During a legislative session in Nevada, one group outnumbers all others. With more than 1,000 registered paid and unpaid lobbyists arriving at some time or another for the 2019 session, Carson City finds itself again with a lobbyist-to-legislator ratio of more than 16 to 1.

And while the vast majority of lobbyists did not contribute to legislative coffers, the 10 percent who did formed the 10th-largest donor group in the state by total donations. Through the 2018 election cycle, nearly 100 lobbying firms or individual lobbyists gave legislators more than $488,000, or roughly 4.5 percent of the $11.7 million contributed to lawmakers in total.

Though no lobbying firm or individual lobbyist spent more than five-figures, much of the money spent was concentrated among the top four donors: Marketing firm R&R Partners ($121,500), law firm Lewis Roca Rothgerber Christie ($80,500), law firm Kaempfer & Crowell ($73,250) and the public relations/government affairs firm The Ferraro Group ($38,000).

Together, these four firms spent nearly two-thirds of all the money contributed by lobbyists, all representing dozens of corporate clients with varied interests in the state. Those clients include large companies such as AT&T, NV Energy or health insurer Anthem, in addition to government agencies or private interest groups such as the Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District and the Nevada Mining Association.

Contributions largely flowed to legislative Democrats, who received $349,000 to the Republicans’ $139,000. However, average contributions were nearly identical across the two parties, with the GOP receiving $828 per average donation to the Democrats’ $804, a difference of a little less than 3 percent.

Only three legislators of the 63 received no contributions from lobbyists before a freeze on campaign contributions for the legislative session took effect in January. That group includes appointed Assembly members Rochelle Nguyen and Bea Duran, both Democrats, and Republican Gregory Hafen.

Among the remaining 60 lawmakers, Democratic Assembly Speaker Jason Frierson received the most with $37,298, while former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Kelvin Atkinson ($28,342), Republican Sen. Ben Kieckhefer ($24,400), Democratic Sen. Mo Denis ($20,475) and Republican Sen. Joe Hardy ($18,500) round out the top five.

Comparing total contributions to each legislative chamber, members of the 42-person Assembly received slightly more ($250,783) than members of the Senate ($237,417). Though senators still received much more on average ($945) than their lower-chamber counterparts ($714).

As always, we’ve triple-checked the math. But if anything seems off, feel free to contact us at [email protected].