Stay up to date with LAist.
If you liked this article, you’ll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Start your morning in under 3 minutes with the 5 most pressing news stories every weekday.
California saw its largest increase in the number of registered lobbyists in the last session since at least 2011, when a law change more than doubled the number of registered lobbyists.
According to the Secretary of State’s Office, the number of lobbyists registered for the 2023-24 session increased by about 10% from the previous session to 3,245.
What’s behind the jump? Longtime lobbyist Chris Micheli attributed this to high turnover in Congress, leading to an “exodus” of members joining advocacy efforts.
For example, in what was called the Great Resignation of 2022, 26 members did not seek re-election, in addition to the seven who had reached term limits.
Micheli said he’s also seen an increase in rule-making by state agencies, which provides incentives for those who support and those who oppose regulations to lobby. Its importance has increased in recent years. ”
Meanwhile, the number of legislative staffers has changed only slightly since the mid-1990s, according to data from the National Conference of State Legislatures. Staff size can affect the amount of time members spend writing and researching legislation. The increase in lobbyists means that each staff member now has at least one lobbyist, compared to two staff members per lobbyist in 1995, the earliest data available from the Secretary of State’s Office. I will.
“The fact that the number of registered lobbyists has grown so much that it now exceeds the number of actual staff members of Congress need to help people do their jobs means that our system is designed to support wealthy individuals who make most of their campaign contributions. “It shows how skewed it is toward the interests of ordinary people,” said Trent, executive director of the California Clean Money Campaign, an advocacy group aimed at combating the influence of money in politics. Lang sent an email.
Lobbyists are required to register with the Secretary of State’s Office and report their activities quarterly. This is due to state political reform laws passed to combat political corruption in the wake of the 1974 Watergate scandal.
The law defines lobbyists as people who are paid to influence laws and regulations through direct communication with legislators, other than through public comment. They can be hired by companies as contractors or work as employees to influence policy, but those who spend less than a third of their time lobbying are not required to register.
Lawmakers and anyone who legally works for a state government agency must wait one year after leaving state employment before working as a lobbyist. There is no such requirement for legislative staff.
The recent increase in new lobbyists was the highest since 2011, when the law signed by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger required placement agents (treasury officials who solicit investments from state employee and teacher retirement funds) to register as lobbyists. The law nearly doubled the number of registered lobbyists from 1,237 during the two-year period ending in 2010 to 2,353 in 2012.
According to the Secretary of State’s Office, the second-highest increase occurred in the session that ended in 2020, when the number of registered lobbyists increased by 257 compared to the previous session.
The increase in the number of lobbyists has coincided with an increase in funding spent on lobbying, with industry and advocacy groups spending record amounts each year starting in 2022.
Lobbying spending for California state legislators was $420 million in the first nine months of 2024 alone, compared to $484 million in all of 2023 and $443 million in all of 2022. It reached nearly $1,000. They would have to pay news organizations to publish their content.
Jonathan Mehta Stein, executive director of the good government advocacy group California Common Cause, called the nearly $1 billion spent on lobbying in the last session “absolutely outrageous.” said. “In many cases, people in the Capitol community believe that once they learn how much money is being spent to divert policy decisions away from the reason everyone went to Sacramento in the first place, it’s important to voters that “Sometimes we lose sight of how amazing it is,” he said. It is about serving the public interest without fear or favor. ”
Jeremiah Kimmelman contributed to this article.
