Lobbyists' proposal draws mixed reviews

A group of well-known Utah lobbyists favors forming a voluntary association to oversee ethical standards and continuing education, and even discipline wayward lobbyists.

But most of the lobbyists the Deseret News spoke with said they are not yet ready to take the step of asking the Legislature — whose members they speak with regularly — to pass a law mandating that registered lobbyists belong to the new group.

Frank Pignanelli, with the lobbying firm Foxley & Pignanelli, is a member of the Governor's Commission on Strengthening Democracy, a group that is studying several issues this year, including lobbying. Pignanelli is also a Deseret News columnist and his firm has lobbied for the newspaper.

At a recent commission meeting, Pignanelli, the former Democratic leader in the Utah House, suggested the commission recommend to the Legislature that a mandatory lobbying association, modeled much like the Utah State Bar, be established with a requirement that registered lobbyists belong to it.

But Susan Koehn, who has worked with Doug Foxley and others to set up the new volunteer lobbying group to lease Capitol Hill space, says she and other lobbyists aren't ready to take the big leap into a mandatory association.

"I think volunteer is better, for now," said Koehn, who served in the Utah House as a Republican.

"There are many registered lobbyists who just couldn't afford" mandatory dues or otherwise wouldn't want to belong to a mandatory association, and so they would have to give up their limited, or part-time, lobbying practices, she said.

Spencer Stokes, who has formed the nonprofit Capitol Hill Association, a lobbyist group that wants to rent space in the Capitol, says he doesn't want his group "sidetracked" into some kind of mandatory lobbyist group.

"In the lobbying world, this idea" of a mandatory lobbying association "is somewhat controversial," said Stokes. Lobbyists "are a fairly catty" lot, he added, and it's hard for them to move together on any idea.

And that is what frustrates Pignanelli, who has tried for several years to get fellow lobbyists to at least sign a voluntary code of ethical conduct, to no avail.

Currently, there are around 500 individuals registered as lobbyists with the lieutenant governor's office.

But, as Koehn points out, many are not full-time, contract lobbyists, but are part-time lobbyists who carry just one or two clients.

"There certainly are not 500 people up there each day" of the general session "standing around in the hallways" outside of the House and Senate chambers, she noted.

Still, a volunteer association, much like the Board of Realtors, can provide important assets for lobbyists, lawmakers and the public, she said.