In November 2016, Mr. Bernhardt had filed legal notice with the federal government formally ending his status as lobbyist. Westlands, a powerful California agribusiness group, was one of Mr. Bernhardt’s main lobbying and legal clients between 2011 and 2016. In that time, Westlands paid Mr. Bernhardt’s firm $1.3 million for lobbying services. Those changes would have freed more water from the San Francisco Bay Area for irrigation. A spokeswoman for Mr. Bernhardt, Faith Vander Voort, said in an email that the invoice had been labeled incorrectly and that the documents did not describe lobbying activity.

Source: New York Times April 04, 2019 11:14 UTC