Gov. Jerry Brown on Friday vetoed a bill to require disclosure of lobbying around state government contracts. The bill, from Palo Alto Assemblyman Rich Gordon, would have required lobbyists communicating with officials on a contract worth more than $250,000 to register and report their activity.
The bill sought to put lobbying on procurements (on which the state spent $12 billion in 2014) on the same regulatory level as traditional legislative lobbying.
“Given that the laws regulating state procurement are voluminous and already contain ample opportunity for public scrutiny, I don’t believe this bill is necessary,” wrote the governor in his veto message.
The bill passed the Senate in March on a 38-1 vote, and the Assembly voted 69-0 earlier this month to send the bill to the governor.
The Fair Political Practices Commission would have been tasked with overseeing the registration of procurement lobbyists. A Senate analysis found that the bill could cost the FPPC hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. Commission chair Jodi Remke, a Brown appointee, had expressed skepticism that the bill would be able to provide information on what led to the awarding of a contract without requiring the reporting of each “contact” between lobbyists and government officials.