.
.
.
Two of our esteemed assemblymen, Anaheim’s Tom Daly (D) and Irvine’s Don Wagner (R), just spent a cushy week in Maui at a pay-for-access lobbying confab.
The LA Times reports:
The six-day conference hosted by the Independent Voter Project is held annually at the Fairmont Kea Lani resort, where rooms go for $365 or more a night, but lawmakers who have some of their expenses covered by IVP did not have to disclose them for months, under state law.
This was not a ideological or partisan meeting. It was about about the big money players of California Politics getting some special time with California Legislators.
Sponsors of the event, many of whom paid $10,000 or more, included the Western State Petroleum Assn., Shell Oil, Sempra, tobacco giant Altria, payday lender Advance America, Anheuser Busch, AT&T, the California Cable and Telecommunications Assn., Koch Industries, VISA, Walmart, and the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn., according to organizers. Many sent lobbyists or representatives to rub elbows with the elected officials poolside or on the golf course.
Think we can get IVP to invite Vern to play the piano at the bar next year?
Its not just those two.
Why are the lobbyists spending their lobbyist money on Wagner? What a waste of money. He’s a has-been with one foot out the door and the other on a banana peel. If I wanted to legally bribe someone it certainly wouldn’t be Wagner. Don’t the special interests want some ‘bang for their buck’? If I were a lobbyist I’d invest in Ling Ling Chang before I’d drop a bundle on Wagner.
I guess they aren’t bothering with termed out Bob Huff anymore…http://fullertonrag.com/2014/11/15/state-senator-bob-huff-to-meet-with-lobbyists-in-hawaii/
*Somewhere along the “business plan way” came a variety of methods and madness that allow a transitory explanation…….of “mixed use”. What does all that mean? It means that “they” do not know where there next big bite of the apple will come from and there needs to be some realization that life is not a fountain!