While lawmakers complained that working via Zoom this year hindered their ability to craft legislation, the virtual nature of the Statehouse only somewhat stymied spending on lobbyists.
In reports to date, $3.9 million was paid for lobbying services during the first four months of the 2021-22 biennium, slightly off the pace set in the last biennium, according to data collected by the Vermont Secretary of State’s Office.
That number was down from the $4.4 million spent on lobbying during the same period of time in 2019.
Now, 516 lobbyists are registered in the state, vastly outnumbering the 180 elected legislators. Twenty lobbying firms are on file with the Secretary of State’s Office.
MMR, a contract lobbying group, received the most compensation for its work at $686,933. Necrason Group is just behind at $567,210, followed by Leonine Public Affairs at $416,160 and Downs Rachlin Martin at $259,541.
Chris Rice, a founding member of MMR, said Wednesday that remote legislating was difficult for all involved, including the state’s lobbying corps.
However, Rice said the virtual session and an early focus on legislation responding to Covid-19 did not affect his firm’s client portfolio, which includes Verizon, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco and DraftKings, among other companies.
“The overwhelming majority of our client base are long-term clients we’ve been working with for 10 or 15 years,” Rice said. “It was more how we went about trying to represent them in the Legislature — that changed substantially.”
Meanwhile, the big spenders on lobbying this session include the Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems, the Vermont State Employees' Association, the Vermont Chamber of Commerce and the Vermont State Colleges System.
The Association of Hospitals and Health Systems is consistently one of the top lobbying employers, working on a number of issues involving health care providers.
VTDigger published a full report on lobbying in January 2019, showing how much money is spent representing health care interests in Montpelier.
In 2021, the state employees’ association spent nearly $64,000, in part to fight a House leadership proposal to reform the state’s pension system for teachers and state workers.
The initial House plan drew sharp criticism from state employees and unions, prompting lawmakers to drop it. Instead, the Legislature established a task force to make recommendations for addressing Vermont’s ballooning pension debt. Lawmakers expect to discuss those recommendations next year.
The Vermont Wholesale Beverage Association put $32,973 into lobbying efforts this session, including on H.313, which sets up a legislative study to look at the continued sale of alcoholic beverages for delivery and curbside pickup by a wide range of businesses.
The state’s alcohol industry sees the continuation of direct-to-consumer sales in Vermont as integral to keeping businesses viable.
Maggie Lenz, vice president of strategic communications for Leonine Public Affairs, said lawmakers started the session by prioritizing coronavirus legislation — including doling out federal aid.
However, Lenz said it soon became apparent the Legislature would be tackling a broad array of issues in 2021, just as in a normal in-person session.
“We weren’t just in there working on [federal aid] for clients. We were working on regular policy,” Lenz said. “It seemed like a pretty traditional year in terms of how much non-Covid-related policy we had to work on.”
Correction: Due to a filing error made by the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, a chart in an earlier version of this story misstated the compensation received by lobbyist Gwynn Zakov and, therefore, the total amount spent on lobbying this year.
