Wyoming needs complete lobbyist reporting

Public deserves more information about influence

By Dan Neal

Politics and public policy-making often come down to money and who has it to spend on candidates or on lobbyists that can help a interest group get what it wants.

In Wyoming, candidates for public office must report the contributions they receive and the expenditures they make. But lobbyists don't have to report many of their expenditures nor details about their funding resources. With Wyoming's lax lobbyist disclosure law, it's as if lobbyists simply appear in the Capitol without anyone spending any money to get them there.

On May 12, the Equality State Policy Center asked the Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee to require professional lobbyists working in Wyoming as well as the companies and people who hire them to make public how much money they spend to influence state legislators and other policy-makers.

The request, by the way, implies no improper behavior. Lobbying done well with integrity fills a necessary role in a democracy.

Here’s the basic argument the ESPC made to the Joint Corporations Committee when it met earlier this month in Lander:

Why is reporting necessary?

• It demonstrates the importance of the work the Legislature does. A full accounting of lobbyist spending will show the general public how invested various interests are in the decisions made by the Legislature.

• Since individual state legislators do not have paid staff, lobbyists in Wyoming fulfill a particularly important role of providing citizen legislators with information. It is the presence of lobbyists that makes a difference. The public deserves to know what it takes to post a presence when the Legislature meets – in Cheyenne or during the interim.

• It is an important part of bringing the process of making state policy fully into the sunshine. People deserve to know what the oil industry, the coal companies, the railroads, and nonprofit organizations spend to influence their representatives and government officials.

• About 350 lobbyists registered in 2010. Existing law required only a very few to file reports, mostly to report receptions held for legislators. Many who file anyway report zero expenditures.

What is needed:

• People paid to lobby, including attorneys, should be required to report what they were paid and they should report their expenses.

• Employers of lobbyists should report how much they paid lobbyists and how much they spent on other activities intended to influence legislators, other officials, and the public to support or oppose legislation. (Current law requires reporting by the employers of lobbyists.)

• The law should cover both legislative and administrative lobbying.

• Lobbyists should file quarterly. (This provides a timely accounting.)

• Lobbyists should list clients, and how much each pays.

• They should list what bills and governmental actions were lobbied and for which client.

• Lobbyist reports should be subject to some form of enforcement mechanism.

The ESPC asked the Joint Corporations Committee that the reporting ultimately be made available in a searchable database available electronically via the Secretary of State’s website.

The committee showed considerable interest in the idea. Several, including Co-Chairman Cale Case, R-SD25, Lander and Rep. Kermit Brown, R-HD14, Laramie, asked pointed questions about lobbying by public interests, such as the University of Wyoming and other agencies.

The ESPC supports broad disclosure by all interests lobbying the Legislature. Even if they’re simply providing information at a committee meeting, state agencies and other public agencies certainly could be directed to report the cost of doing so.

When Sen. Case asked if the committee should entertain a motion to draft a bill, Sen. Charles Scott, R-SD30, Casper, objected, noting that the topic was not “noticed” on the committee agenda.

Instead, Sen. John Hastert, D-SD-13, Green River, made a request for the Legislative Service Office to research lobbyist disclosure in neighboring states and tell the committee how Wyoming’s disclosure requirements compare.

The topic is likely to appear on the agenda of the joint committee’s Sept. 28 - 29 in Casper.

A side note: Sen. Scott expressed considerable interest in determining who supports the ESPC and similar groups, saying he finds it difficult to determine who exactly they represent. He indicated he prefers disclosure legislation that would enable him to know the names of individuals who contribute to the ESPC and similar groups.

The ESPC does not provide that information, though people who do contribute funds to the ESPC certainly can make their support public. Still, the U.S. Constitution protects the right of people to associate freely. The ESPC told the committee that the right to maintain the privacy of contributor and membership lists was affirmed in a 1958 U.S. Supreme Court case, State of Alabama v. the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

But what the ESPC is, certainly is not a secret. The ESPC told the committee that the organizations that belong to its coalition are listed on the internet, along with brief biographies of the ESPC board officers and ESPC staff.

Sen. Scott asked the Legislative Service Office to research the law regarding protection of membership lists.

Citizen Lobbyist Training attracts scores

And, do Workers’ Comp COLA estimators smoke crack?

