No. 23: Capitol Weekly’s Top 100

23. Aaron Read

Aaron Read has been lobbying in Sacramento since Ronald Reagan’s first term as governor. Aaron Read and Associates is at or near the top of anybody’s list of California’s blue-chip lobbyists. The firm has more than four-dozen clients, including PG&E, AT&T, Dun & Bradstreet, California Hospital Association, California Grocers Association, etc., etc. The firm does more than lobby: It has a public affairs company called Marketplace Communications, and occasionally publishes a magazine called California Conversations, which is also the name of their series of video profiles of CA politics bigwigs like Willie Brown. But his firm presents us with a problem, and always has: Who do you put on this list? Is it Aaron, because he’s the main guy? Is it the firm’s lobbyists, who do much of the heavy hitting? If we put Terry McHale, Steve Baker, Randy Perry, Jennifer Tannehill and Pat Moran on the list, along with Aaron, we’d eat up 7 percent of our space. Should we rotate through the names each year? This same issue arises with other firms, too, so we need to figure this out.

Updated Aug. 29, 2017