Petrelis Files

(President Bill Clinton signing the Lobbying Disclosure Act into law; December 19, 1995.)

Secretary of the United States Senate: HRC's Lobbying Disclosure Reports

This may come as a surprise to the folks at the Human Rights Campaign and their supporters, but I think, based on an examination of their lobbying disclosure reports filed with the Secretary of the Senate, that the group spends a decent amount on lobbying Congress, the White House and our federal agencies. Sure, they probably could allocate more for lobbying purposes, and let's they are doing exactly that this session of Congress.

Here's a financial summary of their annual amounts spent on lobbying:

1998 / $557,550
1999 / $1,187,648
2000 / $1,060,678
2001 / $1,160,000
2002 / $1,245,380
2003 / $1,303,980
2004 / $3,502,460
2005 / $1,300,000
2006 / $1,180,969

Click here to read the reports where these numbers come from.

And bear in mind that HRC also contracts with lobbying firms and individual lobbyists, figures that are not included in their mid-year and year-end lobbying reports filed with the Secretary of the Senate. Click here to see a semi-full list of lobbying reports for HRC and the firms and lobbyists it has hired since 1998.

Then there are also these separate lobbying reports filed by Potomac Counsel, for its client HRC, which don't turn up at the other links above.

In the interests of generating more transparency and accountability with HRC, it's my hope that more gays, including bloggers and journalists, look at the lobbying disclosure forms for the group.

I'll leave to others to decide if the gay lobbying dollars spent by HRC are bringing enough tangible benefits to the gay community nationwide.