Lobbying

Leading legislators say the recent disclosure of lobbying efforts by one of the governor's closest friends shows the need to review and perhaps toughen Maryland laws governing lobbyists.Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller said he was dismayed to learn from a news report that Lance W. Billingsley, a lawyer who chairs the University of Maryland board of regents, has been paid by clients to get the governor's ear and help them in disputes with state agencies.In one case, Billingsley arranged for members of an Indian tribe to meet with Glendening so they could plead their case for state recognition.

Less than a day after his plan to launch a lobbying career became public, University System of Maryland's Board of Regents Chairman Lance W. Billingsley bowed to critics yesterday and abruptly altered his plans.As long as he remains chairman of the regents, Billingsley said, he will accept only nonpaying cases. "It was obvious to me that lobbying might cause some misperception that could cause damage to the efforts of the university system," he said. "I don't want to take that risk."One of Gov. Parris N. Glendening's closest friends and political advisers, Billingsley said he had not spoken to the governor about his plan to lobby executive branch agencies and the General Assembly.

MEXICO CITY -- In a colonial office building in the heart of the city, Alicia Bustamante stands at an overhead projector and spells out the basics for a group of 18 people.Bustamante is from Movimiento Ciudadano por la Democracia (MCD), a nonprofit group that has begun holding seminars on, among other things, how to lobby. Her audience consists of grass-roots activists from all over Mexico, come to the capital to learn about dealing with the media.What Bustamante tells them is simple, but for Mexico radically new. She goes through the basics of news reporting -- from the five W's to what makes a news story.

Lobbyist Bruce C. Bereano's return to the corridors of government ended at least temporarily yesterday when he was charged with violating terms of a work-release program insisted upon by the U.S. Probation Office.Bereano had been out of a Volunteers of America halfway house in Baltimore during working hours since Tuesday, attending to his law practice and representing clients before the General Assembly.But yesterday he did not return to Annapolis and later said in a telephone interview that he'd been accused of violating his work-release plan's prohibition on lobbying -- "a misguided and erroneous" ban, he insisted.

As a lobbying team, they are a perfect fit, their skills and personalities meshing in ways sublimely suited to working the will of corporate clients.Gerard E. Evans, 43, portly and droll, fills the corridors of Annapolis with laughter and stories that compete for the attention of harried legislators. A former Democratic Party official in Prince George's County, Evans has a wealth of State House contacts.His partner, John R. Stierhoff, 44, intense and solicitous, brings legislative skills honed over a decade as chief legislative aide to the president of the state Senate, Thomas V. Mike Miller.

Having grappled with its own ethical standards, the Maryland General Assembly is poised to create a commission to study the ethical standards governing lobbyists.Skillful advocates have grown so dramatically in number, financial power and influence that some see them as the assembly's "third house" -- a nearly official part of the legislative process.In a decade, their number has more than doubled. The money spent for lobbyists' fees and entertainment has grown from $7.5 million to $21 million in that same 10 years.

Annapolis lobbyist Bruce C. Bereano is out of the halfway house again on work release -- but his activities are restricted to the practice of law and still cannot include lobbying.Convicted of mail fraud in 1994, Bereano is serving a five-month sentence at the Volunteers of America facility on East Monument Street in Baltimore.A federal judge has said that Bereano may continue to lobby, but his activities have been restricted by a team of managers that includes representatives of the Federal Probation Office and the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

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The Maryland horse racing industry, casino interests and others wishing to expand legalized gambling in the state spent more than $600,000 trying to influence lawmakers during this year's General Assembly session, according to lobbying reports.Spending by gambling and other special interest groups -- which has grown to become a $20 million-a-year industry in Annapolis -- is detailed in hundreds of pages of disclosure reports filed by the lobbyists this week. The reports offer a glimpse into the enormous efforts made to sway Maryland's 188 senators and delegates.

State Sen. Robert R. Neall, whose dual role as legislator and lobbyist has drawn howls from members of his own Republican Party, will no longer represent two major Anne Arundel County developers while serving in the State House."

