The Advocacy Group at Cardenas Partners tops $1.1M in Q1 pay

With nearly 70 clients, The Advocacy Group brought in some solid 1Q numbers.

Newly filed compensation reports show The Advocacy Group at Cardenas Partners brought in an estimated $1.14 million in lobbying pay last quarter.

Lobbyists report compensation in ranges covering $10,000 each. Florida Politics uses the middle number of a range to estimate pay.

The Cardenas team — Al Cardenas, Slater Bayliss, Sarah Busk, Christopher Chaney, Stephen Shiver and Justin Day, who is now with Capital City Consulting — received an estimated $650,000 of that haul through its legislative branch clients, with another $490,000 coming in from executive branch clients.

If the firm’s 69 legislative clients and 77 executive clients maxed out in their reported ranges, the Q1 haul could have been as much as $1.7 million.

The Advocacy Group’s top overall client last quarter was the Association of Early Learning Coalitions, which paid between $20,000 and $30,000 for legislative work and showed up at the same level on the executive side, providing up to $60,000 in total compensation.

Sitting solo atop the legislative report was international law firm Alston & Bird with an estimated $35,000 in payments for the quarter. AELC and seven other principals followed with an estimated $25,000 apiece. Those clients were the American Board of Medical Specialties, Casino Miami Jai-Alai, Eckerd Kids, Hologic, Instate Partners, the Miami-Dade County Clerk of Courts and TechNet.

Another 20 clients paid up to $20,000 for the quarter, which included the 2018 Legislative Session, while nearly two dozen were marked down in the $1 to $10,000 range.

Business consulting firm Plexos Group took the No. 1 spot in the executive report, paying an estimated $35,000 for TAG’s services. Joining AELC at the $25,000 level on the executive side were Centennial Management, SCJK Investments and Wade Trim. That cohort was followed by eight clients in the $10,000 to $20,000 range and another four dozen in the $10,000 or less bracket.

Other clients of note in the TAG reports included Anheuser-Busch, AT&T, Duke Energy, IBM, JetBlue, homebuilder Lennar Ventures and Marriott International.

Cardenas Partners’ legislative earnings make it one of the top-15 lobbying firms for the first quarter. The combined Q1 effort also came in six figures higher than its prior quarter haul and puts TAG on pace to beat last year’s total earnings of $3.7 million.