A new report shows that local government spends the most to sway the state government.
Government sector lobby expenses total $110 million dollars dating back to 2013. Comparatively, only the health industry comes close, spending nearly $100 million. After that, the manufacturing, finance, and oil/gas industries range in the $40-50 million range.
Breaking it down, counties dominate total spending with 11 counties spending over $1 million in the two and a half year period examined. Another group of counties is not far behind after that spending hundreds of thousands of dollars.
It probably won’t surprise many to see the City of Los Angeles on top of the municipalities with $2.8 million spent. Maybe a little more surprising, the City of Redding comes in at #2 with a lobby budget of $1.49 million.
Only 11 cities did not spend any money on lobby efforts, the largest being Chula Vista with 250,000 people.
However, in general both cities and counties have strong representation as the League of California Cities and California State Association of Counties both spend over $3 million apiece.
For further reading and an interactive chart letting you see where any one agency stacks up, see here.