THE PACE OF LOBBYING on Beacon Hill, which slowed a bit during the pandemic, is picking up steam.
Lobbying expenditures totaled $99.2 million during 2023, up from $85.2 million three years earlier, according to records provided by Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin’s office. Those gross amounts provide a bird’s eye view of the industry, but they don’t reveal the stories about how influence is peddled on Beacon Hill. For those, you need to look closer.
Health care is where the big money gets spent in state government, and that’s where lobbying money is spent as well. The two biggest spenders on lobbying last year – both with outlays of just over $1 million — were the Massachusetts Health and Hospitals Association and the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans.
Six of the top 10 spenders on lobbying were involved with health care, including the Massachusetts Nurses Association ($536,765), Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts ($494,998), the Association for Behavioral Health Care ($462,388), and Mass General Brigham ($444,143).
The Massachusetts Biotechnology Council ranked third in spending at $797,054. The other non-health care spenders were the utility National Grid (No. 6 at $489,091), the Massachusetts Teachers Association (No. 9 at $433,641), and the Massachusetts Municipal Association (No. 10 at $475,315).
Some others near the top of the lobbying heap had priorities that needed addressing. Keolis Commuter Services, which runs commuter rail service for the MBTA, is angling for a new contract. The firm spent $363,750 lobbying on Beacon Hill. Sterling Suffolk Racecourse, which used to own Suffolk Downs, is now trying to hang on to its simulcast wagering license. It spent $355,000 in 2023.
A group called the Sports Betting Alliance, which represents the interests of sports betting companies, spent $330,000 last year on Beacon Hill, the first year sports bets became legal in Massachusetts. And don’t forget Uber Technologies, which spent $313,100 looking after its interests in the state.
Lobbying firms are perhaps the most interesting players to watch on Beacon Hill. They are the hired guns, the ones with the knowledge and the contacts to get things done at the State House. Smith, Costello & Crawford, which reported the highest lobbying fees for the first time in 2019, continued its reign at the top of the industry in 2023, reporting $5.5 million in revenue.
The firm reported 97 clients in a wide variety of industries, including energy, real estate, health care, marijuana, and on and on. Its biggest client is Avangrid Renewables, which paid $180,000 in lobbying fees to Smith, Costello & Crawford last year. Avangrid won one of the state’s offshore wind procurements for offshore wind and then had to back out in late 2022 when the economy shifted. It successfully dealt with the negative fallout from that withdrawal on Beacon Hill during 2023 and is expected to bid in the next procurement, which is launching at the end of this month.
Brian Dempsey, the former long-time chair of the House’s budget committee, runs Dempsey Associates along with one other lobbyist. Together, they represented 51 clients in 2023, bringing in $3.4 million in lobbyist fees. The firm’s biggest clients were the Sports Betting Alliance ($180,000) and Beth Israel Lahey Health ($168,000).
Kearney, Donovan & McGee reported just over $3 million in lobbying fees in 2023. Its biggest client, with fees totaling $306,000, was Mass General Brigham, the state’s biggest health care system.
TSK Associates, where former Senate president Robert Travaglini works, represents clients in many fields but offshore wind appears to be a growth area. The company’s two biggest clients in 2023 were Prysmian Cables and Systems ($175,000), which is seeking to build a subsea cable manufacturing facility at Brayton Point in Somerset, and Crowley Maritime Services ($146,250), which is building a deepwater port facility to serve the offshore wind industry in Salem.
The crisis at Steward Health Care doesn’t appear to have affected its lobbying very much. The health care system has paid $180,000 a year the past few years to The Suffolk Group to look out for its interests on Beacon Hill. Last year, the health care system upped its spending to $210,000.