Baseball, free food, and lobbying

Baseball stadiums were the venue of choice for San Diego-based Sempra Energy to use for its pitches to California legislators during the third quarter of this year. In addition to a free meal and a ticket to a July 30 Dodgers game in Los Angeles worth $178 for Frine Medrano, field deputy for Democratic state senator Kevin de León, the utility giant picked up meals and an August 20 Padres game at Petco Park for Marie Joyce and Donna Cleary, staffers to GOP Sen. Mark Wyland. The tab for each was valued at $95.37.

Also adding to the utility’s lobbying overhead were freebie meals worth $73.30 each on July 2 for Republican Sen. Anthony Cannella of Ceres and his staffer Dillon Gibbons at Sacramento’s upscale Moxie Restaurant. “Located in a very secluded neighborhood,” says the eatery’s website, “Moxie provides the feel of a casual yet classically elegant environment where the food is as enticing to the palate as it is to the eyes.”

Sempra lobbyists were perhaps happy to learn from the site that, “At Moxie you get what you want.”