Cap-to-Cap Lobbying Trip – When Principles Collide with Practicality

Next week the annual Sacramento Metro Chamber of Commerce’s Cap-to-Cap lobbying trip will leave Sacramento and descend on Washington D.C.

Among the nearly three 300 private and public sector people embarking on the trip is the entire Elk Grove City Council, Elk Grove City Manager Laura Gill and former Elk Grove Planning Commissioner Tim Murphy. As co-chair of the trip, Murphy recently said one of the emphasis’ of the trip will be to lobby for regulatory relief.

“It is incumbent on the federal government to jump start the innovation economy by providing real regulatory relief and implementing real federal government reforms.” Murphy said.

While Murphy emphasizes regulatory relief as the key to economic revival for the Sacramento region, the chamber also released a laundry list of projects costing $211.3 million that the delegation hopes to secure funding for. Along with that, it includes several other wish-list items, with no specified funding request attacked, that includes everything from “federal help to for fixing Natomas levees” to “funding for Los Rios Colleges to train an additional 75 individuals to be certified home energy auditors.”

While the securing of federal funds by the delegation would undoubtedly help the region climb out of the hole created by the Great Recession, it will be interesting to see if two members of the Elk Grove Delegation, council member Sophia Scherman and her political protégé, Patrick Hume, will adhere to their well-known conservative principles.

Many Elk Grove City Council watchers will recall Scherman was taken to HYPERLINK "http://www.elkgrovenews.net/2010/03/davis-to-mayor-scherman-dont-let.html" task [1] by fellow council members Jim Cooper and Gary Davis last year prior to a city lobbying trip to Washington D.C. for not holding Republican Congress Member Dan Lungren’s feet to the fire to secure local funding.

At the time, Scherman, a longtime Lungren supporter and fellow Republican, implied that the Elk Grove delegation be scaled back at Lungren’s request. Davis and Cooper both rejected the idea that Lungren be “let of the hook,” as Davis put it. Now in the majority party, Lungren has repeatedly endorsed the draconian budget cuts proposed by Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan.

So as Scherman and her fellow Republican council member Hume go to Washington D.C. next week, it would be interesting to find out if they adhere to the principles espoused by Ryan, Lungren and other members of the Republican Party or be practical and use their relationship with Lungren to secure funding for their constituents in Elk Grove.

Who will win in this collision – the principles of the national Republican Party or the practical needs of the people of Elk Grove?

We will see.