Number of Registered Lobbyists in California

In California, there are over 3,200 registered lobbyists with the state. Note that in most large cities in California there are also registration and reporting requirements for those engaged in local government lobbying (i.e., city councils and boards of supervisors).

How does California’s number compare to other large jurisdictions? Official accounts peg the number of lobbyists in Washington, DC at 12,000 (those lobbying the US Congress and federal executive branch) and 29,000 in Brussels, Belgium (those lobbying the EU Parliament), which is up from 25,000 in 2020.

How have the number of registered lobbyists grown in Sacramento in lobbying the legislative and executive branches? Based upon data from the California Secretary of State’s Office obtained by Sameea Kamal of CalMatters, the following chart tracks those registrations by 2-year Legislative Session and compares the number year-over-year and from 25 years ago: 

The number of registered lobbyists jumped about fifteen years ago because of a new category that was added by statute to the definition of a lobbyist: “placement agents” (those who work with public pension funds on investment opportunities). Otherwise, the number has grown by about 100 each session over the past quarter century.

And, for the dozen years after the 1999-200 Session, the total number was stagnant at just over 1,200 registered lobbyists (and, in 3 of those sessions, the number actually declined slightly). While the number of registered lobbyists has grown by 1,975 over the past 25 years, more than half of those registrations are attributable to the addition of placement agents. Even taking those registrations out of the total figure, the number of registered lobbyists has still grown over 65% during the past quarter century.