More Of America For Sale... At The State Level

Hiring Federal Lobbyists, Towns Learn Money Talks

Recognizing the trend in Washington, many municipalities across the nation are now turning to lobbyists to grab their piece of the federal pie, pass pro-government legislation and have a say in what occurs in DC. The funny thing is that our government officials and elected leaders are supposed to be available to us without the use of a high-priced hired gun lobbyist. Where have we gone wrong? Who has to foot the bill for these lobbyists? Are they really "worth every penny they get" as is declared by one municipal official? Don't you think it's time we take back our government!

Rebuffed on several requests for state and federal financing to help rebuild its crumbling bridge, this small resort town was all but resigned to raising the money by doubling the 50-cent bridge toll, increasing property taxes and issuing bonds.

But in a last-ditch gambit, city officials hired a federal lobbyist who had known the local congressman for four decades. Within weeks, the congressman, Representative C. W. Bill Young, called the mayor to say he had slipped a special $50 million appropriation, known as an earmark, into an omnibus bill.

The city had originally sought $15 million. But Mr. Young — a Republican who was then the all-powerful chairman of the Appropriations Committee and, as his lobbyist friend knew, believes public roads should be free — raised it to eliminate the toll.

Since that windfall three years ago, Treasure Island has continued to pay $5,000 a month to the lobbying firm, Alcalde & Fay, and has continued to reap earmarks: $500,000 to fix a sewer plant, $625,000 to repair wooden walkways over the dunes, $450,000 for pedestrian crosswalks.

"They're worth every penny they get," said Mayor Mary Maloof, who led a parade of antique cars to open the new bridge on June 10. "When we started talking about it, there were plenty of eyebrows raised that we would be doing such a thing. But it's turned out to be a valuable tool for helping us cover costs."

Cities and towns — and school districts and transit authorities and utility agencies — across the country are increasingly reaching for that same toolbox, putting lobbyists on retainer to leverage their local tax dollars into federal tax dollars.

Since 1998, the number of public entities hiring private firms to represent them in Washington has nearly doubled to 1,421 from 763, as places like Treasure Island, population 7,514, have jumped onboard with behemoths like Miami that have long had lobbyists.

Most of these new clients had never sought earmarks — some had never even heard of them — before someone knocked on their door, essentially offering big pots for a pittance. Others had read in the newspaper about neighbors with lobbyists building bridges or beach walks and felt pressure to keep up with the municipal Joneses.

"We're all in competition for the same dollars, and you want all the advantages you can have," said John Litton, city manager in Lake Mary, Fla., about 20 miles north of Orlando.

The collective bill over eight years has topped $640 million.

Enlisted almost exclusively to land earmarks, lobbyists for local governments have boomed alongside a broader explosion in such appropriations, to 12,852 items worth $64 billion last year from 4,219 pet projects totaling $27.7 billion in 1998. The prolific earmarking does not change the overall budget's bottom line, but how the pie is cut: dollars are doled out, often in secret, at the whim of a lone legislator — often under the influence of a lobbyist — rather than through a competitive process.

It is against the law to use federal money to hire lobbyists. Yet local officials' near-unanimous justification is that the lobbyists pay for themselves many times over through the infusion of federal funds.

Ronald D. Utt, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a frequent critic of earmarks, said he was most troubled at seeing firms solicit public clients with virtual guarantees that they could deliver "dollars for pennies" (or billions for millions).

"The mystery to me is the way they are able to promise returns," Mr. Utt said, pointing to the revolving door between Congressional appropriators' payrolls and lobby shops, as well as to lobbyists' generous campaign contributions. "It goes beyond mere influence peddling to just outright, classic third-world corruption."

The most vivid case of earmark-related corruption came with the conviction this year of Jack Abramoff for trading huge fees from Indian tribes for influence with lawmakers. Public entities have also played a prominent role in the current federal investigation of the links between Representative Jerry Lewis, the current Appropriations Committee chairman, and the lobbying firm Copeland Lowery Jacquez Denton & White, leading to subpoenas of several of the firm's government clients in Mr. Lewis's Southern California district.

Lobbyists say there is nothing improper in their political activity. In fact, they use it as a selling point. In a 2002 proposal to the City of Pembroke Pines, an Alcalde lobbyist pointed to monthly fund-raisers the firm held at its offices in Arlington, Va., and said attending events "very frequently" for Republicans and Democrats alike "does allow us to better our local government clients."

Although local officials are rarely active in the campaign-contribution race that accompanies the earmarks derby, the firm's employees have given upward of $200,000 to more than 100 politicians since 1997, nearly half in Florida and in other states where it has clusters of public clients.

"Because we enjoy a considerable clientele from the private sector," the Alcalde proposal read, "we are able to significantly participate in the political and fund-raising process that might at times better enable us to access public policy makers on behalf of all the firm's clients."

Beyond any question of quid pro quo, however, some critics say the new ubiquity of private lobbyists paid with public money perverts basic democratic tenets. Of the 250 top-grossing firms in Washington, 48 have state, local and tribal governments as their leading source of revenue, far more than any other sector, according to the Center for Public Integrity, which monitors lobbying.

Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, one of several Washington watchdog groups critical of earmarks, said it was local politicians' mandate to make their needs known — and the job of members of Congress to look out for them.

"If you're a mayor or a city councilman and you have to hire a lobbyist, what a gross admission of failure on your part," Mr. Phillips said. "I would think they have a fiduciary responsibility to not put taxpayer dollars into lobbyists when they're elected to be, really, the lobbyist for the people."

The mayors and city council members, though, point to the special appropriations as proof of their fiscal prudence.

Alcalde & Fay is one of three firms — along with Patton Boggs and the Ferguson Group — that collected $25 million from public clients in the past eight years, much more than any other lobbyists. A close look at Alcalde & Fay's 44 public clients in Florida alone shows that, since 2001, $9.8 million in lobbying fees translated into $173 million in earmarks, or a return of $18.41 on every dollar spent.