Second quarter spending on lobbying firms tops $89 million

Special interests paid lobbying firms more than $89 million to lobby state government in the second quarter of 2025, according to a Capitol Weekly analysis of lobbying firm reports.

As we always note in these quarterly stories, that number doesn’t include all of the money spent on lobbying during the second quarter of the 2025-26 legislative cycle, as lobbying firm disclosure reports don’t include wages and expenses for in-house lobbyists.

The $89 million represents a 16 percent increase from the amount spent in the first quarter, after accounting for disclosure amendments. According to updated figures, special interests spent more than $76 million on lobbying firms during the first three months of 2025.

For the first half of the year, special interests, or “lobbyist employers” as the California Secretary of State calls them, spent more than $165 million on lobbying firms, according to SoS disclosures analyzed on August 6.

(Capitol Weekly notes in these quarterly lobbying spending stories when we gathered our data because the filing of subsequent amendments can change totals. We also note that we try at every turn to catch any mis-formatted data, to avoid any miscounts. Scraping numbers from Cal-Access, however, can be an imperfect process and mis-formatted data isn’t always properly flagged in spreadsheet calculations. Please contact us if you see any incorrect totals.)

Capitol Weekly’s analysis aggregates the total dollar value of all lobbying payments received by lobbying firms that are registered with the state, as disclosed on Form 625, which is filed quarterly with the SoS.

The Form 625 is only for lobbying firms, which are defined as businesses “compensated to communicate directly with any state, legislative or agency official to influence legislative or administrative action on behalf of a client.”

The top grossing firm for the quarter was John Latimer’s Capitol Advocacy, which reported receiving more than $3.2 million. Capitol Advocacy’s first quarter disclosures were not posted online when we published our last quarterly story in early May.

Those records, available now, show Latimer’s firm earned more than $2.7 million during the first three months of the year, good for the second most among lobbying firms, behind only Bob White’s California Strategies, which also didn’t have its disclosures posted in time for our first story. CalStrat reported receiving nearly $2.8 million in the first quarter and more than $2.5 million in the second quarter, the latter of which was good four path over the past three months.

Coming in second and third for April through June was Axiom Advisors, which reported receiving more than $2.9 million, and KP Public Affairs, which said it received more than $2.6 million.

Three other firms reported receipts of more than $2 million in the second quarter:

• Platinum Advisors(more than $2.4 million),
• Townsend Public Affairs (nearly $2.3 million) and
• Shaw Yoder Antwih Schmelzer & Lange (more than $2.1 million).

The firms reporting receipts of more than $1 million were:

• Weideman Group(more than $1.9 million);
• Actum(more than $1.7 million);
• Guggenheim Securities ($1.56 million), the investment banking arm of the global investment firm Guggenheim Partners;
• Niemela, Pappas and Associates(nearly $1.4 million);
• Nielsen Merksamer Parrinello Gross & Leoni (more than $1.346 million);
• Political Solutions(more than $1.343 million);
• Fernandez Jensen Kimmelshue Government Affairs (more than $1.3 million);
• Sloat Higgins Jensen and Associates (more than $1.26 million);
• Deveau Burr Group (nearly $1.25 million);
• Lang Hansen Giroux & Kidane(more than $1.2 million);
• Campbell Strategy & Advocacy (nearly $1.2 million);
• Sacramento Advocates (more than $1.115 million);
• Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck (more than $1.09 million); and
• California Advocates (more than 1.018 million).

Four firms topped $900,000 (Aaron Read & Associates, Resolute, Edelstein, Gilbert, Robson & Smith and Lighthouse Public Affairs) and seven topped $800,000 (Capitol Advisors Group, Samson Advisors, Caliber Strategies, Joe A. Gonsalves & Son, Arc Strategies, Cruz Strategies and McHugh Koepke Padron Government Relations).

One hundred and sixty firms reported receiving six figures or more in payments in Q2. Another 143 firms reported receiving five figures in payments.

For the first six months of 2025, three firms reported receiving more than $5 million: Capitol Advocacy (more than $5.9 million), CalStrat (more than $5.3 million) and Axiom (mor than 5.2 million).

Four other firms reported total receipts of more than $4 million:

• Platinum (nearly $.67 million),
• KP (nearly $.62 million),
• Townsend (nearly $4.5 million) and
• Shaw Yoder (more than $4.2 million).

Two more firms reported receiving more than $3 million: Weideman (more than $3.8 million) and Actum (more than $3.444 million).

Forty-four firms reported making more than $1 million during the first two quarters of the 2025-26 legislative session. Those 44 firms received more than 60 percent of all of the money paid to lobbying firms so far this cycle.

An additional 163 firms reported making six figures during the six-month period. Those 100+ firms received only 35 percent of all of the money paid to lobbying thus far.