Want to know what $16,500 a month buys you in D.C.?
Let’s start with fashion tips. When officials from San Bernardino County (Calif.) asked their lobbyists — the folks at the scandal-linked Copeland Lowery firm — to take them to a Washington Nationals baseball game, they didn’t just get tickets. They got some helpful advice, too. Reports the San Bernardino Sun:
“There is something of a `dress code’ when it comes to wearing the Nats baseball caps,” [Copeland Lowery’s] Larson wrote [to one County official]. “Just tell Bill not to go to a game wearing a blue hat blue hat = blue state.”
The county, which currently pays the firm $16,500 a month for lobbying services, chose Copeland Lowery at the advice of Arlene Wilis, chief of staff (and wife) of Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.
In 2002, Arlene told county officials she didn’t know three of the firms they said they were considering, but knew Copeland Lowery “quite well.” (Indeed she did; by then, two longtime Lewis staffers — her former employees — were working as big-bucks lobbyists at the firm.)
“Staff is easy to deal with,” the notes from the conversation state, according to the Sun. Partner (and former Lewis aide) Jeff “Shockey is knowledgeable, likeable, a visionary and a problem solver.”
In case you were wondering: there will be more stories like this. San Bernardino County alone has released to media outlets thousands of pages relating to its relationship with Copeland Lowery and Chairman Lewis. At least a dozen cities are believed to be cooperating with federal investigators, and they are essentially required by law to share with reporters whatever they share with the feds.
So who knows what will surface. I’m hoping for more fashion tips.