Companies and special interest groups spent about $13.9 million on lobbying during the six-month period that included this year's General Assembly session, newly released figures from the State Ethics Commission show. While overall spending fell slightly from the same period a year ago, when lobbying costs reached $14.6 million, several entities reported ramping up their lobbying presence despite the economic downturn as they worked to protect their interests in a volatile legislative session.

WASHINGTON - -Former Rep. Albert R. Wynn's first client as a registered lobbyist is a unit of a Finnish company that has been sharply criticized by human-rights advocates for its work in Sudan, according to a recently filed disclosure report. The Maryland Democrat quit his House seat last year, months before his term was up, in order to join a powerful Washington lobbying firm. The early departure gave Wynn a head start on an ethics law that requires members of Congress to wait one full year after leaving office before they begin lobbying their former colleagues.

The Maryland Senate narrowly killed Gov. Martin O'Malley's proposal to crack down on Medicaid fraud Tuesday after doctors, hospitals and the pharmaceutical industry had intensely opposed the bill. The plan to root out false claims was defeated by one vote with no debate in the Senate, after an extensive behind-the-scenes lobbying effort that aligned many of the state's most powerful health care interests. The bill, modeled on laws passed in nearly half the states, would have given Maryland officials and whistle-blowers greater latitude to pursue Medicaid fraud and collect damages.

WASHINGTON -Nonprofit and public interest groups are scrambling to adapt to President Barack stringent new ethics guidelines, which are so sweeping that they have blocked the ability of many sympathetic activists to get hired by the new administration. Many of the groups are rushing to terminate or curtail their lobbying activities as a result of the rules, which bar new officials from making policy on any matter involving their former employer or clients for a period of two years or from working at an agency they lobbied within the past two years.

WASHINGTON - Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner issued new guidelines yesterday aimed at eliminating the influence of lobbyists on the $700 billion financial bailout program by restricting their contact with officials who are reviewing applications for money and deciding how to disburse it. Treasury officials will also seek to limit political influence over the funds, saying they will use similar restrictions that forbid such influence in tax matters...

Fred D. Thompson, the former Tennessee senator campaigning for president as a "pro-life" Republican, accepted a lobbying assignment from a family-planning group to persuade the first Bush White House to ease a controversial abortion restriction, according to a 1991 document and five people familiar with the matter. A spokesman for the former senator denied that Thompson did the lobbying work. But minutes of a 1991 board meeting of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association show that the group hired Thompson that year.

WASHINGTON -- The House approved an overhaul of lobbying rules yesterday aimed at reining in the influence of special interests and fulfilling a Democratic campaign pledge to "drain the swamp" of scandals. The measure would require lobbyists to disclose campaign contributions that they raise from clients, friends and relatives - a priority of government watchdogs who want to illuminate the shadowy world of Washington's lobbyists. But lawmakers balked at limiting their own ability to cash in on lucrative lobbying jobs after leaving Congress.

WASHINGTON -- Drugmakers spent $155 million lobbying the federal government from 2005 to mid-2006, setting a record that they could outdo this year as Congress considers high stakes legislation for the industry and for consumers, a public interest group said yesterday in a report. Researchers at the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity said the drug industry spent nearly $111 million on lobbying in 2005, a record for the sector in any one year. The record pace appeared to be sustained in the first half of 2006, the report said.

Former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani's law firm has lobbied for years on behalf of an oil company controlled by the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, a strident critic of President Bush and American-style capitalism. Bracewell & Giuliani, the Houston-based firm that Giuliani joined as a name partner two years ago, handles lobbying in the Texas Statehouse for Citgo Petroleum Corp. of Houston. Citgo is the American subsidiary of Petroleos de Venezuela, the state-owned oil company that Chavez controls.

Have you heard the one about the lobbyists who got shut out of Washington, D.C.? They all decided to set up shop in the states instead. Not laughing? That's because it's not a joke. It's how lobbyists are reacting to the Democratic takeover of Congress. BusinessWeek is reporting that "business will focus more attention on ... state governments." That's not for a lack of focus now. Statehouse lobbying is a billion-dollar industry with more than 38,000 people registered to lobby legislators.