Profiling the Diversified California Lobbyist Delegation in Washington : Members of Pin-Striped Army Battle to Win Friends, Influence Congress

Paul Sweet, the University of California’s full-time representative here, remembers a conversation he had with one of his counterparts from the South. It was an exchange that illustrates why California entities may need all the help they can get in Washington.

The man told Sweet that Southern schools need more federal help than California’s because, “You have a larger tax base. We have poor people in our state.”

“The perception,” Sweet said, “is that California has too much going for it, that money falls off the palm trees. You see it in Congress, and you see it around town. California snobbery is very prevalent in this town.”

Countering that bias is part of the job for Sweet, one of hundreds of Washington representatives who work for California-based interests, organizations or companies.

Those who represent California interests--whether they label themselves consultants, registered lobbyists or Washington representatives--are part of a lobbying community of more than 10,000, a pin-striped army invisible to those who live outside the city’s borders and omnipresent to those who work within them.

Working in Many Forums

Their duties are multifaceted and performed in many forums. Lobbyists research, write and promote legislation. But what they do better and more often is prevent the passing of laws that would be detrimental to their employers.

In addition to their work with Congress, representatives also follow the regulatory process (in which regulations to implement the laws are written) and meet with cabinet officials, providing them with the same information.

Establishing a good rapport with key members of Congress and the Administration is vital to lobbyists who are invited to hundreds of political fund-raisers every year and attend many of them. They also organize fund-raisers for members of Congress they would especially like to keep in office.

Many lobbyists play golf or tennis or jog with congressmen and their key staff people, provide them with tickets to sports events and theater performances and treat them to expensive meals.

The connection between lobbying and money often raises suspicions about the occupation. But lobbyists say they consider an overwhelming majority of their colleagues to be honest purveyors of a much-needed and widely misunderstood service.

They toil for a wide range of interests and causes, including the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A., the Sierra Club, the National Frozen Pizza Institute, the American Home Sewing Assn., the National Football League Players Assn., the Sea Turtle Rescue Fund, the National Crushed Stone Assn. and Common Cause, which describes itself as a grass-roots citizens’ lobby, one that is often critical of lobbyists. Cities, counties and states have Washington lobbyists. Perhaps the most relentless, congressional staffers say, are those working on either side of the abortion issue.

Laws require extensive reporting of lobbying activities and expenses and these reports are actively perused by journalists, political candidates and others.

Well-Paid for Efforts

According to a 1985 survey conducted by the Public Affairs Council, the average total cash compensation paid to the top Washington representative of a California company was $130,200 a year, a bit higher than the $106,200 national average. The average California Washington representative, then, earns about $30,000 more than a member of Congress or the Administration, which is one reason why many government officials go on to become lobbyists, but lobbyists do not go on to become government officials.

While some lobbyists work full-time for a single company or interest group, others hire themselves out to many clients, usually to help on a specific piece of legislation. Most of these lobbyists work for large firms and earn the biggest salaries.

Former government officials with extensive contacts and first-hand knowledge of government’s inner workings are able to attract clients at some of the highest rates, working for lobbying firms or starting their own public relations/consulting companies.

The current investigation of the lobbying activities of former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Michael K. Deaver has again cast an unflattering light on lobbyists. At a time when their profession is under fire, nine representatives of California interests talked about their jobs.

RICHARD COOK Lockheed Corp.

Besides overseeing a staff of 50, one of Richard Cook’s challenges as head of Lockheed Corp.’s Washington office was to explain why a toilet seat and cover supplied by the Burbank-based aerospace firm cost taxpayers $640.

“It was very serious, even though it yielded a lot of funny lines,” said Cook, interviewed in Lockheed’s downtown Washington offices behind number-coded locked doors. “It was vastly distorted.”

Admitting that he has had “a few disagreements” with higher Lockheed officials about courses he was told to pursue in Washington, “I’ve never,” Cook added, “been given an assignment I’ve lost any sleep over.

“I don’t see any difference between good lobbying and good salesmanship,” said Cook, 54, who served in the Air Force and Nixon White House and once sold pots and pans door to door. “It’s based on common sense and honesty. We do feel we have an important mission and an important obligation to the public.”

Los Angeles was second only to St. Louis (home of McDonnell Douglas Corp.) in absorbing Defense Department dollars in fiscal 1985. About $6.93 billion in defense spending flowed into Los Angeles.

In 1984, the last national election year, defense contractors doubled their political donations from the time Ronald Reagan took office in 1980. Lockheed’s political action committee contributed $420,191 of the $3.6 million given to candidates by the 20 largest weapons manufacturers.

