Lobbying spending is up. Where does the money go?

The money companies and organizations spent on lobbying in Oregon jumped by more than 50 percent compared with this time last year. Since 2010, lobbying spending has increased by more than 94 percent.

But some lobbyists say despite the spending and public opinion of their profession, it’s more innocent than it seems. And, both sides of nearly every issue have representatives lobbying politicians.

“Everybody has representation in Salem for almost any conceivable interest or business,” said Paul Cosgrove, a lobbyist and head of government relations at Lindsay Hart, a Portland law firm.

Quarterly data from the Oregon Government Ethics Commission shows $20.8 million has been spent on lobbying activities so far in 2015. Half way through 2014, $13.7 million had been spent, but $26.8 million was spent by the end of 2014.

Lobbyists and the organizations they represent are required to register with the Oregon Government Ethics Commission. The commission collects the total amount spent by lobbyists and their clients, although the state “does not require any detail as to what that total contains” according to Government Ethics Commission program manager Virginia Lutz.

“I don’t think anybody would call it itemized,” said Gary Conkling, lobbyist and co-founder of CFM Communications, a strategic communications firm.

Brian Doherty, a lobbyist who represents the Western States Petroleum Association, BP America, Obsidian Renewables and Amazon, said lobbying money is spent on a litany of day-to-day government relations activities. Doherty’s clients have spent more than $330,000 on lobbying so far in 2015.

Most of the expenditure is payroll, Doherty said. But it also goes towards researching legislation, finding experts to testify on those bills and media campaigns that help shape public opinion about a client’s interests.

“Think of it as billable time,” Conkling said. He said other than payroll, most of a client’s expenses are on daily administrative needs like parking or printing at the Capitol. But it wasn’t always that way.

“It’s not so much that you’re hanging out in the bars with legislators, but back in the day when I started that was pretty typical.”

Conkling said that now lobbyists are tied into technology and servicing their clients almost 24 hours a day. When the legislature is in session, they’re spread thin.

Much of a lobbyist’s time is spent figuring out which bills will have the biggest effect — positive or negative — on their client and discerning where votes stand on those bills. Lobbyists then speak with coalition groups, committees, legislators and their aids to voice their position on a bill’s language (and sometimes attempt to change it to reflect the client’s interest) or to rally a group to look at voting one way or another.

According to Doherty, lobbying is about communication, not favors or hand outs.

“I can’t remember the last time I bought a legislator anything,” he said. “There’s no Blazers tickets or big treats.”

Doherty has no reported personal spending this year, according to expenditure reports from the Oregon Governmental Ethics Commission.

Conkling said the rules have changed for the better since he began working as a lobbyist.

“Many years ago I actually had personal Blazers tickets, and when legislators were able to accept invitations to dinner and a game I did take them,” Conkling said. “But the legislature changed those rules, and as a general rule we don’t entertain legislators at all.” He also does not have any personal lobbying spending reported this year.

Now, when a legislator meets with a lobbyist for a meal, they pay separately.

“It seems awkward. It’s like a bad date, but those are the rules,” Conkling said.

Although the legislature has reformed what lobbyists can spend on, total spending is still up. One theory as to why is that this year’s longer legislative session may have meant more spending just because of payroll.

“The length of the session compared to short sessions obviously makes a difference just in terms of bills considered,” Cosgrove said.

The data show longer sessions tend to coincide with more spending. In 2013, a long session, $20.1 million had been spent by the end of quarter two and $33.9 million by the end of the year.

On the other hand, Doherty said, regardless of its length, this legislative session was especially contentious and the “seriousness of the issues” may have prompted increased spending. “We’re spending more now because we’re getting into business issues,” he said.

“I would attribute the rise in overall cost to the number of the players, the intensity of working out some of these issues and for that matter the complexity of the issues themselves,” Conkling said. “I would look to those things more than the length of the session.”

Cosgrove agreed, and said because there’s more lobbyists in Salem, spending will naturally rise.

Conkling also said as time has gone on and there are more lobbyists, one thing has been central to his work: integrity.

“I can tell you when I first started, things were a little more slippery than they are today,” Conkling said.

“If a lobbyist is found to have misspoken, let alone lied, and I distinguish that one might be accidental and the other intentional, they’ve lost all their credibility,” Cosgrove said, adding that most ethics complaints at the Capitol are filed by lobbyists, not politicians.

“The thing is, the public doesn’t have a very high opinion of lobbying regardless of what the reality is, and we care enough about what we do that if someone steps over the line they’re taught that won’t work and that’s not acceptable.”

To him, the whole point of lobbying is to develop a sense of trust when it comes to information. Lobbyists are essential when it comes to informing legislators on the hundreds of bills they vote on — without that, he said the system simply wouldn’t work.

“More often than not, they’d be making decisions in a vacuum,” Cosgrove said.

Conkling said the Oregon lobby has respect for the state’s political institutions and that even divisive political disagreements have generally been handled with tact.

“We fight hard, but everything tended to fight fair,” he said.

gfriedman2@statesmanjournal.com, (503) 399-6653 or on Twitter @gordonrfriedman