In the dog-eat-dog world of Sacramento politics, no one is off limits. Not even man’s best friend.

Last Friday, the San Francisco Chronicle featured a front-page story by newshound Carla Marinucci about an arrangement between the governor and an influential lobbyist. Jennifer Fearing, the Humane Society’s top dog in Sacramento, regularly walks Sutter, a loveable corgi with a massive Twitter following under the care of Gov. Jerry Brown.

This is hardly a “man bites dog” story.

Two weeks ago, CalWatchdog.com’s Katy Grimes, who is like a dog with a bone when it comes to rooting out the Capitol’s nefarious activities, first reported on the arrangement. Critics are barking that, because Fearing is a lobbyist, her volunteer dog-walking should be classified as a gift that is subject to the state’s gift limits.

“Is there a conflict of interest with such a close relationship between a lobbyist and a governor?” asked Jennifer Kerns, the publicity hound for Free California, a gun-rights group that routinely gets into a dogfight with the Humane Society. “There are services being provided, and those services have monetary value.”

The San Francisco Chronicle story unleashed thousands of comments from online attack dogs. This morning, the dog and pony show continued with another biting piece from the Washington Times, which reported that a formal ethics complaint could be in the works.

“Gun-rights and hunting groups are considering filing a complaint over the pro bono dog exercising with the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission,” the Times noted.

Exempt as “Act of Neighborliness”

Fearing’s ankle-biters will likely prove to be the barking dog that never bites. That’s because the Fair Political Practices Commission, which is responsible for bringing lobbyists to heel, has exempted “acts of neighborliness” from the state’s gift limits. Regulation§ 18942, which identifies exceptions to the gift limits, includes:

Acts of Neighborliness. A service performed, such as a loan of an item, an occasional needed ride, personal assistance in making a repair, bringing in the mail or feeding the cat while the official is away, and other similar acts of ordinary assistance consistent with polite behavior in a civilized society that would not normally be part of an economic transaction between like participants under similar circumstances.

Maybe the dog ate their regulatory homework.

Campaign watchdogs say that critics haven’t a dog’s chance of proving that the arrangement violates this “act of neighborliness” exemption.

“This activity would fall under the FPPC’s new ‘act of neighborliness’ exemption, so there doesn’t appear to be any violation of ethics,” said Phillip Ung, a policy advocate for California Common Cause. “I doubt they will lay down the hammer on dog walkers.”

There’s also the fact that the dog isn’t even the governor’s.

Sutter was left in the governor’s care when Kathleen Brown, the governor’s sister, moved to Chicago in 2010. “The dog is happily situated,” the former state treasurer told the Sacramento Bee, “and I wouldn’t presume to disintermediate his celebrity status and special relationship with the first lady and the governor.”

If anything, Fearing’s dog-walking constitutes a gift to Kathleen, who is no longer a public official.

Fearing: An animal’s best friend

Fearing, who has always been open about her gubernatorial dog-walking, says that she’s a friend to all animals.

“I do occasionally watch Sutter — a neighborly activity that I enjoy,” Fearing told CalWatchdog.com. “Ask any dog, I’m pretty fun. And yes, he sleeps on the bed.”

Never one to let sleeping dogs lie, CalWatchdog.com hounded one of Fearing’s friends to confirm that she, in fact, helps other less-politically connected animals.

“Whenever I need a hand with dog walking, feeding when I can’t make it home on time, or even hen bathing — I kid you not, it has happened!– Jennifer has always volunteered to help out if she’s available,” Kayte Fisher, one of Fearing’s animal-loving friends, told CalWatchdog.com. “I have only ever repaid her with soup delivery when she’s sick or invitations for dinner at my house.”

If her critics in the political opposition hadn’t been as lazy as a dog, they’d know that Fearing’s neighborliness extends to everyone.

So what’s the real motivation behind this Brown Dog Affair?

“Fearing scored a perfect 6-for-6 record this legislative season in getting bills signed by Brown, placing her in the ranks of Sacramento’s most effective lobbyists,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported.  “Among the coups for the Humane Society was legislation banning lead ammunition that Fearing said endangered as many as 130 species in California.”

This session, Fearing and hunting groups fought like cats and dogs over a bill to ban lead ammunition. AB711 was opposed by, among others, the Sacramento sheriff, game wardens and hunters. Opponents contended that the lead ban wouldn’t help endangered species, but would kill thousands of jobs associated with the hunting profession.

Even if you don’t have a dog in this fight, there are plenty of reasons to object to putting Fearing in the doghouse. While reporters are busy barking up the wrong tree, they’re not sniffing out genuine conflicts of interest in Sacramento.

