At the last City Council meeting we accepted the annual lobbying report from the City Attorney’s office. They dedicated one whole section of the report to the “Konkel Complaints” (ok, technically, the ordinance refers to them at “written inquiries” and that is what they are, but even the City Attorney’s office has started calling them “complaints”!) Here’s how it all boils down:
Of the initial 67 written inquiries, the City Attorney’s office broke them down into 692 instances of alleged violations.
284 did not contain “sufficient evidence”
40 were able to claim an exemption
366 “have been resolved”
2 are still outstanding
The City Attorney, in talking about the increased registrations has this to say:
There undoubtedly are various points of view regarding the changes that were made in the lobbying ordinance and the complaints filed by Alder Konkel in 2005. However one views it, it is clear that the publicity given to MadisonÂ’s lobbying ordinance, the hotly debated amendments to the ordinance, the complaints filed, and the training and follow-up on those complaints by the Office of the City Attorney, have greatly raised the consciousness about the CityÂ’s Lobbying Ordinance.
In 2004, there were a total of 63 principals who registered with the City. In 2005, with the publicity and information related to the amendments to the Ordinance and the filing of the lobbying complaints, 182 principals were registered. This is nearly a 300% increase. For 2006, through March 10, 2006, 185 lobbyists have already registered under the amended ordinance.
These numbers are not totally comparable because the new ordinance changed the manner of registration from being primarily related to the principal to being primarily related to the lobbyist. Thus, the new registrations show the number of lobbyists, but they may be registered for multiple principals, or multiple lobbyists may be registered for the same principal. Similarly, in the past, a single principal may have had multiple lobbyists or a number of principals may have had the same lobbyist.
Nonetheless, I think it is obvious that compliance with the Lobbying Ordinance has increased greatly in the last two years.
And about future enforcement:
We will be checking registration at certain key City boards, commissions and committees for the first half of 2006. If we find persons who we believe should have registered, but failed to do so, our office will contact them to seek registration. If necessary, we will pursue further enforcement action. Our goal remains compliance with the ordinance, not punishment.
All in all, I’d call that amazing. Even with the new gutted law, we have quite a few registrations. I can hardly wait to see the information in the reports next July!
