Listen To This Story
A new report on how much was spent on lobbying efforts last year at the Nebraska State Capitol shows a reduction because of the pandemic, but higher compensation for some lobbyists.
The group Common Cause Nebraska released the report Monday and said actual money spent on lobbying in 2020 went down, from $19.4 million to around $18.5 million, but compensation went up for more than half of the state’s largest lobbying firms. The company that spent the most on lobbying efforts last year, at around $218,000, was Altria Client Services, affiliated with Philip Morris. The Nebraska Chamber of Commerce spent $103,000 and the University of Nebraska $143,000. The top paid lobbying firm was Mueller-Robak, which made over $1.3 million on lobbying efforts at the Nebraska State Capitol.
“We’re talking about an industry here, the lobby, which makes a tremendous amount of money and we have senators who make $12,000 a year,” Report author Jack Gould said. “We elect the $12,000 people who are hopefully doing our bidding, but we have a whole industry out there that is spending horrendous amounts of money to influence what’s going on down there. I think it’s important for the public to realize that.”
There were 367 registered lobbyists last year in Nebraska, down from a record 405 the year before. Gould said he’d like to see changes in what lobbyists can and can’t do.
“I don’t have a problem with people hiring a lobbyist to go and represent them,” Gould said. “But I do have a problem with gift-giving and entertaining and providing campaign money, running campaign fund raisers, that is the kind of thing that the general public can’t compete with and that’s why it’s a problem.”
The report said 18 former Nebraska legislators were registered lobbyists last year. Overall lobbying compensation was down slightly, but six out of the state’s ten largest firms made more money.