… giving Slog’s Lobbyist of the Year Award to the lone lobbyist from the Statewide Poverty Action Network, the young woman—on track to make about $21,000 a year judging from her January disclosure report— who single-handedly killed an evil bill from the loan industry and passed a landmark bill that regulates the loan industry?

Silly me.

Obviously, Slog’s Lobbyist of the Year Award should have gone to a much more influential and powerful crowd: The 12-lobbyist team for the Building Industry Association of Washington. So, congratulations to Elliot Swaney, Tom McCabe, Trent Matson, Andrew Cook, Thomas Kwieciak, Eric Lohnes, Brian Minnich etc. Great work making sure that the environmentalist “Local Solutions” bill to establish carbon emissions as a standard for approving development projects went pfffft.

Despite how trendy and P.C. global warming is, the stalwart band of BIAW lobbyists were able to defy the near-supermajority Democratic stronghold in Olympia and keep the global warming whiners at bay.

Clearly, these folks know how to run a lobbying shop.

In the month of January alone, the BIAW gave its hefty crew $35,175 to work with—including paying for lunches for Reps and Senators—like a $17-per-person luncheon in Minority Leader Rep. Richard DeBolt’s (R-20, Chehalis) office.

Oh, and don’t worry, I’m certainly not shortchanging the hard-working ladies in Olympia by taking the award away from Kim Justice and giving it to Team BIAW. Four of the twelve-member team are chicks (although only three of them got paid in January, two of them getting the lowest pay of the bunch).

And the gang does include Julie Nichols.

I know Kim Justice is supposed to be this super fox and all—and obviously that’s the real reason I originally gave her the award—but sorry Kim, Julie Nichols is a super duper fox. And she’s straight!