has brought taxpayer-funded lobbying to the the forefront. A start would be increased transparency in the process. For example, out of the 54 Missouri counties with websites, none of them have lobbying information on their websites. If these counties were to post their lobbying information online, such as contracts with lobbyists, membership in taxpayer-funded lobbying associations, and check registers for payments to these, there wouldn’t even need to be legislation protecting taxpayers from overzealous governments: taxpayers could look out after themselves.

David Cameron in Britain on transparency

David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative Party in Britain and the Leader of the Opposition Party in the House of Commons, has been talking about transparency recently. In a speech at the University of East London, Cameron expressed a very negative view of lobbying. The Conservative leader said that the “£2 billion industry” is too significant Westminster and in some cases MPs are approached more than 100 times a week by lobbyists.” Cameron uses an inclusive definition of “lobbying,” similar to the definition found on Sunshine Review:

“We all know how it works. The lunches, the hospitality, the quiet word in your ear, the ex-ministers and ex-advisers for hire, helping big business find the right way to get its way.”

His prescription? To shine “the light of transparency” on lobbying so that the government “comes clean about who is buying power and influence.” David Miller of the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency welcomed Cameron’s admission that something needs to be done. He suggested the Leader introduce a mandatory register of lobbyists. This sounds like some of the lobbyist registration guidelines we have.

“Instead of locking people out of this process,” Cameron said, “we need to invite them in.” Along with lobbyist registration, Cameron hopes to institute a Public Reading Stage for bills so that the public is aware of current legislation. This is similar to propositions by American politicians, such as President Barack Obama’s transparency plans.

These all sound like great ideas for moving Britain to a more transparent way of doing things. Even if Cameron does not necessarily need to commit to his ideas, there’s a good chance the spotlight he has brought to transparency will be a good influence by itself.

SR in Orlando Sentinel: “Schools rated on record response”

For Sunshine Review’s Back-to-School initiative, we sent information requests to Florida school districts, asking for lobbying information. You can now find our prescription for more open government on the Orlando Sentinel: School districts should enact policies to ensure all new records are stored electronically and are searchable. These policies would open formerly obscure school business documents, such as contracts with vendors and check registers, to public scrutiny. In this way, our government would partner with its citizens, rather than act as an obstacle. For the whole story, click here.

Taxpayer-funded lobbying: Find out more

The label “taxpayer-funded lobbying” means what it sounds like: government entities use public money to fund their advocacy efforts.

But sometimes, it’s more subtle.

For example, a city could become a member of the National League of Cities, or other taxpayer-funded lobbying associations. Throught membership in such groups, cities and other government entities receive advocacy before legislatures. These groups lobby for varying items. A few examples include:
* The Texas Association of School Boards opposes school voucher programs.
* The Arizona League of Cities and Towns wants local involvement in setting liquor licensing requirements,
* The Wisconsin Counties Association supports the expansion of government work programs.
* The Florida Cities Association supports the creation of a commuter rail system in Florida.

This is all lobbying that is paid for by taxpayers. That’s right: you and I pay to oppose vouchers.

Another subtlety of government funded lobbying comes with legislative receptions. One way of influencing law makers is through legislative receptions. The Indian River School District, for example, hosts a breakfast for legislators.

There’s not a lot of information on taxpayer-funded lobbying out there, and there are problems with the disclosure system for lobbyists. So join us on our quest to get more information on the project page, or read up on taxpayer-funded lobbying in your state.

Taxpayer-Funded Lobbying: Start With Florida

We’ve been busy at Sunshine Review. During the summer months, we sent Freedom of Information requests to 27 Florida school districts with registered lobbyists.

Many government entities have lobbyists on staff, and many more contract-out their lobbying needs. Taxpayer-funded lobbying by state and local governments, public universities, transportation authorities, and public water utilities was $138.1 million at the federal level in 2007. This number does not include lobbying at the state and local levels, legislative receptions and gifts, or membership in taxpayer-funded lobbying associations, such as the National Association of Counties.

Data on those activities is hard to find, so we figured we would get the ball rolling by starting with Florida school districts. The most recent results are up, although we’re waiting to hear back from some stragglers, and you can also read a summary of responses by district to the FOIA requests.

To learn more about taxpayer-funded lobbying and our FOIA Back-to-School Project, click here.