Every fall and spring, when America’s top circus company returns to the home state of founder P.T. Barnum, there are animal rights activists lying in wait.
No doubt this will be true next week when “The Greatest Show on Earth” comes to Hartford.
Regular circus-goers may be used to seeing protestors by now, although some protestors cross the line, as evidenced recently when eight agreed to fines for interrupting a show in Barnum’s hometown of Bridgeport last fall.
But the real threat to Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus isn’t the picketers outside the tent, it’s the suits inside the state Capitol. Animal rights supporters, particularly those from People for the Ethical Treatment for Animals (PETA), may be known for shocking, attention-grabbing stunts, but the group’s lobbying work is crafty: It doesn’t push banning the circus outright — since one might as well try banning picnics or birthday parties — but instead continually offers up legislative proposals that would make the circus business financially untenable by removing its top selling point: elephants.
There are a bevy of examples from the last dozen years. A 1995 bill would have prevented elephants from being chained for more than two hours in any 24-hour period, making their participation on tour impossible. Another would have required that elephants be kept in a space only slightly larger than a typical railroad car –- the circus’s method of transport. A bill from last year would have created an “elephant inspection account” and $1,000 fee for animal cruelty.
The decade-plus long campaign appears to be grinding on the opposition.
“They’re like a little C.I.A. They have intelligence,” Carroll J. Hughes of Middletown’s Hughes & Cronin Public Affairs Strategies, said of PETA.
Harder Fight
Hughes has successfully fended off the save-the-elephants proposals for Feld Entertainment, parent of Ringing Bros., since 2005. But the fight isn’t getting any easier.
This year’s attempt to hinder the circus, he said, is “absolutely” the most serious. PETA and other animal rights supporters have proposed banning use of an ankus (often called a bullhook), a heavy baton with a metal hook on the end, to handle elephants. The device hurts elephants in PETA’s view, while Hughes says a properly used ankus is harmless and that banning it would make using elephants in Connecticut performances impossible. And without elephants –- its “core product” –- Hughes doubts the circus business can be profitable.
“The elephants are the number one card for drawing people to the circus. It’s the symbol of Ringling Bros.,” he said, noting the company’s logo.
“There is so much competition for entertainment. The thing that keeps it attractive and competitive is the elephants,” he added.
The two sides have entered into a sort of lobbying arms race. At a public hearing, animal rights supporters supplied a three-minute DVD with graphic images of elephant abuse to Environment Commmittee members and then trotted in a former Ringling Bros. employee, who detailed a gruesome 45-minute elephant beating that took place while she worked for the company.
Hughes has in turn talked about his client’s $5 million animal refuge in Central Florida and invited legislators for a behind-the-scenes viewing of the animals in the show and their treatment on May 10, the second day of the company’s stop in Hartford.
He also isn’t afraid to take shots at the competition. “Some of these people are fanatical terrorists,” he said.
Last week, the General Assembly’s Judiciary Committee endorsed the measure to curtail the use of bullhooks to keep elephants in line.
What Hughes has yet to harness is the voice of the circus’s top customers, children and families, who he says are at-risk of being denied the opportunity to see the circus and see elephants up close. While local animal rights supporters –- including some of the same who were arrested last fall –- have come to the Capitol to lend their support, testimony for Ringling Bros. lacked real, live circus lovers, unless one counts someone from the “Outdoor Amusement Business Association” and the director of the “National Circus Fans Association of America.”
No doubt the crowds will come to the shows to vote with their pocket books, but will they also get on the phone to their local representative?
If not, when the “The Greatest Show on Earth” rolls into town next week, the Civic Center will be filled with Asian tigers and motorcycling clowns, but Hughes will be the one doing the acrobat work.
Jonathan O’Connell is a Hartford Business Journal Staff Writer.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Monday, April 23, 2007
Retailers Take Aim At Protecting Firearms Sales
When New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg made a nationally televised gun control speech earlier this month, the responding press release came from Newtown, Conn.
That’s the home of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a lobbying group for the firearms industry.
Oddly enough though, the group’s in-state location doesn’t mean local firearms retailers have more than a shot in the dark at stopping an annual barrage of ideas for restricting guns.
Every year the Connecticut General Assembly’s Judiciary Committee passes new restrictions on the use or sale of guns. Tears flow freely in the meeting room, as family members of homicide victims recount tragic human losses and how lax restrictions led to them.
This year is no different. At the committee’s April 10 public hearing, Southington’s Laura Bachman recounted the execution-style murder of her brother, performed with illegally owned weapons.
