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CD-ROM Aktief 1995 #3
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1994-02-22
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SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS
Copyright 1989, San Jose Mercury News
DATE: Tuesday, March 7, 1989
PAGE: 1A EDITION: Morning Final
SECTION: Front LENGTH: 40 in. Long
ILLUSTRATION: Photos (8)
SOURCE: By BERT ROBINSON AND GARY WEBB, Mercury News Sacramento Bureau
DATELINE: Sacramento
SPECIAL INTERESTS MADE 1988 A SPECIAL YEAR
HOW CALIFORNIA LEGISLATORS CASHED IN
If a new state law truly made 1988 the last year special interests could
ply California legislators with gifts and hefty speaking fees, then they will
have gone out in style.
Corporations and interest groups spent hundreds of thousands of dollars
to feed your representatives, put them up in the finest hotels, and fly them
around the world. They paid hundreds of thousands more to hear legislators
deliver speeches or just chat about the issues -- and that money, unlike
campaign contributions, can go right into the old legislative pocket.
An initiative that went into effect Jan. 1 will limit interest groups to
a $1,000 speaking fee per legislator per year. The theory is that higher
payments corrupt the legislative process -- even though Assembly Speaker
Willie Brown calls such intimations of*corruption*''the ultimate in
cynicism.''
''It's not an effort to buy somebody's vote,'' said Brown, arguing that
companies save the state a tremendous amount by flying legislators around the
country. ''It's an effort to help get the truth out there, for public policy
purposes.''
Herewith, some of the legislators and interest groups who made last year
one to remember -- for public policy purposes.
TRAVELING IN STYLE: Other legislators, like Brown and David*Roberti,*get
more than he does. But no one does it with quite the panache of Sen. Joe
Montoya, head of the Senate Business and Professions Committee:
(check) While a bill that would force cigarettes to meet fire safety
standards was pending in his committee, Montoya and an aide took off on an
$8,600, three-city tour paid for by the Tobacco Institute. They stayed at the
Ritz-Carlton in Chicago, lunched at Tavern on the Green in New York, and saw
Washington by limousine. A month after their return, Montoya's vote in
committee helped kill the bill.
(check) Montoya and a different aide took a second transcontinental jaunt
in June, on the checkbook of MetPath Inc., a New Jersey-based operator of
medical laboratories. At the time, two bills that would tighten the
regulation of such labs were awaiting action in his committee.
This trip featured three nights at the plush New York Essex House (total
hotel bill: $2,400), dinner at Four Seasons, theater tickets, another
limousine, and a $2,000 speaking fee for the senator.
The bills passed out of Montoya's committee two months later, but without
Montoya's help.
(check) Baxter Prescription Services, which operates a string of
pharmacies in California, sponsored a bill last year to clamp down on the
mail-order pharmacies it competes with. This bill too found its way to
Montoya's committee, and while it was there Baxter paid $3,000 to hear
Montoya speak.
Baxter's legislation won Montoya's vote and the approval of Montoya's
committee a month later.
Neither Montoya nor any of the companies that gave gifts to him returned
phone calls Friday.
ALL IN THE FAMILY: Legislators will tell you it's tough to make ends meet
on a $41,000 salary, even with the additional $75 in tax-free allowance per
day for expenses.
San Diego Assemblyman Peter Chacon has a solution.
Last year, Chacon's campaign committee paid his wife Jean, sons Ralph and
Paul, and brother Mark a total of $38,335 for work ranging from consulting to
general office help.
Others were more modest. Donna Hauser, the wife of Assemblyman Dan
Hauser, D-Eureka, snared $5,600 from Hauser's committee for professional
management services. And Patricia Rosenthal, wife of Sen. Herschel Rosenthal,
D-Los Angeles, charged her husband $9,500 last year for ''consulting
services.''
EXTRA CREDIT: Just two days after Gov. George Deukmejian signed a
controversial bill that allowed large retailers to hike their credit card
interest rates above 18 percent, the California Retailers Association gave
$11,000 in speaking fees to five legislators who helped guide the bill into
law.
Assembly Republican Leader Pat Nolan took home $3,000. Senate Republican
Leader Ken Maddy, Assembly Speaker Pro Tem Mike Roos, Assemblyman Bill Baker,
R-Walnut Creek, and Assemblyman Frank Hill, R-Fullerton, received $2,000
apiece.
FREQUENT FLIER: A tough choice, with all the fact-finding missions to
foreign locales that elected representatives took last year.
There was the 11-day jaunt to New Zealand last February sponsored by oil
giants and chemical manufacturers. The firms' tab: about $4,000 per person
for seven legislators and some of theirspouses to learn about the usage of
methanol-powered vehicles in the South Pacific.
Another was the weeklong mission to Europe in July, sponsored by a group
of European multinational companies, that attracted Speaker Brown, D-San
Francisco, and four less