Case Study on Lobbying for Biotech Funding
MONEY ISN’T EVERYTHING — Cash wasn’t always king when it came to getting priorities passed on Beacon Hill this session.
Case in point: The Massachusetts Biotechnology Council spent the most money on lobbying lawmakers in both 2023 and the first half of 2024 — $696,055 and $348,067, respectively. Yet the billion-dollar economic development bill that could’ve authorized hundreds of millions in borrowing for a life sciences initiative backed by MassBio didn’t become law before legislators reached their deadline last month.
That’s one of the findings from a new analysis from Legislata, a productivity software for politicians, and its founder and CEO Chris Oates, who dug through the disclosure forms lobbyists are required to file with the state.
The report, shared first with Playbook, used the info to create a database of lobbying details from the most recent session – including top spending clients, who lobbyists donated to, what legislation they were working on and which lawmakers brought in big bucks.
MassBio wasn’t the only organization that spent big for less-than-desired outcomes. The Massachusetts Municipal Association spent the third most in 2023 at $425,315 and the fifth most in the first half of 2024 at $197,766, according to the database.
But some pieces of legislation that municipalities wanted to see pass, such as a local-option tax on high-dollar real estate transactions, got cut before making it to Gov. Maura Healey’s desk. And lawmakers never reached an agreement on another, Healey’s so-called Municipal Empowerment Act. It’s food for thought for the Beacon Hill movers and shakers used to being able to grease the wheels on bills stuck in committee (or kill legislation they don’t want to see the light of day) in part by paying to play.
Oates also tallied the top recipients of lobbyist donations this session. Senate President Karen Spilka pulled in the most – unsurprisingly, given her leadership role.
But House Speaker Ron Mariano was ninth on the list. The top House lawmaker lobbyists donated to? That was the chamber’s Ways and Means chief and Mariano’s likely successor, Rep. Aaron Michlewitz. He was just behind Spilka, taking in $37,850 to her $42,050.
But the paychecks available on the other side of the table are even more eye-catching — and may make it more challenging to keep experienced lawmakers and long-time staffers from leaving their public service jobs for a better payday.
According to the data, there are “about 75 people who in 2023 earned more from lobbying contracts than any member of state government, including the House and Senate leadership and the governor,” Oates wrote in the analysis.
“How long can we expect talented people to stay in a tough job, with perhaps a difficult commute, when every day they see people walking around the State House who used to be in their shoes and are now in a higher tax bracket?”
