A proposal to register lobbyists provokes deep thought, trash talk

BONNIE LOWENTHAL by ALICE RUTHERFORD

Vice Mayor Bonnie Lowenthal is pushing for passage of an ordinance that by early 2008 would require the registration of professional lobbyists who mingle with Long Beach government officials. Some people say her timing is self-serving.

“Bonnie wants to use this as an issue when she runs for the 54th district seat in the state Assembly next year,” says one city councilmember—not Tonia Reyes Uranga, who is also seeking that office—in an off-the-record crack. “Bonnie wants to be able to campaign as the ethics candidate.”

“Thanks for the idea!” Lowenthal responds when informed of her colleague’s assessment, insisting that the thought never occurred to her, although she announced her candidacy back in April. “That is not on my mind.”

Lowenthal points out that she has been gradually steering Long Beach government toward an inclusive code of ethics since she was elected First District councilmember in 2001. At her suggestion, the city council appointed a 12-member Ethics Task Force headed by retired Judge Robert W. Parkin. The council has been considering, tweaking and slowly adopting the panel’s recommendations since 2002.

“I think we’ve accomplished a lot,” says Lowenthal. “But we still have a few holes—one of them being lobbyist registration.”

In other words, the timing of the lobbyist-registration effort is significant—but mostly because it’s hard to believe that a city the size of Long Beach has gone this far into the 21st century without such an ordinance. Chief Assistant City Attorney Heather Mahood reports that in her survey of the 10 most-populous cities in California, only Santa Ana and Long Beach don’t require lobbyists to register.

“At this point, it’s kind of a no-brainer,” says Mayor Bob Foster. “In the interest of fair play and transparency, professional lobbyists working in Long Beach should have to inform the city, reveal who employs them and periodically report their interactions with city officials. To me, it’s really a simple issue.”

However, some within the Long Beach business community are reacting to the proposal with emotions ranging from hurt feelings to apprehension to resistance. There has been talk of mounting active opposition.

On May 29, developer George Medak played host to some of Long Beach’s successful businesspeople and biggest developers—and their lobbyists—at a lunchtime meeting at the 555 East restaurant downtown, where they discussed strategy for opposing the lobbyist-registration ordinance.

One tactic would be to demand that the leaders of the city’s employees unions—such as police and firefighters—be considered lobbyists and covered by the ordinance.

Steve James, president of the Long Beach Police Officers Association, contends that doesn’t make sense.

“If the idea of the ordinance is to clarify who people are representing, I don’t think I should be covered,” says James. “Nobody has any misunderstanding about who I represent.”

But one of the attendees at Medak’s meeting, a lobbyist who asked not to be identified, mindful of the campaign contributions of city unions, contends this is a loophole. “It allows council members to exempt the people who give them the most money.”

The difference, says Lowenthal, is that these union members are city employees and a dialogue with them is essential to the operation of the city. “It is a real difference,” she says.

But the lobbyist from Medak’s group says the basic implications of a lobbyist-registration ordinance are offensive.

“When it comes to ethics in government, it’s always the electeds who want to regulate others,” he said. “They want lobbyists and businesses to register like some foul caste of society, but in reality, when something improper occurs, it is the electeds who have had a moral or ethical lapse.”

Foster gets a little agitated when presented with that argument.

“That’s a ridiculous non-sequitur,” he says. “We’re not talking about imposing limits, either monetarily or in terms of free speech. We’re not talking about wrongdoing on either side. This is not a law-enforcement issue.

“We’re just talking about openness and clarity—so that when someone talks to me I will know why they are there and who they represent. I’ve been in a situation where I asked, ‘Who are you working for?’ and the person answered, ‘I can’t tell you.’ We’re not going to have conversations like that.”

But longtime local lobbyists say there is another way to accomplish that.

“If the vice mayor and others want transparency, all they need to do is open their calendars and put them on the Internet,” says Mike Murchison, a lifetime Long Beach resident whose five-year-old Murchison Consulting Company would be covered by the ordinance. “That would solve the problem beautifully without adding another layer of bureaucracy—and forcing taxpayers to pick up the tab.”

Diane Ripley, another Long Beach native whose Fundamentals Agency would likewise be obliged to register its client list and report its interaction with city officials, says the ordinance would impose another layer of responsibilities on her already extensive to-do list.

“I don’t have a problem with registering,” says Ripley. “My thing is that I believe the city officials should have to do the reporting. My responsibility is to the person who hires me to do the job. It comes down to another big pile of paperwork for me, when the city officials could do it just as easily by publishing their calendars.”

Fifth District Councilmember Gerrie Schipske already does something like that, providing a list of her meetings every week as part of her blog (www.schipskedistrict5journal.com). But Schipske also supports a lobbyist-registration ordinance.

“The people approaching me know I am a city councilmember,” she says, “so I should have the right to know if they are paid lobbyists.”

In fact, Schipske says she’d like transparency to go even further.

“I think every City Council meeting agenda should include a place by each item where council members should be required to disclose if they have received anything—campaign contributions, gifts, whatever—from the people involved,” Schipske says. “Put the onus on the council to say, ‘We’re voting on this development, and in the last campaign I received this from the developer.’”

Lowenthal isn’t so keen on Schipske’s method of publishing her weekly calendar or her suggestion about itemizing finances on the council agenda. “I don’t look at her blog or her schedule. I have no interest in it,” says Lowenthal. “Quite frankly, it’s quite burdensome for council members to provide that kind of detailed information.”

Tags: bonnie lowenthal, ethics task force, lobbyists, Long Beach