Lobbyists contributed $655K to lawmakers

By Marc Kovac

news@vindy.com

COLUMBUS

State lawmakers received more than $655,000 in campaign contributions from lobbyists and $13.7 million from political action committees associated with lobbyists’ employers in 2009 and 2010.

That’s according to a study released Tuesday by Ohio Citizen Action, a nonpartisan advocacy group that studied campaign contributions during the past two years.

Catherine Turcer, director of Ohio Citizen Action’s Money in Politics Project and a registered lobbyist herself, said the group compiled the statistics to give Ohioans a better idea of the individuals and firms that are paying for access to lawmakers.

“We want a process that’s open, we want a process in which the best decisions are made, because we’re facing a tremendous budgetary crisis,” Turcer said. “And lobbyists are out there, they’re giving campaign contributions, and they may be influencing the process. And we do need to just follow the money, keep on top of our legislators, contact our legislators.”

According to the study:

At the end of last year, there were 1,175 registered legislative lobbyists in the state, about 85 percent of whom were active in lobbying on the last two-year budget.

Forty-five percent of campaign contributions to lawmakers from firms that employ lobbyists came from unions. “Democrats received more than $9.2 million from unions, while the Republicans received only $193,645.”

Lobbyists provided nearly one-half of overall contributions to members of the Ohio House’s finance committee and close to 60 percent of contributions to members of the Ohio Senate’s finance committee. The two committees will oversee deliberations of the next two-year budget and an anticipated $8 billion funding gap.