Lobbying

It's strange how "scandal" gets defined these days in Washington. At the moment, everyone is screaming about the "scandal" of the Internal Revenue Service scrutinizing conservative nonprofits before granting them tax-exempt status. Here are the genuine scandals in this affair: Political organizations are being allowed to masquerade as charities to avoid taxes and keep their donors secret, and the IRS has allowed them to do this for years. The bottom line first: The IRS hasn't done nearly enough over the years to rein in the subversion of the tax law by political groups claiming a tax exemption that is not legally permitted for campaign activity.

SACRAMENTO - "Living in parallel universes," is how Senate leader Darrell Steinberg describes it. Gun control and gun rights advocates "talking past each other. " Emanating from different cultures, incapable of agreeing on how to make us all safer from firearms. Their opposite views were in full voice last week in the Legislature during a marathon 10-hour committee hearing - longest anyone could remember - on gun bills. Unlike in Washington, where gun control forces couldn't muster enough strength in the U.S. Senate to pass legislation expanding background checks, a state Senate committee in Sacramento approved eight bills to strengthen California's already stringent firearms regulations.

Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido said today that mayors from across the country have reached an agreement with key members of Congress that will likely take as much as $150 billion of the federal economic stimulus package that would have gone to states and route it directly to city governments. In his third lobbying trip since last month, Pulido joined a score of other mayors, including L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, in Washington on Wednesday to lobby key members of Congress to give cities a share of the funding.

WASHINGTON - A single conversation on the Senate floor Monday illustrated the challenges senators face in pushing a bipartisan measure to extend background checks to most gun sales. Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), the chief author of the proposal, spent some 20 minutes lobbying Alaska's two senators, one a conservative Democrat who faces reelection in 2014 and the other a Republican who has sometimes broken with her party. Neither the Democrat, Sen. Mark Begich, nor the Republican, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, has committed to the proposal, which could be the most far-reaching gun legislation to pass the Senate in more than two decades.

The article in praise of lobbying as an advance in the Mexican democratic process ("Lobbying as a Barometer of Democracy," Opinion, Aug. 8) illustrates crass ignorance of democracy or a genius for cynical satire. JOSEPH A. GRISPINO Lake San Marcos

Three former presidents endorsed legislation Wednesday to ban the future manufacture, sale and possession of combat-style assault weapons as a closely divided House neared a showdown today on the hotly controversial issue. Gerald R. Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan sent a letter to all House members expressing their support for the measure, effectively joining President Clinton in urging approval of the ban.

Rep. Jane Harman denied Monday that she had contacted the Justice Department to seek leniency for employees of a pro-Israeli lobbying organization under investigation for espionage. The Venice Democrat also said that she has never been told that she was involved in the FBI's probe of former officials of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee.

Re "Auto Club Board" by Edwina L. Hughes, Letters to the Valley Edition, Feb. 18. It may surprise Ms. Hughes to learn that the [American Automobile Assn.] has been a political lobbying organization for most of its existence. While its current Washington lobbying staff of 12 is meager by Washington, D. C., standards, AAA uses its 43 million members effectively to work for legislation it deems necessary (and vice versa). Unfortunately, its positions most often reflect those of the automotive industry, which fights hard for more roads, fewer pollution controls and lower safety standards.

I am the author of "Obamanomics: How Bottom-Up Economic Prosperity Will Replace Trickle-Down Economics." Judging by your review ["Cartooning Obama's Economics," by Rick Wartzman, July 16], I have written one of the worst books ever and if that is the case, I owe your readers an apology. But it was not lost on me that your reviewer appeared very angry throughout the review, and for good reason. I found fault with the Bush policies of deregulation of business and Wall Street causing many of our problems today and tried to show they were a direct result of lobbying and campaign contributions on behalf of our biggest corporations.

WASHINGTON -- JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Jamie Dimon on Tuesday defiantly defended his lobbying against some new financial regulations as he faced tough questioning by lawmakers about the bank's huge trading loss. Appearing before a congressional committee for the second time in less than a week, Dimon again said the bank was sorry for the more than $2-billion loss. But he downplayed the consequences for the company and the financial system, saying JPMorgan soon would report a solid profit for the second quarter of the year.

