DAVID E. FLOREEN
Banking interests tend to spend big, both on lobbying and contributions to legislators’ campaigns. But financing for their Beacon Hill-based lobbyists has fallen in recent years, even as more bank-related issues have cropped up.
Spending on lobbyists as a whole decreased from $5 million paid during the 2005-06 legislative session, to just $2.6 million during 2007-08, according to records maintained by Massachusetts Secretary of State William F. Galvin. Yet many more banking concerns were on the table this year.
David Floreen, one of the Massachusetts Bankers Association’s chief lobbyists on Beacon Hill, notes that his work isn’t always done in favor of one particular bill, meaning the results aren’t always immediately evident.
“Remember, you are always dealing with matters that you want to advance as well as those you would rather stay put,” he noted.
Some matters also take more than one session to take care of, he added. And the industry also keeps tabs on ongoing implementation of laws, even if that topic isn’t as noticeable as a bill passing. This means that regular conversations with the state’s Division of Banks and Attorney General Martha Coakley are part of his work.
MBA spends similar amounts each year no matter what’s on the agenda, Floreen said, because unlike some single-agenda groups, “We are here for the long haul.”
Between 2005 and 2007, MBA paid Floreen, Executive Vice President Kevin Kiley and Boston lawyer Thomas M. Joyce a total of $140,000 per year for lobbying work. It paid them another $70,000 through June of this year, the latest date for which figures are avail-able.
But the 2005-06 legislative session focused on health care, while the 2007-08 session, which ended on July 31, featured a major mortgage lending reform bill that passed last November, as well as an overhaul to the state’s corporate tax law, both of significant con-cern to banks.
MBA helped ensure community banks will be included in the tax changes, meaning they’ll see a rate reduction of close to 15 percent over a period of several years, Floreen said.
Pat Wilmot, executive director of Boston-based, open government group Common Cause, said the stakes are very high, and “we need to know who’s playing and what they are paying.”
“These are important decisions being made by our elected officials, and there’s a lot of money being thrown around,” Wilmot said.
Kevin Cuff, executive director of the Massachusetts Mortgage Bankers Association, said his association’s lobbying efforts focus on “anything dealing with housing, finance, banking, or credit.”
Expenses go toward meetings with legislators, as well as any state agency involved in implementing laws important to the industry, he said.
Like MBA’s, MMBA’s state-level spending remained constant between 2005 and 2007, when it paid Shanley Fleming & Associates of Boston $46,500 each year. Through June 2008, Shanley Fleming earned $12,498.
Cuff said much of the recent effort was devoted to the Legislature as it prepared to pass the mortgage industry reform bill last Novem-ber. Since the bill’s passage, MMBA’s efforts have switched to meeting with the Division of Banks, which is implementing the multi-faceted law.
Some former big spenders have either curtailed their expenses significantly in recent years, or dropped out of the lending scene en-tirely. For example, Bear, Stearns & Co. spent well over $150,000 on Massachusetts interests related to “municipal bonds and related financial services” each year between 2005 and 2007.
But the New York bank, which invested heavily in mortgage securities, was on the verge of bankruptcy when it was acquired in March by its former rival, JP Morgan Chase.
This year, the company paid its local lobbyists just over $25,000.
Subprime lending giant Ameriquest Mortgage Co. paid The Brennan Group of Boston $40,000 to lobby state legislators in 2005, but went out of business after filing for bankruptcy in 2007. It was purchased by Citigroup last August.