Thirteen of the 14 senators who had received more than $30,000 backed President Reagan on a subsequent request to build 21 more MX missiles. But Cook disputes the idea that money buys votes.

“I don’t think a $5,000 donation (from a single contractor) in a senatorial campaign that costs $5 million can make much difference. The public doesn’t have much to worry about in terms of buying votes,” he said.

Traveling on the Job

Cook stops short of claiming that the whole system is squeaky clean, saying that “if lobbying has a bad name, it’s because there are people who are exploitable.”

He said he travels on the job “about a fifth of the time” and attends Washington political fund-raisers and dinners four or five times a week, even though socializing in Washington “is somewhat overrated” as a professional tool.

“I’ve never spent a boring day,” he said. “It sure beats selling candy or shoes and socks.”

DAVID GARDINER Sierra Club “We are the little guy and our opponents are the biggest corporations in America,” said David Gardiner, 30, a Harvard graduate who earns $45,000 a year heading the Sierra Club’s band of eight Washington lobbyists. His salary is among the lowest in the lobbying profession.

The corporate lobbyists, said Gardiner, “certainly have clout we can’t match.”

Yet in the third quarter of 1985, the Sierra Club was No. 5 on the list of highest lobbying outlays, spending $266,197--more than the American Petroleum Institute and the National Rifle Assn.--according to reports filed with the House of Representatives.

The Sierra Club goes about its lobbying differently from the big corporations, Gardiner said, depending almost entirely on forming coalitions (with groups such as the National Lung Assn. to fight for the Clean Air Act) and the grass-roots support of its 370,000 members. Despite its disadvantages, Gardiner feels the Sierra Club wins more battles than it loses.

“We are different from corporate lobbyists in that they have resources we don’t have, chiefly money,” Gardiner said. “What we have is people and public opinion.

“I think we are treated with respect by people in Congress, but it is always an uphill battle,” he said. “Corporate lobbyists might be able to show their results in a bottom-line figure, but it doesn’t compare to going and looking at a dead lake in the Adirondacks or trees dying in North Carolina and knowing you’re doing something about it.

“I like the kind of lobbying I do and I think very highly of it,” Gardiner said. “Without lobbyists to provide information, I don’t see how Congress could make any decisions at all.

“There clearly is a lot of sleazy stuff, members of Congress allowing votes to be bought. But that group is primarily in the minority.”

When a lobbyist shells out money for a campaign, “in most cases,” Gardiner said, “the only thing you can be sure you’ll get is that he will listen to your case.

“I don’t think you’re necessarily buying votes. Although if one person receives $25,000 from an industry, it’s hard to believe he’ll turn them down.”

MONTE LAKE Farm Labor Alliance For three years Fresno-born Monte Lake has been fighting for immigration legislation that would allow California growers to employ foreign “guest workers” legally at harvest time.

Often this means fighting California’s image “as a crazy place, the land of fruits and nuts. And not the agricultural ones,” said Lake, 39, an attorney with the Washington law and lobbying firm, Heron, Burchette, Ruckert & Rothwell.

On the immigration bill Lake represents the Farm Labor Alliance, a group of Western growers primarily from California. He said he must fight a false perception in Washington: “The farmers involved are viewed by non-Californians as a bunch of gold chain-wearing, Cadillac-driving, cigar-smoking, fat, rich, happy growers.”

Paid for Services

In the last quarter of 1985, the Farm Labor Alliance paid Lake’s firm $13,500 for lobbying services, according to House records. In the same three months, the firm also was paid $56,300 by the American Grape Growers Alliance for Fair Trade, $25,600 by Sunkist Growers, $15,600 by Sun Diamond Growers of California and $10,700 by the California Almond Growers Exchange.

During that time, from October through December, Heron Burchette spent more than $47,000 lobbying on behalf of those clients. Taken together, the Western growers are considered a powerful lobby who have all but taken charge of the immigration bill.

Lobbyists like Lake who hire out to various clients, rather than working for a single corporation or interest, are known as hired guns, and often the perception is negative: that they’ll represent anybody and push anything for a price.

‘Satisfying Work’

“The compensation is good. That’s a fact,” Lake said, declining to reveal his income. “It’s also interesting, satisfying, rewarding work.

“I’ve been comfortable with all the issues I’ve handled. I feel very, very strongly that what the growers are seeking is right. I grew up out there with farmers’ sons, and for me it’s an easy issue to handle.

