Since his forced-retirement from Congress in the ’90s, Brian Bilbray has been a federal lobbyist 
representing at least seven different clients since 1998 – including the Federation for American Immigration Reform, the Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians, the County of Los Angeles, San Diego Gas & Electric and more. According to the Center for Public Integrity, who publish information on registered lobbyists on the internet, Bilbray took in just over $700,000 in fees from his clients from 1998 to 2004 — last year’s numbers aren’t posted yet. Of these fees, a little over one-third has come from his immigration reform client, which becomes signficant as you read on.
Answers.com defines a lobbyist as a person who solicits members of a legislature for the purpose of influencing legislation. Of course, the
public relations problem with being a lobbyist these days is easily seen by doing a Google image search for ‘lobbyist’ – and get flooded with photos of disgraced uber-Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, like the one to the right. Of course, to most lobbyists, the public perception of their trade is a rather esoteric factor — unless you happen to be the only lobbyist running for Congress in the special election to replace the resigned and disgraced criminal, Duke Cunningham. Actually, running in this particular election with the title of lobbyist will be especially challenging – if you have that title.
This is the reason why our lobbyist candidate, ex-Representative Bilbray, put down as his ballot title when he filed his papers, Immigration Reform Advocate. Needless to say, this raised eyebrows. It would be one thing if Bilbray spent 100% of his time on just the one immigration reform client, and even then, it would seem like Immigration Reform Lobbyist would be most accurate. But how someone who has received almost two-thirds their lobbying income from disparate sources ranging from a power company, a municipal government, an airport, and other sources can use this title…is a bit of a stretch.
Dave Gilliard, Bilbray’s consultant told me this evening when I asked him about this that the precident for using ‘advocate’ was set when in a previous statewide election, Tom McClintock, who worked full time for the Claremont Institute, successfully used the ballot title Taxpayer Advocate. I don’t know if this is apples to apples as it would seem to me that McClintock would have only one employer, the anti-tax Claremont Institute. This would be a more fair comparison if Bilbray was a full-time employee of his FAIR client.
I don’t know if it is fair for Brian Bilbray to have to carry the banner for all lobbyists, and single-handedly unsully the poor reputation given to the professional by the ethically devoid Ambramoff. But there is a reason why you are required to list on your ballot title something that tells people what you do. And as we have already discussed on this site, Bilbray is not going to be able to run away from being a lobbyist and a former Member of Congress. That is who he is. He is definitely an insider, with a list of Congressional insider endorsements that is quite lengthy.
Trying to mask his real occupation to the electorate won’t really work, since there are plenty of other candidates with the financial resources to make sure that every voter knows what Bilbray does for a living. The one thing that seems to be the case is that Bilbray apparently doesn’t want to be known as a lobbyist to the voters. GOOD LUCK ON THAT MISSION.
In the meantime, the late update from Gilliard is that after going back and forth with the Secretary of State’s office, who was not happy with the Immigration Reform Advocate designation, they have apparently signed off on a slight change, to Immigration Reform Consultant. No doubt this will end up in front of a judge next, and we’ll see how it ends up on the printed ballots…
March 2nd, 2006 at 12:00 am
The system deleted some comments this morning by mistake. The problem is fixed, but here are the three comments:
From Allan Bartlett:
“There’s no way a judge can rule in favor of those two ballot designations for Bilbray that you refered to Jon after denying Jim Gilchrist his ballot title of “Minuteman Movement Founder”. It’s basically the same thing. Of course I think that the law is stupid on that, but if they’re going to apply it fairly, then they must deny those choices. It would give Bilbray a definate advantage. I’d be curious to also see what Mr. Gilliard’s take is on this. He was John Campbell’s lead consultant and argued against Jim’s ballot title. How can he have a clear conscience if he thinks “immigration guru” or whatever Bilbray decides on is okayed? I’m not knocking Mr Bilbray’s desire to have whatever ballot title he wants. I just want a level playing field if you’re going to go down that road. Lastly, it’s obvious that he is trying to avoid being tagged as a lobbyist like he is avoiding the plague. I’ll be curious to see how much lipstick can be applied to the pig so to speak on this one.”
From Phil Paule:
“Jon
Since you are now the expert on ballot titles , can you explain your boy Howard Kaloogian’s one of ‘Charitable Trust Attorney.’
I don’t think most people that know Howard have the words ‘Charitable’ and certinaly not ‘Trust’ come to mind when thinkig of him. Regardless the title is one of the stranger ones that I have seen. I gues he figured if he tried to use Re-Call Leader I would have been on the next plane to Sacramento to challenge it.”
From Dave Gilliard:
“Allan – If Bilbray were asking to use the name “FAIR” or “Federation for American Immigration Reform” in his title, you would have a point. Brian is not only a paid legislative advocate for FAIR in Washington, D.C., but also serves on the Board of Advisors. The problem with Gilchrist’s title was the word “Minuteman”, which is the type of proper noun and clearly not allowed under current law. If Gilchrist had used “Immigration Reform Advocate”, I believe he would have won his case based on the McClintock precedent. I also believe Bilbray would have won his case, but at great legal expense, so he settled on Immigration Reform Consultant, which gets the point across.”