County Lobbyist Ordinance Redo
by OC Supervisor Bill Campbell

[Editor’s note: In November, the OC Board of Supervisors rejected a proposal to establish basic registration requirements for county lobbyists. Supv. Campbell proposed that anyone who receives more than $1,000 a month to influence county officials would have to register on a quarterly basis. Campbell wrote the following response in his Nov. 24 newsletter.]

Lobbyist Ordinance Redo: The Board had an extensive discussion of an alternative version of a proposed lobbyist registration ordinance brought forward by Supervisors Pat Bates and Shawn Nelson. Under this proposal, almost all citizens who advocated for anything with a County Supervisor or their staff would be required to register as a lobbyist in the County. I asked County Counsel some hypothetical questions about typical citizen concerns to see if they would then have to register as a lobbyist. Under each of the following examples, the individuals would be declared to be lobbyists and would be required to register as such:

• Representatives from a not-for-profit come to my office and request a park fee waiver for a fundraising event
• Members of the Lincoln Club meet with a County Supervisor to ask them to support the County’s lawsuit challenging the deputy sheriff’s union’s 3@50 retroactive pension
• Homeowners in an area that are concerned about the development of a senior living facility and meet with me to share their concerns, either pro or con

If I’m at an event over the weekend and an individual comes up to me and says "Hey I like that article in the paper last week where you said you wanted Orange County food service businesses in the airport, not some out-of-towners. I really like that and you ought to support that"

I also gave County Counsel the following example:

What happens if the County is in negotiations with the deputy sheriff’s union and I’m approached by a deputy sheriff and he tells me that he can really use a raise and would appreciate it if I would support an increase in pay for deputy sheriffs, what happens then?

According to County Counsel, unless the individual is acting as a representative of the deputy sheriff’s union, they would not have to register as a lobbyist.

My primary concern with this new proposal is that once government starts to label the average citizen as a "lobbyist" and requires them to register as a lobbyist, citizens would be less inclined to meet with their elected County Supervisors to express their concerns. Thus, we would lose a principal way of how we learn what is important to our constituents. As I shared with my colleagues, when the founding fathers wrote the First Amendment to include a citizen’s right to petition their government, I don’t think they intended to require citizens to then have to post their name in the local town common.

As a result of the Board’s discussion, we directed County Counsel to return to the Board with a revised ordinance early next year.