We staged our Citizen Lobbyist Training at the Plains Hotel today. It’s a one-day short-course we offer every year to explain the legislature’s elegant and sometimes complex process and describe at least some of the human motivations that drive it.
Nearly 70 people registered for the training, close to record participation. Our own Sarah Gorin explained how a bill becomes law and noted some of the myths about our “citizen legislature.” Suzan Pauling of the Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault dispelled fears of involvement with tales of her own steps and missteps as a novice lobbyist.
Marcia Shanor detailed the challenges of testifying before a legislative committee. Like Pauling, her talk was salted with practical advice, like getting to committee hearings early if you want a chair in one of those tiny committee rooms, dressing well, and staying aware of your own demeanor while other people talk.

Former Sweetwater state Sen. Rae Lynn Job and five sitting legislators, including Reps. Bernadine Craft, Tom Lubnau, Jeb Steward, Mary Throne and Sen. John Schiffer, offered perspectives on their own motivations for serving in the legislature, the best methods for lobbying them, and looked to challenges ahead. Sen. Schiffer suggested balancing the state budget won’t be a problem. Dealing with big issues facing Wyoming residents, like health care, is a greater problem, Schiffer said.
Positive responses from many of the participants have stirred thoughts at the ESPC of trying to conduct similar training sessions in a few communities around the state in an effort to connect Wyoming’s far-flung residents with the important doings here in Cheyenne.

Actuaries on drugs???

The House Labor, Health and Social Services Committee lost no time in picking up a critical bill on Wyoming’s Workers’ Compensation program. House Bill 54 – Workers’ compensation amendments contains the first increases in benefits for injured workers since the early 1990s.
We support the bill. It includes a significant hike in death benefits paid to surviving dependents, eliminates the gap between the shut-off of Temporary Total Disability payments and the payment of permanent benefits, and for the first time gives cost-of-living-adjustments (COLA) to beneficiaries. The bill is the product of considerable interim work by the joint committee in 2008. Changes in the make-up of the committee have brought four new members, however, who did not participate in the interim work.
The new members did not have the chance to hear the many injured workers who testified at a hearing in Casper in June. Those workers expressed considerable frustration with the administration of the program and its treatment of them. They also pointed out many problems with the way it pays out benefits that have left many of them devastated economically, losing homes, cars, and sometimes marriages.
The bill comes with a fiscal note that estimates the increased benefits carry an annual cost between $11 million and $12 million. But Cheyenne attorney George Santini challenged the $3.5 million annual price tag the note puts on the COLA for recipients of Permanent Total Disability payments.

"Simple arithmetic reveals that for a 5% COLA to reach $20,000, an injured worker would have to receive benefits of $400,000 yearly. Workers’ Comp benefits are not that good."

The estimators had to have been “smoking crack,” he said. He noted that only 184 people receive PTD benefits from the Wyoming program. A COLA that costs $3.5 million a year would mean each person’s benefit would be increased by about $20,000, a number he said challenges reason.
Most COLAs are in a range of 3% to 5% annually, Santini said. Simple arithmetic reveals that for a 5% COLA to reach $20,000, an injured worker would have to receive benefits of $400,000 yearly. Workers’ Comp benefits are not that good.
Committee Chairman Jack Landon of Sheridan asked Workers’ Compensation Division administrators to supply an explanation of the $3.5 million estimate of COLA costs. None of the Worker’s Comp honchos denied Santini’s “smoking crack” charge One said he did not know exactly how the division’s actuary calculated them.
Ultimately, the numbers show that the Workers’ Comp fund holds the money needed to provide the benefits, which may be considerably less than indicated by the fiscal note on the bill.
There’s a question of fairness, too. Employers recently got a 15% premium credit that saved them nearly $40 million. There was little or no debate of that cost to the fund. It’s time injured workers got their due.
There was minimal opposition to the measure. Tom Jones, a former legislator who lobbies for the National Federation of Independent Business, expressed concern about the impact of the COLAs on the long-term health of the fund. Coal industry lobbyist Marion Loomis backed the bill, though he also asked the committee to look hard at the impact of the COLAs. No other industry lobbyists commented on the bill.
Kim Floyd of the AFL-CIO, Jon Narva of the Federated Fire Fighters of Wyoming, and Mark Aronowitz, an attorney with the Spence Law Firm’s nonprofit arm, joined Santini in support of the bill.
The ESPC likewise backed the bill but called for additional language that would make clear to the division administrators that the primary purpose of the program is not controlling its costs. The legislature should tell the division to focus first on restoring injured workers to productive life as quickly as possible and provide adequate indemnity benefits to permanently disabled workers. Cost control should be secondary. The cost of the program, as Floyd said, should not be forced on injured workers by paying them inadequate benefits.
No one should go broke because they went to work one day and got hurt.