February 25, 2005
S1276 Expands Lobbying Prohibition To Those Serving On Boards And Commissions
By Don Harris
At least one bill affecting prohibited acts by lobbyists has been introduced this year.

Sen. Dean Martin, R-6, is sponsoring S1276, which adds boards and commissions and other elected officials to the current statute that covers legislators. It also transfers language regarding prohibited acts from Title 41 (state government) to Title 13 (criminal code). The bill, which passed the Senate 30-0 Feb. 17 and is ready for the House, provides that a person who commits certain prohibited acts is guilty of a class 5 or class 6 (lowest) felony.

“It’s a substantive change,” Mr. Martin says. It restores the original language from a bill introduced in the 1970s by Sandra Day O’Connor, then a state senator and now a U.S. Supreme Court justice. However, the O’Connor bill was amended in the House so that it applied only to legislators.

“This is Sandra Day O’Connor’s bill,” Mr. Martin says.

Current law says a lobbyist can’t contact the employer of a legislator in order to put pressure on, or to possibly fire, that legislator, Mr. Martin says.

Piestewa Peak

Mr. Martin says his interest in amending the statute stems from an incident in 2003 when Mario Diaz, then deputy chief of staff to Governor Napolitano, contacted the employer of a member of the Arizona State Board on Geographic and Historic Names before a vote was to be taken on changing the name of Squaw Peak in Phoenix.

In 2003, a political firestorm arose on the board when Ms. Napolitano and others asked that the popular hiking spot be renamed Lori Piestewa Peak, in honor of the Hopi woman from Arizona who was killed in a firefight in Iraq. Ms. Piestewa is believed to be the first Native American woman to die in combat while serving in the U.S. armed forces.

A member of the Board and some others objected to renaming the peak because Ms. Piestewa had been dead only weeks when the proposal arose. The board typically follows federal guidelines for waiting five years before naming a feature after a person.

One member maintained that Ms. Napolitano improperly pressured the board into effecting the name change, and even the governor herself later conceded that the effort was heavy-handed.

Mr. Martin says S1276 has been dubbed “the Mario Diaz bill.” —