Amid federal gridlock, lobbying rises in the states

More companies and interest groups are pushing their agendas in the states, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of five years of lobbyist registrations from all 50 states gathered by the National Institute on Money in State Politics. Since 2010, the number of entities with either in-house lobbyists or part-time hired guns working in the states has grown more than 10 percent.

That means, on average, every state lawmaker was outnumbered by six companies, trade associations, unions or other groups angling for their attention from 2010 to 2014. And more special interests are finding it worthwhile to scatter lobbyists in dozens of states — or even all 50 — to make sure increasingly important state legislatures don’t leave them out of the picture.