Lobbying

If anyone has been the public face of the Las Lomas housing project, a controversial plan to build 5,500 homes in north Los Angeles County, it is Hillary Norton Orozco. A seasoned political operative who worked at Los Angeles City Hall a decade ago, Orozco has spent the last year drumming up support for the project by testifying at hearings, chatting up civic groups and meeting privately with members of the Los Angeles City Council.

Troubling images flash across the screen, showing black-clad terrorists, tsunami-flooded villages and the Chinese army. "Only the United States Air Force has the speed, power and vision to defend our nation for the century ahead," the announcer intones as an F-22 fighter jet flies over a snowy mountaintop. "U.S. Air Force, above all." There is nothing unusual about seeing military recruiting ads right now.

Re "Clinton demotes her chief strategist," April 7 Good riddance was my initial reaction to the demotion of Mark Penn, formerly Sen. Hillary Clinton's top campaign strategist, over imprudent lobbying efforts. The Clintons' long association with Penn may have arguably already cast a shadow over the campaign long before this revelation. Penn's consistent record of serving the interests of oil, pharmaceutical and other major corporations as well as foreign interests, often at the expense of America's interests, is a shameful blemish on the Clinton brand.

Santa Monica Mayor Herb Katz is lobbying for increased federal funding for a light rail project to connect East and West Los Angeles. The superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, David L. Brewer III, wants more federal dollars for No Child Left Behind Act mandates, financial aid to students and anti-gang programs.

Internet search king Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. have yet to agree on a deal to put some Google ads next to Yahoo search results. But their discussions have already provoked objections from an unusually diverse set of Washington players. In fact, it is safe to say that the American Corn Growers Assn. has never before joined forces with the Dominican American Business Network. Those and 14 other nonprofit organizations sent a joint letter to the Justice Department on Friday asking for an antitrust investigation of the possible Google-Yahoo alliance, which they said "threatens to undermine privacy and consumer choice, increase consumer prices, irreversibly damage online competition, and hurt small and medium businesses across the country."

. -- The man picked by the John McCain campaign to run the 2008 Republican National Convention resigned Saturday after a report that his lobbying firm used to represent the military regime in Myanmar. Doug Goodyear resigned as coordinator of the Twin Cities convention and issued a two-sentence statement: "Today I offered the convention my resignation so as not to become a distraction in this campaign.

Barack Obama makes a point of turning down donations from lobbyists, including those who represent foreign governments. But did the Obama campaign violate its own rules by accepting a $2,300 contribution in May from Gabriel Guerra, a lawyer who was a U.S. ambassador to Chile under President Clinton? In part, it depends on how technical you want to be. To be sure, Guerra worked at the Washington lobbying powerhouse Patton Boggs. And the firm last year registered Guerra as a foreign agent who offered advice to Patton Boggs and its client, Peru, on free-trade issues.

The top executive at Los Angeles' largest municipal pension fund wasted little time last spring jumping from his government post to a private sector job -- one that required him to drum up business from agencies like the one he had just left. On May 5, Robert Aguallo Jr. e-mailed his resignation to the chairman of the Los Angeles City Employees' Retirement System.

Most major industries have a dominant trade association to make their case in the nation's capital. Think the Motion Picture Assn. of America for the Hollywood movie studios or the American Petroleum Institute for the oil companies. Those lobbying groups give their industries one powerful voice, making it easier to get their messages heard through the Washington cacophony. But the high-tech industry often creates its own cacophony.