“My brother was killed in part because it is too easy to get guns in Connecticut,” she said.
In all, about 20 people submitted testimony supporting three bills that would require better reporting of lost or stolen firearms.
And from the more than 100 Connecticut firearms dealers? Nothing. Not a word. And this in the state where Samuel Colt and Oliver Winchester made their names. One has to wonder if either would have been able to grow his business here today.
Lock ’N’ Load
With that in mind, the gun retailers have had enough. About six months ago, 20 of them had a meeting and decided to form the Connecticut Association of Firearms Retailers.
Guy Bignell, president and CEO of the Greenwich gun shop Griffin & Howe, is its first secretary. He said Connecticut residents don’t realize the effect firearms sales have on the state’s economy, and points to figures from a national lobbying group showing that state firearms sales account for more than $40 million in annual retail sales and thousands jobs.
“We need to protect the industry in terms of its contribution to the economy,” he said.
Although he sells mostly hunting rifles and shotguns, he said “the minute you mention the word ‘gun,’ people think of Glocks and machine guns.”
That’s not a good image to be toting around at the State Capitol.
So not surprisingly, the group’s first order of business was to hire a lobbyist. On the same day as the committee hearing, they signed a veteran: Gary Costa, a consultant to the National Rifle Association who has been lobbying East Coast states for years.
“They came together simply because they saw that a lot of these bills were directed right at them,” Costa said of the gun retailers.
He said there was little point in going before the judiciary committee, calling it “a ridiculous waste of time”.
“What they’re doing in Connecticut is an attempt to hamstring legal business. They’re trying to make doing business difficult for the firearms retailer,” he said.
The harder step for gun control advocates has been the Public Safety and Security Committee, which has traditionally been more cautious in regulating firearms.
And this time, instead of just hunters and sportsmen and someone from the NRA on the other side, there will be a local industry there, talking about jobs and the economy.
“I mean, this is the home of the firearms industry of America,” Bignell said.
“We’re just a little late to protect Winchester.”
Jonathan O’Connell is a Hartford Business Journal Staff Writer.
That’s the home of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a lobbying group for the firearms industry.
Oddly enough though, the group’s in-state location doesn’t mean local firearms retailers have more than a shot in the dark at stopping an annual barrage of ideas for restricting guns.
Every year the Connecticut General Assembly’s Judiciary Committee passes new restrictions on the use or sale of guns. Tears flow freely in the meeting room, as family members of homicide victims recount tragic human losses and how lax restrictions led to them.
This year is no different. At the committee’s April 10 public hearing, Southington’s Laura Bachman recounted the execution-style murder of her brother, performed with illegally owned weapons.
“My brother was killed in part because it is too easy to get guns in Connecticut,” she said.
In all, about 20 people submitted testimony supporting three bills that would require better reporting of lost or stolen firearms.
And from the more than 100 Connecticut firearms dealers? Nothing. Not a word. And this in the state where Samuel Colt and Oliver Winchester made their names. One has to wonder if either would have been able to grow his business here today.
Lock ’N’ Load
With that in mind, the gun retailers have had enough. About six months ago, 20 of them had a meeting and decided to form the Connecticut Association of Firearms Retailers.
Guy Bignell, president and CEO of the Greenwich gun shop Griffin & Howe, is its first secretary. He said Connecticut residents don’t realize the effect firearms sales have on the state’s economy, and points to figures from a national lobbying group showing that state firearms sales account for more than $40 million in annual retail sales and thousands jobs.
“We need to protect the industry in terms of its contribution to the economy,” he said.
Although he sells mostly hunting rifles and shotguns, he said “the minute you mention the word ‘gun,’ people think of Glocks and machine guns.”
That’s not a good image to be toting around at the State Capitol.
So not surprisingly, the group’s first order of business was to hire a lobbyist. On the same day as the committee hearing, they signed a veteran: Gary Costa, a consultant to the National Rifle Association who has been lobbying East Coast states for years.
“They came together simply because they saw that a lot of these bills were directed right at them,” Costa said of the gun retailers.
He said there was little point in going before the judiciary committee, calling it “a ridiculous waste of time”.
“What they’re doing in Connecticut is an attempt to hamstring legal business. They’re trying to make doing business difficult for the firearms retailer,” he said.
The harder step for gun control advocates has been the Public Safety and Security Committee, which has traditionally been more cautious in regulating firearms.
And this time, instead of just hunters and sportsmen and someone from the NRA on the other side, there will be a local industry there, talking about jobs and the economy.
