Lobbying

Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan visited the state Capitol on Tuesday and raced between so many meetings that he easily could have been mistaken for an aspiring chief executive of the state. "You're not house hunting are you, Dick?" joked Los Angeles City Council President Richard Ferraro, who was part of the mayor's entourage on the fast-paced lobbying trip. "I have no interest, I don't," replied Riordan, who said Sacramento is a nice place to visit but not to live in as governor.

A judge's efforts to negotiate a settlement of the political fund-raising conspiracy case against former Los Angeles City Councilman Arthur K. Snyder went for nought Friday when county prosecutors said they would not downgrade the charges against the colorful but controversial downtown lawyer-lobbyist from felonies to misdemeanors. Superior Court Judge John W. Ouderkirk said a plea agreement would be preferable to a trial that lawyers estimated could take six weeks to four months.

A passerby steps into Trader Fred's log cabin in rural Vermont and confronts a symbolic chasm. To the right are antique clocks and toys: steel hook-and-ladder trucks, airplanes and Cubby, a 1940s windup tin bear. To the left, a rack displays the small shop's other specialty: firearms, including rare 19th century Colt shotguns and a Sterling AR-180 semiautomatic combat rifle with a folding stock.

And so the winds of revolution finally have swept through the California Statehouse. Willie Brown is gone from power, along with his surrogates. Republicans at last have assumed control of the Assembly, blowing hard about "mandates" and "contracts." This is a new day for democracy, these miniature Newts assure us, and it demands bold, prompt action. Thus, while Gingrich and Co.

Under any other circumstances, this would be a coalition to die for. Some of California's most recognizable politicos, from San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown on the left to Orange County Rep. Dana Rohrabacher on the right, have written letters with a single purpose: to keep former Los Angeles city councilman and campaign fund-raising wizard Arthur K. Snyder out of jail. The letters, among about 220 written on Snyder's behalf to Superior Court Judge John W.

It seemed an unexceptional moment when Sen. J. Bennett Johnston (D-La.) spoke against a resolution last year to overturn 17 years of American policy and allow Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui to make an unofficial visit to the United States. Johnston, reflecting long-standing U.S. policy that there is only one China and that its capital is Beijing, warned that Lee's visit, which was strongly opposed by the Clinton administration, risked damaging relations with China.

Led by oil, communication and medical industry groups, special interests spent a record $202.5 million to lobby the Legislature and state agencies in 1995 and the first half of 1996, officials said this week. In the corresponding 18-month period in 1993-94, lobbyists spent $190.1 million, Secretary of State Bill Jones said. The total was $176.6 million for 1991 and the first half of 1992. Lobbying expenditures also set a record during the second quarter of 1996, when they totaled $36.

Barely a year after leaving the Senate under charges of sexual harassment and improper dealings with lobbyists, Bob Packwood is back in business--as a lobbyist. He joins a growing list of his former colleagues. Packwood filed papers to incorporate his new lobbying firm, Sunrise Research, just 11 days after the legal one-year moratorium on lobbying expired last month.

Ever since Washington cut official ties with Taiwan in 1979, the tiny territory has been trying to capture the attention of American politicians. But not this kind of attention. Allegations that the ruling party's top money man secretly offered $15 million to support President Clinton's reelection campaign have thrust Taiwan's aggressive lobbying efforts into an unwelcome international spotlight.

The National Rifle Assn., its opponents say, is broke, shedding members, losing influence, in full retreat. As evidence of the gun lobby's waning power, opponents cite the NRA's inability to overturn the ban on assault weapons and the organization's decision not to endorse a candidate in the presidential election this year--in essence, acquiescing in the reelection of President Clinton. "The National Rifle Assn.