“I also view this issue (of being a hired gun) from a lawyer’s standpoint,” said Lake, a former California deputy attorney general, “which is that every side deserves its day.

“I think the public perception is by and large negative because it is the stories of ex-government officials looking improper who get all the press. I think people who understand how lobbying works feel it’s an undeserved rap.”

CLIFF MADISON Cliff Madison Government Relations Inc. Cliff Madison is a one-man lobbying company and he’s certainly running it his way.

He commutes to his Capitol Hill office, Government Relations Inc., from his home in Granada Hills every week, flying to Washington on Sunday and returning home to his wife and three children on Thursday.

“It’s nice to be able to play tennis in the winter time,” said Madison, 43, who looks every bit the blond, tanned tennis player caged in a pin-striped suit. “And I can meet my California clients there.”

At an expensive French restaurant on Capitol Hill favored by lobbyists, Madison discussed his trek from the Army and American University across town to Capitol Hill, where he worked as a legislative assistant to Rep. Glenn Anderson (D-Hawthorne), and then became staff director of Anderson’s Public Works and Transportation Subcommittee on Aviation.

“I had Potomac fever,” Madison said. “But I started wondering, ‘What do normal people do to make a living?’ ”

Having made contacts at the aviation subcommittee, Madison went to work for Western Airlines, which moved the family to California. But soon Madison began to miss politics and in July of 1983 decided to open his own lobbying shop in Washington. Western was his first client.

Earnings on ‘Very Low Side’

Now he lobbies for the Southern California Rapid Transit District, the city of Avalon on Catalina Island and the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority, among others. He says his earnings are on the “very low side” of the “$100,000 to $1 million” yearly pay he figures most Washington lobbyists make.

“I can’t see doing this for 30 years,” Madison said. “I’d like to make some money and buy a tennis club.”

Madison feels the profession today is much improved over 20 years ago, due to passage of “sunshine” reform laws in the 1970s, so named because they supposedly threw open the closed doors of certain important legislative conferences to let the sunshine (and the public) in.

“In the old days before they reformed this stuff,” said Madison, “lobbying deserved a bad image. It’s a heck of a lot better than it used to be.”

FRED MARTIN Bank of America Fred Martin, the Washington representative for San Francisco-based Bank of America, recalled how his son’s class at UC Davis was told by a professor, “The Bank of America owns half of Congress.”

“When my son told me this,” Martin said, “I asked him, ‘Can you find out which ones?’ ”

Martin, 54, says his bank and the banking industry do not have the power that is generally attributed to them, and that he spends a great deal of time “explaining to people what banking is all about.

“I think there are some (interest) groups with such overwhelming, powerful players that they can directly influence the outcome of events,” he said, declining to name them.

“A lot of groups have the power to veto,” meaning to discourage the passage of new laws that would hurt them. “But very few,” Martin said, “have the power to order,” that is, to push through new laws beneficial to them.

Does the lobbying system favor large interest groups and work against the little guy?

‘A Smoke Screen’

“We are a big nation and we require large organizations to serve our needs,” said Martin. “I don’t think our system works against the little guy. People who claim to speak for the little guy use it as a smoke screen,” to promote their own agendas, he said.

Martin occasionally jogs with members of Congress or takes them to the theater and dinner parties, sometimes going out “14 days in a row,” he said. “But I try to keep it down to three or four nights a week.”

He estimated that he is invited to 1,000 political fund-raisers a year and also hosts a few, even though “if I were waving a magic wand I would outlaw Washington fundraisers. Campaign money ought to come from the member’s district.”

RUFUS McKINNEY Southern California Gas Co. Rufus McKinney, a 55-year-old attorney and one of a small number of black Washington representatives, heads a 10-person Washington staff that watches over the interests of the Southern California Gas Co.

“Some people find it morally offensive to promote a private, profit-making operation,” said McKinney, interviewed in his well-appointed downtown office. “There are still people who just feel that business is bad.

“Ultimately what we all do could be described as selfish. You want some advantage, some fair advantage,” he said.

“I see some things that I wouldn’t do. I refuse to tie any particular campaign contribution to any kind of request. I don’t know that this goes on, but I suspect it does.”

McKinney is not a registered lobbyist, technically defined as someone who is trying to directly influence the outcome of legislation. He spends most of his time keeping tabs on federal energy regulation policy and meeting the right people.

‘Just a Social Occasion’

“Once a year the company gives a black-tie dinner for the California (congressional) delegation,” McKinney said. “It doesn’t cost a helluva lot. Maybe $30,000 or $40,000. No business is discussed. It’s just a social occasion to get introduced.”

