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Just before the legislative session began I did a breakdown of which lobbyists would be lobbying for which interests. Some lobbyists, however, don’t report many of their clients until the session gets underway and many acquire clients as the session progresses. So now that the Legislature is going well into overtime, the lobbying picture is much clearer.
With that in mind, here is an update to our “Who is lobbying for who” breakdown.
A couple of caveats before we begin, this breakdown is based on lobbyist registration reports filed with Alaska Public Offices Commission (APOC). As we found out with our previous breakdown, lobbyists can be prone to making mistakes on their reports. For instance, sometimes they list annual pay as monthly pay or vice-versa. If any such errors are noticed by those mentioned below, please email me at [email protected] and we will make the correction.
It is also important to note that APOC only ask lobbyists to disclose whether their pay is annual or monthly, but if it is monthly there is no requirement to disclose if the contract is for a specified number of months and if so how many. This is a weakness APOC should address, but for now this is how it is. For this analysis I assumed all monthly contracts for for the full year (multiplied them by 12).
With that calculation done I added the total amount of annual lobbying contracts ($10,996,192), monthly lobbying contracts ($4,697,971), and the salaries of in-house lobbyists ($2,120,037) and we arrive at a total amount spent lobbying the Legislature and Governor this session: $17,784,201.
That doesn’t even count the hourly-rate lobbying disclosures because we have no idea how many hours are actually billed, there is no way to accurately gauge the total amount billed to the client.
With all that said, let’s start by looking at the biggest of the big-time schmoozers in Juneau. Here are the lobbyists reporting at least $500,000 in contracts this year:
The Power $500K
First Name | Last Name | Amount Billed | # of Clients | Notable Clients |
Kent | Dawson | $1,055,750 | 17 | Usibelli Coal Mine. Inc., The Pew Charitable Trusts, City of Seward |
Robert | Evans | $823,008 | 12 | Neeser Construction Inc., Koch Companies, Pfeffer Development LLC |
Wendy | Chamberlain | $741,000 | 19 | Municipality of Anchorage, Northwest Arctic Borough, Yoga Alliance |
Ashley | Reed | $660,200 | 19 | Armstrong Oil & Gas, Inc., ENSTAR Natural Gas, GCI |
Jerry | Mackie | $644,000 | 16 | Holland America Line, Donlin Gold LLC, Alyeska Pipeline Service Company |
Theodore | Popely | $629,000 | 13 | Bristol Bay Native Corporation, APDEA, Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, Inc. |
Eldon | Mulder | $603,000 | 15 | Anthem Inc., Cisco Systems, Inc., GCI |
Frank | Bickford | $557,073 | 16 | Dave & Buster’s of Alaska, Inc., Verizon, Oracle America, Inc. |
Raymond | Matiashowski | $540,000 | 10 | Xerox, Microsoft, Alaska Communications |
Kim | Hutchinson | $538,500 | 15 | Alaska Airlines, Municipality of Anchorage, Alaska Communications |
Linda | Anderson | $523,000 | 10 | Fairbanks North Star Borough, Alaska Bankers Assoc, Fairbanks Memorial Hospital |
Largest Individual Annual Contracts
First Name | Last Name | Contract | Client |
Michael | Tibbles | $140,000 | Alaska Cruise Association/CLIA Alaska |
Kent | Dawson | $120,000 | The Pew Charitable Trusts |
Charles | Miller | $105,000 | Alaska National Insurance Company |
Robert | Evans | $100,008 | Neeser Construction Inc. |
Linda | Anderson | $100,000 | Fairbanks North Star Borough |
Largest Individual Monthly Contracts
First Name | Last Name | Contract | Client |
Yuri | Morgan | $15,000 | Anderson Group, LLC |
Fate | Putman | $12,000 | ASEA/AFSCME Local-52 |
Bruce | Baker | $10,416 | North Slope Borough |
Don | Etheridge | $10,000 | Alaska AFL-CIO |
Jack | Ferguson | $10,000 | Prepared Response |
David | Parish | $10,000 | NovaCopper Inc. |
Notable Union Lobbying Contracts
First Name | Last Name | Contract Type | Contract Size | Client |
Fate | Putman | Monthly | $12,000 ($144,000 Annualized) | ASEA/AFSCME Local-52 |
Don | Etheridge | Monthly | $10,000 ($120,000 Annualized) | Alaska AFL-CIO |
tom | brice | Monthly Salary | $6,900 ($82,800 Annualized) | Alaska District Council of Laborers |
Mark | Hickey | Annual | $60,000 | NEA-Alaska |
James | Lottsfeldt | Annual | $50,000 | International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1547 |
Theodore | Popely | Monthly | $3,000 ($36,000 Annualized) | Anchorage Police Department Employees Assoc. |
Kim | Hutchinson | Annual | $17,500 | APEA/AFT |
Jerry | Reinwand | Annual | $17,500 | APEA/AFT |
Paul | Grossi | Annual | $17,000 | Alaska State Pipe Trades UA Local 375 |
In-House Lobbyists
Some interests prefer to have someone on staff as opposed to or perhaps in addition to a contracted lobbyist. Here are the folks with the biggest in-house lobbying gigs in the state.
First Name | Last Name | Salary | Employer |
Carol | Steckel | $213,000 | WellCare Health Plans, Inc. |
REBECCA | HULTBERG | $184,000 | Alaska State Hospital & Nursing Home Association |
Elizabeth | Gianini | $177,000 | WellCare Health Plans, Inc. |
Paul | Nielsen | $172,000 | Alkermes, Inc. |
Michelle | Arnold | $152,000 | The College Board |
Largest Lobbying Contracts For Governments
Alaskans always love to see their money used for one level of government to beg another level of government for something. Here are the folks with the biggest contracts for another government entity to ask the state for stuff.
First Name | Last Name | Contract Type | Contract Size | Client |
Bruce | Baker | Monthly | $10,416 ($125,000 Annualized) | North Slope Borough |
Linda | Anderson | Annual | $100,000 | Fairbanks North Star Borough |
Kent | Dawson | Annual | $96,500 | City of Seward |
Wendy | Chamberlain | Annual | $80,000 | Northwest Arctic Borough |
Bruce | Baker | Monthly | $7,000 ($84,000 Annualized) | Northwest Arctic Borough School District |
Most lobbying contracts are for boring things like the Port of Anchorage expansion or new school construction…BORING (Though there’s a lot of money behind boring topics). Then there are a few that are interesting and fun. Wendy Chamberlain nailed down a contract to lobby for something called “Yoga Alliance” and Denali Daniels gets to push on behalf of Alaska Rolfers.
Ashley Reed on the other hand gets to chat with lawmakers both on behalf of GCI and the group GCI formed to push their ideas on a state fiscal plan “Alaska’s Future Inc”. Way to double up, Ashley.
Then there is Jeffry Cook, who will be carrying the flag of every liberal’s favorite villains the Koch brothers.
Fun/ Interesting
Lobbyist | Employer | Contract Type | Amount | |
Wendy | Chamberlain | Yoga Alliance | Annual Fee | $30,000 |
Denali | Daniels | Alaska Rolfers | Salaried Employee: Annual Wage | $1,900 |
Jeffry | Cook | Koch Companies | Hourly Fee | $100 |
Ashley | Reed | Alaska’s Future Inc | Annual Fee | $30,000 |
Ashley | Reed | GCI | Annual Fee | $50,000 |
In case you wanted to review all of the lobbying contracts for yourself or maybe just look in more depth at any one of them you can do so here.
You can have all the legislative representation you can afford – no more and no less.