The 2015 General Assembly was a “short session” of 30 days, but lobbying spending for the year eclipsed all previous years, reaching a total of $19.2 million.
In the largest spending category, $16.6 million was spent last year by employers compensating lobbyists, a 10 percent increase over the $15 million in compensation paid in 2013, the previous odd-numbered year with a 30-day legislative session.
In 2015, for the first time, a change in the lobbying law required businesses and organizations that employ lobbyists to report their spending on advertising connected to lobbying, and that additional requirement accounts for most of the increase in reported spending. Slightly more than $1 million was reported spent on lobbying-related advertising.
Anheuser-Busch, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Belgian company Anheuser-Busch InBev, was Kentucky’s top spender in 2015, as the company spent $447,342 on lobbying and advertising, primarily in opposition to legislation which prohibits an out-of-state brewery from owning a Kentucky distributorship. The total includes $329,694 the company spent on advertising.
At $359,624, the year’s second-biggest lobbying spender was Americans for Prosperity (AFP), an Arlington, Virginia-based organization that lobbied in favor of bills prohibiting mandatory membership in a labor organization as a condition of employment, establishing a medical review panel system, and establishing a state commission to authorize charter schools without local approval. AFP reported spending $307,000 on advertising in 2015.
Richmond, Virginia-based Altria Client Services and its affiliates, including Philip Morris USA and U.S. Smokeless Tobacco, was the third-largest spender, at $294,375, followed by the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce ($277,906), and AT&T, which lobbied on a telecommunication deregulation bill ($188,480).
The rest of the top 10 spenders were: Kentucky Hospital Association ($188,472); Century Aluminum ($172,386); Kentucky Justice Association ($155,602); Kentucky Beer Wholesalers Association ($154,084); and American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network ($139,528).
The bottom half of the top 20 includes: Kentucky Medical Association ($138,094); Molina Healthcare ($136,032); Kentucky Retail Federation ($133,813); Kentuckians for Entrepreneurs and Growth ($133,297); Anthem Inc. and Affiliates ($126,000); Buffalo Trace Distillery ($120,000); HP, Inc., the larger successor of Hewlett Packard ($120,000); Humana ($109,253); Kentucky Farm Bureau Federation ($103,308); and Home Builders Association of Kentucky ($100,835).
For a complete list of lobbying spending by all businesses and organizations, and compensation paid to each of the 600+ lobbyists, see the website of the Legislative Ethics Commission.
Ethics Reporter is a publication of the Kentucky Legislative Ethics Commission. It is reprinted with permission.