Should California judges be able to ask lawyers for help in lobbying Sacramento against cuts to the courts' budgets? Many judges and lawyers just assumed the answer was yes. Why wouldn't they be able to? Nobody is better acquainted with the trouble caused by court budget cuts than judges, who see firsthand the result of closing courthouses and restricting hours of access. But lawyers, especially litigators who do so much of their work in the courtroom, run a close second. Why shouldn't judges be able to ask influential attorneys at big firms (the same people who dole out a lot of political donations to political candidates)

SAN FRANCISCO - With a new political advocacy group that plans to inject millions of dollars into shaping public policy coast to coast, Mark Zuckerberg is taking a significant step onto the political stage, expanding his influence far beyond his home turf in Silicon Valley. The billionaire founder and chief executive of Facebook made it official Thursday that he plans to take on a far more visible national role in launching Fwd.us, which will lobby for the passage of comprehensive immigration reform, investments in scientific research and higher educational standards.

SAN FRANCISCO - A new California judicial ethics committee has issued its first formal opinion, deciding that judges may solicit attorneys to lobby for funding for the courts. The Committee on Judicial Ethics Opinions, responding to a request from an undisclosed person, said Friday that judges may ask lawyers to write op-ed pieces and lobby the community and the Legislature about court budget cuts as long as the request is not coercive. "In presenting information and requesting assistance, a judge may not hint of retribution or bias against an attorney or firm for not acquiescing in the request or otherwise place pressure on an attorney to assist," the written opinion said.

What's most impressive about our highly dysfunctional heathcare system is that we're always finding clever new ways to make it worse. The latest such move comes on the Medicare front, where lawmakers had been trying to rein in costs by modestly lowering the amount that large insurers would be paid for managing Medicare Advantage plans, which are a private-sector version of the government program. The Obama administration had proposed a 2.3% reduction in payment for the plans, arguing that insurers were making plenty of profit as it was. But after the insurance industry unleashed its lobbyists and started throwing its considerable political muscle around, it ended up not with a pay cut from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, but a 3.3% increase . I have no idea what the correct reimbursement rate should be. But I do know that, as the baby boomers age, Medicare represents a cash cow for insurers with Medicare Advantage plans.

SACRAMENTO - California businesses and other special interests quickly learn that playing politics in the ornate chambers of California's Capitol building is more like a barroom brawl than a civics lesson about how bills become laws. Here's a peek behind the everyday chaos in Sacramento as businesses dispatch hired-gun lobbyists to vie for lawmakers' attention and votes. The numbers are daunting: This year, 1,526 registered lobbyists are stalking the halls and hearing rooms in the service of 2,410 clients.

SACRAMENTO -- California businesses and other special interests quickly learn that playing politics in the ornate chambers of California's Capitol building is more like a barroom brawl than a civics lesson about how bills become laws. Most days, businesses large and small dispatch squads of hired-gun lobbyists to vie for lawmakers' attention and votes. And that lobbying doesn't come cheaply. Last year special interests reported spending $277.5 million on such advocacy, according to the Secretary of State's office.

When the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in April it created an environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and a gusher for the economy of Washington, where the business of lobbying, public relations and the law is the dominant industry. Lobbying expenditure reports for the first reporting period after the April 20 blowout show that offshore drilling companies and environmental groups ramped up their spending to make their case to lawmakers and regulators on a range of energy-related issues.

SACRAMENTO - Although many of California's cities and counties have been struggling financially, putting off road repairs, cutting back library hours and reducing police patrols, there is one way in which they have not held back: hiring Sacramento lobbyists. Local governments' spending on advocacy in the Capitol has surged in recent years, topping $96 million during the two-year legislative session that ended last fall - an increase of nearly 50% from a decade ago. The sum dwarfs the lobbying bills of the state's largest labor unions, big oil companies and other energy interests combined, according to the California secretary of state's office.

SACRAMENTO - Enforce the laws already on the books. Take away the criminals' weapons, not the law-abiding citizens'. Sound familiar? It's the mantra of the gun lobby. That is, until the government actually attempts to do it. Then the lobby changes its lyrics. It seemed surreal listening to lobbyists for gun rights groups Monday, as if the ears were playing tricks. They testified at a state Senate Budget Committee hearing in opposition to legislation that would spend $24 million in surplus money to confiscate guns possessed by people who legally aren't supposed to have them.