EDITORIAL: Governments hiring lobbyists at taxpayer expense to lobby governments

The Clark County School Board last week unanimously approved a six-figure allocation to hire an outside firm to lobby the Legislature during the 2019 session. To translate, the district will spend taxpayer money to arm-twist lawmakers to support proposals designed to extricate more money from those very same taxpayers.

Isn’t that special?

The contract calls for the Clark County School District to pay $150,000 to the hired guns at Seattle-based Strategies 360 who will work the 120-day legislative gathering that begins Feb. 1. The company, which touts a presence in a dozen Western states, has three Nevada-based representatives. Not surprisingly, two of them are Democrats who formerly served in the Nevada Assembly, where education reform has for years gone to die a slow death.

It is illegal for a government entity to spend taxpayer money to promote or oppose a ballot initiative. But the extensive and incestuous government-on-government legislative lobbying apparatus is simply the other side of the same counterfeit coin — and the school district is just a bit player. Clark County and the cities of Las Vegas, Henderson and North Las Vegas will all spend thousands of dollars next year courtesy of the taxpayers to establish a noticeable presence in Carson City. Same goes for dozens of other public entities, including universities and school districts.

In 2017, Nevada’s local governments spent $3.75 million lobbying lawmakers, according to the Nevada Department of Taxation. Clark County governments led the way by plowing through $2.2 million in tax money.

“The challenge with taxpayers funding lobbyists,” Chuck DeVore of the Texas Public Policy Foundation told Reason.com in 2017, “is they they’re being forced to pay for services that typically run contrary to their interests,” because the lobbyists “invariably lobby for bigger government, more borrowing, higher spending and more regulation.”

While many people associate the word “lobbyist” with corporations or other private special interests attempting to unfairly influence policymakers, the public sector is often the true elephant roaming the legislative halls. The Los Angeles Times reported last August that it is “California’s local governments — cities, counties and scores of other agencies — that spend the most of any sector to influence the outcome of events” in Sacramento. Almost 400 California government groups spend tax money on legislative lobbying, the Times found.

The First Amendment guarantees citizens the right “to petition the government for a redress of grievances” — in other words, to lobby. But it’s one thing for individuals or private groups to spend their money on the practice; it’s quite another for a government entity to use tax dollars to pursue an agenda.

While it would be difficult to impose an outright ban on government-on-government lobbying, 11 states — including Arizona — do prohibit public-sector bodies from hiring outside lobbyists to do the work. Nevada lawmakers should follow suit. State taxpayers deserve it.