Brown Limits Movements of Lobbyists : Politics: The Speaker says barring them from a hallway outside the Assembly and restricting them to a back entrance will help the lower house’s decorum.

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown said Tuesday he has banished from one of the Capitol’s main hallways the throng of lobbyists who compete for a last-minute word with legislators before a vote.

He said his policy is to improve decorum during floor sessions. Restrictions on reporters and television cameras are a part of that policy.

Last month, Brown (D-San Francisco) moved eight reporters’ desks from the side aisles of the main floor of the Assembly and crowded them into a corner in the rear of the chamber. Last week, he banished commercial television crews from the Assembly floor, limiting them to a side “bay window” with room for only two to four cameras.

Meanwhile, Brown has agreed to allow Cal-SPAN, a nonprofit cable network, to begin gavel-to-gavel coverage of Assembly sessions for cable stations in 22 California cities.

“You will not clutter up the floors anymore. Lobbyists will not clutter up the hall anymore,” Brown told reporters Tuesday.

“This is a legislative body. A legislative body ought to be prepared to do its work on the floor uninterrupted by someone who is commercializing on whatever they’re doing, for their profit, whether it is the third house (the lobbyists) or the Fourth Estate (the press),” he said.

He said his restrictions are not a curtailment of the press.

“You are in the back where you belong. You are in the bay window. You will not be up on the rostrum with me. You will no longer be seated next to (Assemblyman) Dave Kelley on the floor. You were not elected to sit on the floor,” he said.

Brown said he was restricting lobbyists to a back entrance, away from the corridor in front of the Assembly chamber where they have been a familiar sight, since lobbyists were banned from the chamber years ago.