Lobbyist fined $2,000 for illegal bonus

State Bar lobbyist Mel Assagai, whose $900,000 contract set off a storm of protest which ultimately contributed to the governor’s veto of the bar’s fee bill, has been fined $2,000 for an illegal bonus originally included in the contract with the bar.

In a stipulated agreement with the Fair Political Practices Commission, Assagai acknowledged that the $75,000 incentive clause — a bonus to be paid if the legislature approved a multi-year fee bill — violated the Political Reform Act.

The agreement documents that Assagai originally had asked for $500,000 annually for two years, but that then State Bar president Thomas Stolpman countered with the offer of $450,000 annually for two years with the $75,000 incentive. When the illegal clause was brought to light, the bar removed it from the contract.

Stolpman said he was not familiar with the “vagaries of political reform things.” The FPPC, which initiated the action against Assagai on its own, indicated that a lobbyist should have known the bonus clause was illegal.

Sources told the Bar Journal that a similar contract was rejected out of hand a year earlier by then State Bar president Jim Towery and vice president John McGuckin, who served as chair of the bar’s finance committee. McGuckin lost the presidency to Stolpman that year on a fifth ballot.

In addition to Stolpman, Assagai’s contract was negotiated by the recently departed executive director, Herbert Rosenthal, former general counsel Diane Yu, and former board vice president Joseph Bell, who chaired the legislation committee.