Special interests spent nearly $530 million on lobbying firms this cycle

Special interests paid contract lobbying firms more $93.4 million to lobby state government in the sixth quarter of the 2025-26 cycle, the most spent in a single quarter since Capitol Weekly started analyzing lobbying firm reports at the beginning of the last cycle.

As Capitol Weekly always notes in quarterly lobbying reports, that number doesn’t include all of the money spent on lobbying from April through June of this year, as lobbying firm disclosure reports don’t include wages and expenses for in-house lobbyists.

The $93.4 million represents a 12% increase from the amount spent from January through March. Special interests spent $83.5 million on lobbying firms during the fifth quarter of the quarter.

For the current cycle, “lobbyist employers” as the California Secretary of State calls special interests, have spent nearly $529.3 million, according to disclosures analyzed at the end of July and beginning of August.

(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 to avoid miscounts we try at every turn to catch mis-formatted data. Scraping numbers from Cal-Access, however, can be an imperfect process and mis-formatted data isn’t always 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.”

Quarterly receipts
The top-earning firm for the second quarter of 2026 was Jared Ficker, Cassie Gilson, Jason Kinney, Dustin Moore and Kevin Schmidt’s Axiom Advisors, which reported receiving more than $4 million in receipts. That’s the most one firm has reported earning in a single quarter since Capitol Weekly started tracking lobbying firms receipts at the beginning of 2023.

Coming in second was John Latimer’s Capitol Advocacy, which reported receiving more than $3.2 million. This was Capitol Advocacy’s fifth straight quarter earning more than $3 million.

In all of the 2023-24 cycle, only two lobbying firms, Capitol Advocacy and Bob White’s California Strategies, earned $3 million in a quarter, and that was only once each, both in the seventh quarter of that cycle.

This cycle, the $3 million mark has been cracked eight times, with the three other times by none other than Axiom, which also hit milestone in the second and third quarters of 2025.

Six other firms topped $2 million during the quarter:

• KP Public Affairs (more than $2.5 million);
• Townsend Public Affairs (nearly $2.4 million);
• CalStrat (more than $2.375 million);
• Shaw Yoder Antwih Schmelzer & Lange (nearly $2.3 million);
• Platinum Advisors(more than $2.2 million); and
• Actum (more than $2.1 million).

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

• Weideman Group(more than $1.9 million);
• Political Solutions(nearly $1.8 million);
• Nielsen Merksamer Parrinello Gross & Leoni (nearly $1.6 million);
• Niemela, Pappas and Associates(more than $1.5 million);
• Fernandez Jensen Kimmelshue Government Affairs (more than $1.4 million);
• Deveau Burr Group (nearly $1.4 million);
• Lang Hansen Giroux & Kidane(more than $1.32 million);
• Sloat Higgins Jensen and Associates (more than $1.3 million);
• Public Policy Advocates ($1.2 million, after never before cracking $800,000 in the time Capitol Weekly has monitored lobbying firm receipts);
• Carpenter Garcia Sievers (more than $1.03 million);
• California Advocates (more than $1.02 million); and
• Lighthouse Public Affairs (nearly $1.02 million).

Four more firms topped $900,000 (Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck; Joe A. Gonsalves & Son; Caliber Strategies; and Aaron Read & Associates) and six exceeded $800;000 (Arc Strategies; McHugh Koepke Padron Government Relations; Capitol Advisors Group; Samson Advisors; Edelstein, Gilbert, Robson & Smith; and Governmental Advocates)

One hundred and seventy-three reported receiving six figures or more in payments in Q6. Another 142 firms reported receiving five figures in payments.

Cycle totals, thus far
Through the first 18 months of the cycle, only one firm reported receiving receipts of more than $19 million: Axiom.

Capitol Advocacy is in second place with $18.9 million. CalStrat is third, with nearly $15.9 million. Platinum Advisors fourth, with nearly $14.4 million.

Three firms have topped $13 million: Townsend (more than $13.8 million), KP (nearly $13.7 million) and Shaw Yoder (more than $13 million).

Actum reported receipts ore more than 12 million, Weideman more than $11.5 million.

Three firms topped $8 million: Political Solutions ($8.9 million), Sloat Higgins ($8.4 million) and Nielsen Merksamer (more than $8 million).

Four topped $7 million: Niemela, Pappas ($7.9 million), Deveau Burr ($7.6 million), Lang Hansen ($7.4 million), and Fernandez Jensen (nearly $7.3 million).

Nine firms collected more than $5 million, 10 more firms collected more than $4 million.

Fourteen more firms collected more than $3 million, 18 more received more than $2 million and an additional 54 had more than $1 million.

The 122 firms that received more than $1 million over the cycle accounted for 85% of the money spent on lobbying firms. The next 181 firms that collected six figures over cycle thus far accounted for just 14% of the total spent on lobbying firms.