“I mean, this is the home of the firearms industry of America,” Bignell said.
“We’re just a little late to protect Winchester.”
Jonathan O’Connell is a Hartford Business Journal Staff Writer.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Ethics Audit Gives Glimpse Inside Top Lobbyist
Rarely does one get to peek into the books of the largest, most lucrative lobbying firm in the state.
It is the uncommon chance to learn about a $10,000 American Express bill, an $8,000 retirement party, and dinners on the town with legislators, which neither lobbyists nor politicians usually like to discuss.
But the Office of State Ethics can audit up to 20 registered lobbying clients per year, choosing the unfortunate victims by lottery.
In October, it plucked a client of Gaffney, Bennett & Assoc. of New Britain, in all likelihood the biggest moneymaker in the state. (We can’t be sure because the ethics office has been unable to provide compensation numbers since 2004, when Gaffney Bennett brought in $3.8 million in total compensation.)
But the 13-page audit shows how very serious the OSE is about audits.
Combing through a three-year period from Oct. 1, 2003 to the same time in 2006, it found 17 transgressions of state rules made by the firm. That may sound like a lot, but there is nothing more sinister than handing in paperwork late or divvying up a dinner bill wrong, and the office plans to take no action.
So there are no scandals in the Gaffney Bennett audit, but it offers an excellent opportunity to see the changing place of entertainment, parties and dinners in the firm’s business atop the government relations market.
A Good Time
The audit makes clear that Gaffney Bennett has not been shy about entertaining, even if legislators and state employees pay their own way to avoid having to report gifts.
Witness the December 2003 retirement party for J. Brian Gaffney, a founder of the firm and former chairman of George H.W. Bush’s Connecticut campaigns for president. Held at the Shuttle Meadow Country Club, in Berlin, the event cost $8,075.88 for 142 people.
On the same day as his party (paid for by check), the firm paid off Gaffney’s $10,136.37 American Express bill.
Another party came after the Republican National Convention, in the summer of 2004, when the firm paid nearly $6,000 to host an “after-hours party” at a bar in New York City with a live band, sponsored along with ING and Northeast Utilities.
Dinners and lunches of $50 to $60 per person were commonplace. Gaffney took Patrick Downes, a deputy at the Department of Public Works at the time, and another guest to a $152 lunch on an island in Florida. Lisa M. Fecke, still lobbying for the firm, took Rep. Michael Caron (R-Killingly) and two other guests to Trumbull Kitchen for $155.
From a business perspective, is there any doubt that all the spending on food and drinks paid off?
Gaffney Bennett’s lobbying unit has been at the top of the heap since 1991, when its four lobbyists displaced Sullivan & LeShane as the state’s top moneymaker. Jay F. Malcynsky, managing partner of the firm, estimates that it has grown revenue 5-15 percent annually every year since its inception. It now has eight lobbyists, who handle business for at least 72 registered clients, and probably more that the state has yet to post.
The Last Sip
But the view that political lobbying is about throwing parties and taking people out to dinner couldn’t be more erroneous, particularly under the new rules, according to Malcynsky.
“The perception that this is an entertainment-based business couldn’t be more off the mark. I can’t remember the last time I had dinner with a legislator,” he said. He pointed out that there were no state officials at events like Gaffney’s retirement party, just clients, colleagues and friends.
This is particularly true under the new campaign finance rules, not because the rules forbid the entertaining, but the paperwork needed to be in compliance has made some activities too much of a hassle.
The audit offers such an example from a 2005 appropriations committee party to which Gaffney Bennett gave $100. For years, lobbying firms have helped pay for legislative committees to hold “JF” parties, to celebrate having met the deadline for acting on most of their bills, by joint favorable report. Routine stuff: I help buy food for your party, you listen to me when I need to talk to you.
But the new rules require documentation of the per-person cost of the party, to ensure the money wasn’t actually a gift to a legislator or staffer.
That requires finding a guest list, determining each attendee’s position with the state (if any) and figuring out whether the firm’s donation amounted to more than $10 in spending per official.
Talk about a pain in the backside. So Gaffney Bennett has decided to stop contributing to JF parties altogether. That was music to the ear of Andy Sauer, executive director of Connecticut Common Cause, a good government group. “It shows a change of culture,” Sauer said.
Same thing with taking legislators out to dinner, Malcynsky said.
“Typically we don’t do that with legislators. I don’t think anybody does much of that any more,” he said.