“State politics is a billion dollar business with millions more spent at the local level,” said Ung, whose organization tracks special interest spending in Sacramento. “I think voters would want us to focus on those who plot in the shadows not dog walkers in Capitol Park.”

Time to call off the dogs.

The list is considered the barometer of Capitol power, and as such, it’s become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Those named to the list are more likely to have their calls answered and see an uptick in business just by virtue of being included.

But this year’s most vocal critic wasn’t concerned about her own perceived influence. She was frustrated by the lack of women overall. Just 29 women were named to the 2013 list of Sacramento’s 100 most powerful.

The #Unlisted Women

So, in an insomnia-inspired Twitter tirade, lobbyist Jennifer Fearing assembled a rival tally of the #unlisted.

“Chief to @KamalaHarris, top aide to @Schwarzenegger & @JerryBrownGov: @eashford is #unlisted,” Fearing tweeted at 1:25 a.m., the morning after the Capitol Weekly Top 100 Party. “Widely considered the hardest working person at Mercury Public Affairs: Becky Warren is #unlisted.”

In addition to Elizabeth Ashford and Becky Warren, Fearing’s counter-list included a few of Capitol Weekly’s most glaring omissions: Dana Williamson, the governor’s cabinet secretary; Ana Matosantos, the state’s finance director; and Anne Ravel, the state’s elections ethics watchdog who was recently promoted to the Federal Elections Commission.

“The Capitol Weekly Top 100 list has chronically underrepresented the contributions of women in Sacramento,” Fearing explained. “But this year’s omission of several key female political and policy leaders struck me as a ‘doubling down’ by the list makers on what is a challenging environment in Sacramento with regard to gender equity.”

Capitol Weekly Top 100 List: 5 Years of Mostly Men

It’s a frequent complaint. Following the inaugural list released in 2009, Sacramento political consultant Robin Swanson chided the newspaper for including just 14 women.

“This list was so disturbingly off-kilter, it gave me a ‘Back to the Future’ vibe that had me looking around the coffee-shop envisioning the women in poodle-skirts rather than pant-suits, waiting for Biff to bust through the door at any moment and take his ‘girl’ to the dance,” Swanson, who recently stepped down as the chief spokeswoman to the Speaker of the Assembly John Perez, wrote in a 2009 opinion piece published at Capitol Weekly.

The opinion piece was titled, “I thought ‘we’d come a long way baby,’ until I read CW’s Top 100 list.” The following year, the insider publication more than doubled the number of women on the list, from 14 to 31.

In the list’s five year history, men have been added at a more than 2 to 1 rate, with 355 of the 500 slots claimed by men, according to a CalWatchdog.com review of the five Capitol Weekly Top 100 lists. Last year, the list featured 67 men and 33 women, down from an all-time high of 38 women in 2011.

Capitol Weekly, however, doesn’t consider its 71 percent male to 29 percent female overall average as a “perennial lack of women.”

“’Perennial lack of women’ is not a particularly accurate way to characterize the list,” said Capitol Weekly’s Tim Foster. “Nearly a third of the Top 100 list are women. To put that in context, the top 100 list has about 5% higher percentage of women than serve in the CA legislature.”

Foster added that “half of our top 10 are women.”

List reflects lack of women in the profession

Others say that the list’s biases demonstrate the problems facing women writ large in Sacramento.

“The lack of women is a problem in the profession, not of the list,” Scott Lay, the influential publisher of AroundtheCapitol.com and #82 on the Capitol Weekly Top 100 list. “Were people left off, including people that I would rank higher than myself if I was doing the list? Sure. I don’t even know some of the people on the list. However, I doubt anyone could do a better job than the editorial team at Capitol Weekly.”

Fearing believes that Capitol Weekly’s omissions, along with the lack of women on political conference panels, undermines women’s professional opportunities in politics. “These omissions affect perception, and ultimately, women’s opportunities,” she said.

Women political professionals face a host of obstacles to career advancement. A recent CalWatchdog.com analysis of legislative payroll data found that female employees are paid less than their male counterparts, are less likely to serve in leadership roles and remain stuck in secretarial positions. The 10 highest-paid employees of the state Assembly are all men, while women fill only a third of chief of staff positions.

By Katy Grimes

A wealthy Sacramento couple has offered to make one of the largest private donations in Sacramento history to create a natural history museum for the city. Naturally, an animal rights activist and city officials are freaking out.

Paul and Renee Snider want to donate their extensive personal collection of mounted polar bears, lions, rhinos, dik-diks, and other animals, some of which are rare, and build a nearly 180,000 square foot museum to house them. The museum would also be the new home of the California Auto Museum, which desperately needs an updated building.

