…it then becomes difficult for us to figure further in there, what are we trying to protect the public from and what do they need to know, because at the end of the day we’re paid advocates who take positions on things ourselves, and, you know, argue for them.
Both Garcetti and Hahn are skeptical with respect to proposed exemptions for 501(c)(3) organizations. 8 The discussion begins at 2:22 with Garcetti and Hahn questioning then Commission Director of Policy and Legislation Heather Holt 9 about the proposal. You can listen to a recording of the meeting here. On July 28, 2010, the Committee, chaired by Eric Garcetti, who was joined by Councilmember Janice Hahn, 7 considered the reports. In July 2010 the Chief Legislative Analyst filed a five page report analyzing the CEC 6 proposal and making recommendations to the Committee. Thus they were subject to the MLO, although BID representatives who made public comments seemed to think that they weren’t and that the proposal was to make them subject to the law. 4 So the MLO at the time did not mention BIDs either to include or to exclude them from the law.
This report contained some very specific language concerning BIDs, but it argued only that BIDs should continue not to be exempted from the MLO. Most prominent among these was the exemption of speaking at a public meeting which then (and now) counted as lobbying. They balanced this with a number of new proposed exemptions to what constituted lobbying activity. Thus one of the major parts of the Commission’s proposal was to redefine a lobbyist as someone who made a specified number of contacts 3 with city officials in an attempt to influence municipal decision-making on behalf of a third party. This was (and is) difficult to enforce, not least because it’s hard to know who’s spending 30 hours and who’s just spending 29.9. The MLO at the time (and now) defined a lobbyist as someone who is paid for engaging in 30 hours of lobbying activity over three consecutive months, and required lobbyists to register with the Ethics Commission and pay a small fee. This committee was chaired by then Councilmember Eric Garcetti, who essentially killed the whole thing after less than an hour of discussion, perhaps influenced by the trumped-up and only marginally relevant concerns of his personal friend (and, since 2013, Windsor Square neighbor) Hollywood Property Owners Alliance Executive Director Kerry Morrison. 1 In July of that year the Commission began hearing public comments on what should be included in this proposal 2 and in September 2009 they sent a 162 page report to the Rules and Elections committee of the Los Angeles City Council, thus initiating Council file 07-3005-S2. Kerry Morrison and Eric Garcetti looking quite comfortable together in 2007.In 2008, the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission began discussing proposed changes to the Municipal Lobbying Ordinance (MLO).