The Irvine City Council voted Tuesday to take a major step toward overhauling the city’s lobbying regulations.
A revised lobbying ordinance was approved unanimously by the council; a second supporting vote at a future council meeting is needed for the new rules to take effect.
The new ordinance broadens the definition of what the city considers lobbying, adds stricter disclosure requirements for lobbying activities and has the potential to make repeated violations of the law a misdemeanor offense.
New rules are the culmination of discussions that began about a year ago when Councilmember Kathleen Treseder prompted the City Council to discuss an update to its 2006 lobbying ordinance. She advocated for a new policy that would give city lobbying regulations “more teeth” in the wake of a political scandal that rocked Anaheim and touched Irvine.
“I’ve been watching Anaheim and what they’re going through,” Treseder said a year ago. “I have noticed they’ve had a really tough time now that the toothpaste is out of the tube, trying to go back and make fixes.”
Last summer, Anaheim released the results of a $1.5 million city-commissioned probe that followed the 2022 revelation of FBI investigations into a former mayor and chamber of commerce executive director, which included allegations that a self-described “cabal” of business and political leaders had exerted influence in Anaheim City Hall. Irvine was named a dozen times in the 353-page report that came out of that investigation, mostly regarding lobbying for cannabis ordinances in both towns.
Irvine’s new lobbying ordinance would require disclosure of lobbying activities directed at “anybody that is making a discretionary decision on behalf of the city of Irvine that is not part of an administrative process,” said Irvine City Attorney Jeffrey Melching. That includes the mayor and City Council, as well as all city commission and committee members, the city manager and assistant city managers, department directors, the police chief, the city attorney, the city clerk, and the zoning administrator.
The new ordinance increases the detail of quarterly disclosures to include the date, time and means of each lobbying activity, an itemization of contributions totaling $100 or more made by the lobbyist to political committees and other measures to increase transparency of lobbying records.
The ordinance would also tighten financial disclosure requirements related to lobbying. Before, individuals who received less than $10,000 per quarter for lobbying activities did not have to report that. The new ordinance would lower the threshold to $1,000 per calendar month.
The new ordinance adds two categories of lobbyists, as well.
“In-house” lobbyists would be salaried city employees or officials whose job duties could include communication with any city official for the purpose of influencing a municipal question. The new ordinance would require a city employee to register and report as a lobbyist anytime they contact a city official more than one time per municipal question.
“Expenditure” lobbyists would be individuals or entities that spend money on public relations or advertising designed to urge others to influence city officials on proposed actions. The new ordinance would cap their spending on Irvine issues at $5,000 per calendar year.
Established media outlets, governmental entities, landowners and homeowners’ associations would be among the entities exempt from the lobbying ordinance revisions.
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