Capitol Weekly’s Top 100: Soyla Fernandez

66. Soyla Fernandez

Soyla Fernandez, a principal at Fernández Government Affairs was first on the list a decade ago, and maybe we should have had her here more often since. She has a very broad complement of heavyweight clients, including SoCal Edison, Anheuser Busch, Coca Cola, Accenture, 21st Century Alliance, the California Chamber of Commerce, Verizon, Sysco, the casino giant Graton and the Los Angeles County Transportation Authority to name just a few. Which explains how her firm is in the Top 20 of lobbyist billings again this year through the first quarter. But her reach goes well beyond that. Prior to hanging out her own shingle, she was an associate at Manning, where she represented clients in the areas of brownfields liability reform, water supply legislation, Proposition 50 funding, Cigarette Tax Stamp Funding and Procurement, tribal compacts, energy, and various issues relating to land use and development. She has also previously received gubernatorial appointments to the Business, Transportation, and Housing Agency and the Technology, Trade and Commerce Agency, and was a senior consultant to the Assembly Budget Committee and former Assembly Speaker and LA mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.