Six California lawmakers took trip to Cuba with Capitol lobbyist

Six California lawmakers took trip to Cuba with Capitol lobbyist
By Patrick McGreevy
August 2, 2013, 7:25 a.m.

Six California lawmakers used political funds to take part in a March
trip to Cuba with a top Capitol lobbyist, raising eyebrows among state
government watchers.

The legislators disclosed the "cultural exchange" trip in campaign
finance reports filed this week, visiting the communist country with
lobbyist Darius Anderson, who heads a nonprofit group called
Californians Building Bridges.

Anderson's lobbying firm, Platinum Advisors, represents clients
including AT&T, Anthem Blue Cross, DirecTV Group and Pfizer, some of
which have also made political contributions to the lawmakers on the trip.

Those who dipped into campaign funds to pay for their trip included
Sens. Ron Calderon (D-Montebello) and Cathleen Galgiani (D-Stockton) and
Assembly members Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), Katcho Achadjian (R-San
Luis Obispo), Holly Mitchell (D-Los Angeles) and Assembly Majority
Leader Toni Atkins (D-San Diego). Calderon has been in the news because
his Capitol office was raided by the FBI in June as part of a corruption
probe. Calderon declined to comment.

Achadjian said there was nothing improper about traveling with a
lobbyist, especially because the legislators paid their own way with
campaign funds. "If a lobbyist pays for it there is an ethical issue,"
he said. Otherwise, "the conversation on the trip was about the culture.
I don't see that as a problem."
Loyola Law School Professor Jessica Levinson, who studies government
ethics, said it is a concern when lawmakers "spend a lot of time with a
certain lobbyist. It means they may be more educated and attentive to
the concerns of the lobbyist."

Touring Cuba with a lobbyist is different from meeting one between
appointments at the Capitol, she said "because there is a concentration
of time together."

Jason Kinney, a spokesman for the nonprofit, said the trips are open to
the public. "These are nongovernmental educational exchanges with the
people of Cuba -- which means that no policy issues are discussed and
certainly none relating to anything going on in Sacramento," Kinney said.

The March trip was first reported by the website CalWatchdog.com.
Anderson has been going to Cuba for years and has established ties with
artists, musicians and business people there, the assemblyman said. "He
wanted to share his experience with many other Americans and friends,"
Achadjian said..

He said he learned a lot on the trip, which included visiting an
orphanage, a tobacco farm, a rum museum and several art shows and
musical concerts. He came away from the trip believing that the U.S.
sanctions against Cuba should be lifted. "It's time has come and gone,"
he said.

A copy of the itinerary for the trip showed lawmakers spent much of the
time in Havana, attending a rumba dance, taking salsa lessons and
meeting with a master cigar blender and experts including Carlos
Alzugaray Treto, professor at the Center for Hemispheric and U.S.A.
Studies at the University of Havana.

Source: "Six California lawmakers took trip to Cuba with Capitol
lobbyist - latimes.com" -
http://www.latimes.com/local/political/la-me-pc-six-lawmakers-took-trip-to-cuba-with-capitol-lobbyist-20130801,0,3829914.story