Steven Brown, director of the Rhode Island affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union, says some lobbyists can "just pick up the phone and have somebody introduce a bill on their behalf, without even looking at it."

The executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island says he may be the only one on Smith Hill to go through virtually every bill each year. He is a daily presence in State House committee rooms and floor sessions, always carrying a clipboard with a list of bills he’s tracking.

One list, for example, noted 28 bills being heard across eight committees, all in one afternoon.

“We’re handling cases and challenging statutes that have been passed that probably weren’t intended to do what they did or could easily have been fixed to eliminate the constitutional problems if they had been raised,” he says. “At some point, it just made sense to really spend the time to act proactively.”

Brown, 50, has been a Smith Hill fixture for the last 20 years. He is a lobbyist of the hard-working, low-paid variety who fight their high-powered well-connected counterparts for influence and access to lawmakers.

Brown, who is not a lawyer, made $3,000 last month for his lobbying efforts. Robert Goldberg, one of the Assembly’s highest paid lobbyists, by contrast, made $50,500.

Because the ACLU prohibits political donations, Brown donated nothing to elected officials last year; lobbyist Rick McAuliffe, donated an estimated $25,000 to Rhode Island candidates and another $40,000 nationally.

“I’m certainly not going to argue that one has greater and better access by not giving any money, but I’m also not going to cry about it,” Brown says. “I think sometimes it’s impressive, the influence that individuals can have who are not tied into the whole money game.”

Brown’s low-paid counterparts include Meghan Purvis, of the advocacy group Ocean State Action. She spends most legislative days at the Assembly and earns $600 a month for lobbying. Henry Shelton, another familiar State House face, reported no income at all for his work on behalf of the anti-poverty organization, the George Wiley Center.

The Rhode Island ACLU has three employees in its second-floor Dorrance Street office, including Brown and an administrative assistant. He gets to the State House most days at around 3:30 p.m. and generally stays as long as committees are in session — sometimes late into the night.

After two decades of lobbying, Brown, a Philadelphia native, says he believes in the role that lobbyists play.

“There is lots of stuff that goes on behind closed doors, but there’s nothing inherently dirty about being a lobbyist. That is a key element of our system of democracy,” he says. “Certainly the vast majority of lobbyists who are up there at the State House are working for big firms or big corporations. But what is a lobbyist but a person who is exercising their right to petition the government for redress of grievances? Some get paid a lot more for doing it than others.”

Brown says that the imbalance of power among lobbyists and interest groups is simply a product of the American political system. It’s difficult to balance the playing field without infringing on basic First Amendment principles, he says.

Some lobbyists can “just pick up the phone and have somebody introduce a bill on their behalf, without even looking at it,” he says. “But I will acknowledge … individuals and organizations that don’t have lots of connections or money can have an impact. But you won’t hear me arguing that there’s no difference between some small nonprofit organization and a lobbyist for a big firm representing some major corporations.”