Photo by Jerod MacDonald-Evoy | Arizona Mirror
By Jeremy Duda | Arizona Mirror
Because cities and counties often oppose legislation they propose, GOP lawmakers are looking to ban them from hiring the contract lobbyists who fight those bills at the Capitol.
On a party-line 4-3 vote, with all three Democratic members opposing the proposal, the Senate Government Committee approved Senate Bill 1198, which prohibits cities, towns, counties, school districts and other political subdivisions of the state from hiring outside lobbyists.
Any organization whose membership is primarily composed of public bodies would be barred from using any of the money they get from membership dues for lobbying. That would limit the lobbying activities of organizations like the League of Arizona Cities and Towns that frequently oppose legislation favored by the Republican majority at the legislature.
And the Arizona Association of Counties, which has prominently represented the interests of county elections officials this year, would not be allowed to tell lawmakers how proposals would affect election operations.
The committee approved an amendment that would exempt small cities with fewer than 75,000 people and counties with populations under a quarter million. Only Maricopa, Pima and Pinal counties have populations of more than 250,000.
Sen. Warren Petersen, the bill’s sponsor and a member of the Senate Government Committee, said it was shocking to him when he first got the state Capitol that he’d speak to lobbyists from cities and counties about legislation, only to learn when he later spoke with the elected officials from those entities that they hadn’t taken a position at all. Oftentimes, they’d be unaware that their lobbyists were even taking positions on various bills.
Petersen, a Gilbert Republican who previously served on the Gilbert Town Council, said it’s the unelected administrators like city managers who dictate their lobbyists’ activities, not the elected officials.
Public bodies would still be able to have their own employees lobby at the Capitol. But SB1198 would just ratchet down their “tremendous power and influence” by a couple notches, he said.
“It is absolutely disturbing to see the amount of taxpayer funds that is spent against the taxpayer. It’s nauseating, actually. The reality is, this doesn’t get rid of so much of their power and influence. It literally just edges it back a little,” Petersen said.
Representatives of the public bodies that would see their lobbying abilities curtailed, some of whom were already at the committee to testify against numerous other bills, voiced their concern.
This is one of the bills where we completely miss the point of the purpose of the lobbyists who are coming to speak with us.
