The Los Angeles Ethics Commission announced Tuesday that entities registered to lobby city agencies reported receiving payments of more than $20.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2019, about $2.6 million more than the previous quarter.
Total lobbying in the third quarter was reported to be more than $17.9 million.
Of the 2,200 clients registered for the fourth quarter, the 10 that made the largest aggregated payments for lobbying services paid almost $3 million, which represented 14.2% of all payments by lobbying clients for the quarter.
Champion Real Estate Co. paid the most for lobbying services in the quarter — $518,947.
The 10 lobbying firms receiving the most client payments in the fourth quarter received just less than $10 million, which represents 49% of all payments received.
DLA Piper LLP was the highest paid lobbying firm in the quarter, receiving a little more than $2 million.
Of the 742 fourth-quarter lobbying entities, 19 reported fundraising activity totaling $145,200 for city campaigns, officeholders and committees. In the third quarter of 2019, there were 16 entities that reported campaign activity, totaling $160,900.
In addition to lobbying entities, five major filers reported activity totaling $219,222 in the fourth quarter of 2019. A major filer is defined by the Ethics Commission as a person who makes or incurs expenses totaling $5,000 or more in a calendar quarter to influence one or more city matters but does not directly communicate with a city decision-maker.
The full summary on fourth-quarter lobbying and major filer activities is available at ethics.lacity.org. Disclosed information about lobbying entities and their clients can be searched through the Public Data Portal of the commission’s website.