McKinney said he goes out about three nights a week. “It’s image building with the general public,” he said. “Being a good, corporate citizen.”

He can count on one hand the number of blacks who have headed Washington offices of corporations or organizations in the 14 years since he set up the gas company’s operation here. He has encountered “only trivial kinds of slights” as one of the very few high-level blacks in the business, he said, adding, “it will be quite some time before (racial) parity exists, if it ever does.

“That’s consistent with most other professions in this town and a reflection of the overall society.”

JIM SEELEY City of Los Angeles Representing the City of Los Angeles, Jim Seeley works for Mayor Tom Bradley and the City Council, whose pictures adorn a wall in his downtown Washington office.

Seeley earns $73,000 a year and has an unusual job, he said, in that he primarily acts “as a conduit” between the elected officials in Los Angeles and the Los Angeles-based members of Congress.

“I brief members of the California delegation on where the City Council is coming from,” he said. “They don’t want to be blind-sided. Elected officials on various levels need each other.”

The city does not make campaign contributions, but Seeley said he functions just fine without them.

“I get angry sometimes at the naivete of some businessmen who think they have to hire big lobbyists. They are naive about how responsive Congress can be.”

Seeley may sound critical of the lobbying profession, but he says he really approves of it.

“It does look like people manipulate the (law-making) system,” he said. “But the system is really so tedious and long that it’s difficult in the end to manipulate it.

“You can win small battles, amendments in subcommittees. But the greatest protection against excesses is that no one member has the same clout they used to. There are more subcommittee chairmen and more staff than ever before. Where something used to go through one committee, now it goes through three.”

Seeley, 48, has been Los Angeles’ Washington representative for 10 years, and he clearly likes his job.

“I’m dealing with issues a majority of Los Angeles supports. It’s not like I’m working on saving asbestos.”

ARTHUR SILVERMAN Wine Institute A noted exception to the usual bland congressional reception is a party given each year for the California delegation by the Wine Institute, offering lavish food and plenty of the best California white wines and champagnes (red wine being forbidden by the newly carpeted State Department, where the party is held).

This is just one of many lobbying activities of the Wine Institute, a group of Western wine producers who have hired attorney Arthur Silverman, 46, of Dow, Lohnes & Albertson to lobby for them.

“For years there’s been a tremendous wine trade imbalance,” said Silverman, who graduated from Cornell Law School.

“For a long time there was this idea that real wine comes from France or Italy,” leaving California wine to fend for itself against foreign trade barriers.

A bill Silverman lobbied for that was passed in 1984 helped relieve the imbalance, “but there’s still a very long way to go,” he said.

The industry “is not a big political contributor,” he added. “It’s considered fairly chintzy.

More Access

“The first obligation of any member of Congress is to get reelected. It’s like anything else. If he needs help, he’s going to be more accessible to people who help him. The big contributors have much more immediate access.”

Do they also have better results?

“Not necessarily,” Silverman said. “Sometimes it gets you nothing. Obviously, there are excesses.”

But for the most part, he thinks the system works well.

“I like the strategizing,” said Silverman, who often works an 80-hour week. “I enjoy working with members of Congress who are bright and like to get things done. Solving a problem is fun.”

PAUL SWEET University of California As the Washington representative of the University of California system, Paul Sweet lobbies for federal grants, seeks to improve the image and visibility of the nine UC campuses and watches over financial legislation that affects the school system--which has an annual budget larger than that of many states.

“Many people at UC are not satisfied with the presence, the influence, the level of status the university has in policy matters and educational issues,” said Sweet, 38, who graduated from UC Santa Barbara in 1969 and worked for both Congress and the UC system before taking his current job last August.

His duties include making UC researchers and their data available to members of Congress, as well as briefing lawmakers on the impact of student loan cuts and other legislation pertaining to education.

Single-Action Focus

Sometimes his work involves a single action, such as trying to get legislation passed that would forgive the import tax on German parts for a telescope to be used in a joint UC-Caltech project in Mauna Kea, Hawaii.

Even though Sweet is not a registered lobbyist and his salary is in the $50,000 range, he too has felt the sting of negative public opinion.

“Some people think that we’re here to put taxpayers’ money in our own pockets for our own interest,” Sweet said. “That isn’t true. There is a symbiotic relationship (among the public, lobbyists and lawmakers). We bring issues of major importance to a lot of people to the Congress’ attention. Everybody in the country has a lobbyist in Washington, in one way or another.”