Here’s who’s influencing Maine lawmakers
In one set of data, lobbyists get paid. In another, they work on certain legislative documents. The titles of those bills? They're somewhere else.
For the 50 lobbying clients who spent the most in 2015, the
It's an exercise the
The commission has hired the
"We get a good deal of information, and we would like it to be as accessible to the public as it can be," Wayne said.
The project doesn't involve changing what or how that information is disclosed, just how it's presented.
Dollar for dollar
Lobbying makes up a substantial amount of influence on
That's more than one-third the amount outside groups spent in
The top 50 lobbying clients -- 12 percent of the total -- in 2015 supported about 44 percent of the lobbying spending, at
Not every state tracks those figures.
"Only about half of the states require that lobbyists report what they get paid," said
Quist and his team have dealt with that data firsthand as they look to expand their own database offerings in the coming months to include lobbying disclosures for states that do provide compensation information.
"That lobbyist compensation is the key piece," he said.
Wayne said the
Some states only require lobbyists to report spending on lawmakers, for events or gifts given.
Lawmakers don't have to disclose certain meals or gifts worth less than
But
"Only a few states have information about what bills a client is interested in," Quist said.
And what is disclosed is revealing, if hard to find.
Connecting the dots
The spending is key, but just one piece of the puzzle that should be clear to the public on disclosure sites, Quist said.
"You want to know what each client is spending, who they're paying and what they're lobbying on," Quist said. "Those three pieces need to be searchable and linked to the rest."
For anyone researching lobbying influence on a particular law, the ethics commission's website provides a start, but it doesn't connect all of those dots.
Wayne said the commission may seek in its new website to have pages with more financial information about lobbying link directly to the legislative website, where someone could find information about the status of bills and related testimony.
The commission's current lobbying search allows people to search for lobbying activity on a particular bill, showing which lobbyists reported working on that bill during a given session, but not the financial information.
There are multiple ways to review the results of putting those sources together.
By industry, the data shows the bulk of lobbying interest came from health care and natural resources. It's a starting point to assess the result of that lobbying, for which high spending doesn't necessarily mean results.
One to add waste energy to the state's renewable portfolio standard, LD 273, and another draft to make a variety of changes to encourage recycling and open funding to the state's three waste-to-energy facilities, LD 313, were carried over to the current session.
PERC's was among the most focused lobbying efforts of the session, according to a BDN analysis.
The big picture
The ethics commission's website allows quick searches of lobbying on specific bills, but broader analysis of all lobbying activity in the state requires a bit more effort.
In general, Quist said, the more raw data, the better.
"Without that being downloadable, it really restricts the user to only answer any questions that they can see the answer to on one screen, which is basically this much was spent by this filer on this date," Quist said.
On the campaign finance side, he said,
On the lobbying side, that data gives a picture of the bills lobbied the hardest.
For the top 50 lobbying clients, that was Gov.
Altogether, those entities lobbied on 982 different bills.
The bills that got the most attention after that reflect the infrequency of bills to make it into law, and the attention to bills that don't necessarily make headlines.
The second most-lobbied bill, LD 810, passed into law with support from health care provider networks and drug giant
Among the next six most-lobbied bills, five died and one was carried over. Others reflect the challenge of tracing influence from a bill's star to its finish.
Two of the most lobbied bills elicited gubernatorial vetoes with different outcomes. One, LD 289, sought to loosen state law requiring physicians to first prescribe drugs deemed to be the least expensive effective option before turning to more costly drugs, a strategy for keeping down health care costs called "step therapy."
Insurers opposed the bill, testifying against it, and health exchange co-op Maine Community Health Options reported spending at least
Another bill proposed by Uber also was the focus of six of the top 50 lobbying clients, but it cleared a veto to set statewide rules for it and other ridesharing companies.
A different look
The lobbying information in
That includes putting dates indicating the month in which certain lobbying was reported, to better enable tying certain lobbying efforts to the legislative process.
For the improvements ahead, Wayne said the ethics commission hopes to provide more information, clearly, in fewer clicks.
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