He added that this isn’t the first time the firm has had to react to changing state ethics rules; constantly responding to them has become part of the business.
“It’s something that you have to place close attention to.”
Jonathan O'Connell is a staff writer for the Hartford Business Journal.
It is the uncommon chance to learn about a $10,000 American Express bill, an $8,000 retirement party, and dinners on the town with legislators, which neither lobbyists nor politicians usually like to discuss.
But the Office of State Ethics can audit up to 20 registered lobbying clients per year, choosing the unfortunate victims by lottery.
In October, it plucked a client of Gaffney, Bennett & Assoc. of New Britain, in all likelihood the biggest moneymaker in the state. (We can’t be sure because the ethics office has been unable to provide compensation numbers since 2004, when Gaffney Bennett brought in $3.8 million in total compensation.)
But the 13-page audit shows how very serious the OSE is about audits.
Combing through a three-year period from Oct. 1, 2003 to the same time in 2006, it found 17 transgressions of state rules made by the firm. That may sound like a lot, but there is nothing more sinister than handing in paperwork late or divvying up a dinner bill wrong, and the office plans to take no action.
So there are no scandals in the Gaffney Bennett audit, but it offers an excellent opportunity to see the changing place of entertainment, parties and dinners in the firm’s business atop the government relations market.
A Good Time
The audit makes clear that Gaffney Bennett has not been shy about entertaining, even if legislators and state employees pay their own way to avoid having to report gifts.
Witness the December 2003 retirement party for J. Brian Gaffney, a founder of the firm and former chairman of George H.W. Bush’s Connecticut campaigns for president. Held at the Shuttle Meadow Country Club, in Berlin, the event cost $8,075.88 for 142 people.
On the same day as his party (paid for by check), the firm paid off Gaffney’s $10,136.37 American Express bill.
Another party came after the Republican National Convention, in the summer of 2004, when the firm paid nearly $6,000 to host an “after-hours party” at a bar in New York City with a live band, sponsored along with ING and Northeast Utilities.
Dinners and lunches of $50 to $60 per person were commonplace. Gaffney took Patrick Downes, a deputy at the Department of Public Works at the time, and another guest to a $152 lunch on an island in Florida. Lisa M. Fecke, still lobbying for the firm, took Rep. Michael Caron (R-Killingly) and two other guests to Trumbull Kitchen for $155.
From a business perspective, is there any doubt that all the spending on food and drinks paid off?
Gaffney Bennett’s lobbying unit has been at the top of the heap since 1991, when its four lobbyists displaced Sullivan & LeShane as the state’s top moneymaker. Jay F. Malcynsky, managing partner of the firm, estimates that it has grown revenue 5-15 percent annually every year since its inception. It now has eight lobbyists, who handle business for at least 72 registered clients, and probably more that the state has yet to post.
The Last Sip
But the view that political lobbying is about throwing parties and taking people out to dinner couldn’t be more erroneous, particularly under the new rules, according to Malcynsky.
“The perception that this is an entertainment-based business couldn’t be more off the mark. I can’t remember the last time I had dinner with a legislator,” he said. He pointed out that there were no state officials at events like Gaffney’s retirement party, just clients, colleagues and friends.
This is particularly true under the new campaign finance rules, not because the rules forbid the entertaining, but the paperwork needed to be in compliance has made some activities too much of a hassle.
The audit offers such an example from a 2005 appropriations committee party to which Gaffney Bennett gave $100. For years, lobbying firms have helped pay for legislative committees to hold “JF” parties, to celebrate having met the deadline for acting on most of their bills, by joint favorable report. Routine stuff: I help buy food for your party, you listen to me when I need to talk to you.
But the new rules require documentation of the per-person cost of the party, to ensure the money wasn’t actually a gift to a legislator or staffer.
That requires finding a guest list, determining each attendee’s position with the state (if any) and figuring out whether the firm’s donation amounted to more than $10 in spending per official.
Talk about a pain in the backside. So Gaffney Bennett has decided to stop contributing to JF parties altogether. That was music to the ear of Andy Sauer, executive director of Connecticut Common Cause, a good government group. “It shows a change of culture,” Sauer said.
Same thing with taking legislators out to dinner, Malcynsky said.
“Typically we don’t do that with legislators. I don’t think anybody does much of that any more,” he said.
He added that this isn’t the first time the firm has had to react to changing state ethics rules; constantly responding to them has become part of the business.
“It’s something that you have to place close attention to.”
Jonathan O'Connell is a staff writer for the Hartford Business Journal.
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