But it appears the Sniders are being thwarted by the Sacramento Planning Commission, along with an animal rights activist who finds the project distasteful, despite the decades of charity work the Sniders have done for the Sacramento area.

And that’s the problem. Radical activists and the government officials who listen to them would rather kill a privately funded project than let thousands of others enjoy it.

The animal rights activist and Planning Commissioner

At a planning commission meeting last week, animal rights activists got the ear of Planning Commissioner Kim Mack, and challenged whether the city of Sacramento should approve the museum with the Sniders’ game animals in the same building as classic cars.

The Sniders have asked the city for permission to buy the land for $1.25 million, and will pay to build the new museum building.

“Some members of the commission confined their comments to discussions about the design of the new museum, while others opined on the necessity of reaching out to the community regarding the content of the new building,” the Sacramento Bee reported. “Mack addressed the issue more directly. ‘I think that bringing stuffed endangered species into the mix is dangerous to the reputation of our community,’ she said.”

Mack, a politically active Democrat, has close ties to Mayor Kevin Johnson, and helped run his first campaign for Sacramento mayor. Mack also managed a grassroots support effort in the region for the first Obama presidential campaign.

Mack has also been involved with Johnson’s Sacramentans for Accountable Government effort to put a Strong Mayor Initiative on the ballot, essentially giving Johnson more power.

When Mack was a City Council candidate, she took heat because emails in support of the Strong Mayor Initiative were sent to people on an email list that originated from an Obama campaign list. Mack came under strong criticism for providing the Obama campaign email list to the Sacramentans for Accountable Government group.

And then, after losing in the city council primary, Mack was appointed to the Sacramento Planning Commission by Johnson.

It pays to have friends in high places, regardless of credentials.

The animal rights activist behind the effort to kill the museum is Jennifer Fearing, a well-known Humane Society radical, and California senior state director for the organization.

“Destroying wild animals for the thrill of the kill, for trophies, and for bragging rights is anything but good for the world,” the letter to the planning commission from Fearing said, as reported by the Bee. “We share Renee Snider’s awe of the ‘beauty of wildlife,’ but feel that awe is best shown through shooting them through lenses, not gun barrels.”

“The two-page letter also says the city would be selling valuable riverfront property too cheap, and suggests the attractions at the museum would be unlikely to draw many visitors,” the Bee said.

“A hybrid auto/dead animal museum seems unlikely to generate enough foot traffic over time to be sustainable. We also question the rationale for the city selling this property for $1.25 million — which seems an exceptionally low price for such valuable property,” Fearing said.

Fearing and the Humane Society are behind many of the anti-gun, anti-hunting bills in the California Legislature. One of their bills, AB711, would have unnecessarily banned lead ammunition for all hunting in California, but was killed in the committee process. Fearing and her cohorts are responsible for the recent ban in California on bear hunting with dogs, hunting using trapping, and the name change of the Department of Fish and Game to the Department of Fish and “Wildlife,” which most people questioned.

The Sniders

Several years ago, Paul and Renee Snider had offered to build a smaller history museum on the campus of California State University Sacramento, but were forced to give up that idea when members of the CSUS faculty became unhinged at the idea, and heavily protested the offer.

However, and quite ironically, it was CSUS officials who had previously facilitated the permission from the government of Tanzania needed for the Sniders to hunt exotic animals in that country.

Oh what a tangled web we weave. When first we practice to deceive.

Paul and Renee Snider are well-known as Sacramento’s first couple in charitable giving. There isn’t a charity in town unfamiliar with their selfless kindness and generosity. Renee Snider has been on the Board of Directors for decades of the River Oak Center for Children, where I first met her. The Sniders have donated millions of dollars to River Oak Center, helping to provide group homes, education facilities and care facilities for children needing behavioral health and mental health services.

I’ve been to the Sniders’ home and have seen the amazing museum wing with the animals on display. I sat on a local charitable board with Mrs. Snider. They are very generous and good people, but are being maligned by people who have no idea who they are, or of the many charities to which they give their considerable money and time.

The auto museum

The California Auto Museum is worth a visit. It has fantastic collections of cars, but could use an updated, climate-controlled building. The last time I visited, I saw Gov. Jerry Brown’s old 1974 Plymouth Satellite, from his first term as Governor of California in 1975, and took the nearby picture of it. These days, Brown has plenty of Capitol police escorts to drive him around.

Despite the kindness and generosity with which the gift of the museum is intended, because some froth at the mouth at hunting and hunters, the enjoyment so many others could be killed. A history museum and a new auto museum would be wonderful for Sacramento, and could be a place of learning as well.