Hundreds of thousands of dollars underlay some of the most dramatic legislative victories and resounding defeats of the 2013 session. The latest batch of lobbyist disclosures were filed Thursday, completing the picture of the monetary underbelly of these contentious debates.
The reports, submitted to the Secretary of State’s Office by all active lobbyists in the state, captures the spending that took place between April 1 and June 30. The last filing, on April 25, covered the period from January through April.
The “death with dignity” law, which allows terminally ill patients to obtain a lethal dose of medicine, attracted a lot of cash. It passed in May after years of contentious debate, but opponents forced it to take a circuitous path to the governor’s desk, and it suffered several near downfalls.
Patients Choice, the primary organization supporting the legislation, spent nearly $160,000 to smooth its road to passage. Over half of that sum went to advertising, but Patients Choice also paid $60,000 to two lobbying outfits — Sirotkin & Necrason and Action Circles.
The Vermont Medical Society, which opposed the law, spent about $25,000 on lobbying efforts during the session.
The Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems spent slightly more than $154,000 on lobbying on a variety of health-related issues. The association held a neutral stance on patient-directed death, according to Jill Olson, a spokeswoman, and lobbied on the effective date and an exemption for hospitals.
An unusually large amount of cash underwrote a victorious campaign to stymie a proposed tax on sugar-sweetened beverages. The American Beverage Society bankrolled that effort, which blew all other lobbying expenditures out of the water. It spent $574,000 during the first three months of the legislation session. But after the bill got canned, American Beverage Society’s spending slowed to a trickle — it reported only $27,000 in expenditures from April to the end of the session.
The conservative SuperPAC, Vermonters First spent a little over $69,000. It funneled most of those dollars into advertisements, including mailers spotlighting Democratic Representatives who have voted for tax increases.
The two unions, American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and Service Employees International Union (SEIU), behind the successful effort to give the state’s roughly 7,000 home care workers the right to unionize spent lopsided sums on lobbying. AFSCME spent a little under $16,800 while SEIU doled out $66,000. The unions are currently embroiled in a heated election to represent those workers.
The Vermont State Employees Association (VSEA) has a deep field of in-house lobbyists, with seven individuals patrolling the Statehouse at various times. It spent $137,339 during the session; more than two-thirds of that was in the first three months. VSEA secured its crowning achievement in late April when the Legislature passed a law requiring about 2,600 education, state and municipal employees who aren’t union members to pay a fee to unions.
The Vermont NEA, which represents teachers and is the largest union in the state, also pushed for the agency fee law as well as a number of education bills, but it had a more modest lobbying bill, about $63,500.
Entergy, which operates the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, had a quieter session than in some past years, but it still spent $90,000 maintaining its presence in the Statehouse.
Lobby firms in Montpelier’s heavyweight division kept up a steady stream of business. KSE Partners reported roughly $609,000 in compensation. Sirotkin & Necrason took in a little over $542,000; Maclean, Meehan and Rice reported $468,000; and Downs Rachlin Martin had $389,000.
The next lobbyist disclosures reports are due Jan. 26.
CORRECTION: The Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems did not oppose the patient-directed death bill as originally reported.
