New York’s ethics laws – those covering the actions of public officials and lobbyists – gets an annual airing at a public hearing convened by the state’s ethics watchdog. Last week, the Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government (COELIG) held its hearing to gauge public reactions to the agency’s dozens of recommendations for improvements in the law and the functioning of the oversight agency.
Among their proposals was one that surely got the interest of the state’s political establishment – greater oversight of the involvement of lobbyists in campaign fundraising. The Commission advanced two ideas. The first was to seek comment on a proposal to “Limit or prohibit or otherwise regulate campaign donations” from lobbyists to elected officials or candidates for public office. The second was to “Require lobbyists and clients to report their campaign contributions to COELIG.”
Banning campaign contributions from anyone runs into U.S. Constitutional issues, but the idea of some form of lobbyist-focused restriction is not unusual in the country. In fact, half the country puts restrictions on that type of activity.
New York State, however, is not one of them.
Why does this matter? Anyone even remotely involved in the state legislative process knows that campaign fundraising plays a big role in policymaking. Last year’s January to early June legislative session, for example, saw at least 176 campaign fundraising events held in the Capital District or by leadership during 62 scheduled session days. Do the math: for each day lawmakers were in the Albany area, multiple campaign fundraisers were held. Who was the target audience for attendance at these fundraisers? Do you think it was constituents from, say, Buffalo or Long Island?
Nope. They were held for lobbyists and their clients. And they didn’t come for the pigs ‘n blankets and watered down drinks.
Essentially, current law in New York allows lobbyists pleading for legislative favors during the day to then fork over campaign contributions in the evening, usually at a location a short walk down the street from the Capitol.
It’s not hard to see why that’s a bad practice and why so many states have placed restrictions on it.
You can almost hear the howls of complaints from elected officials and the lobbying corps over COELIG’s idea of advancing a measure to curb the status quo. The agency deserves credit for advancing it, hopefully we’ll see a real proposal from them later this year.
While that proposal was welcome, an important topic was ignored by the Commission and will hopefully be part of its final package of reforms.
There is a glaring loophole in the state’s lobbying law. The state law defines what is considered lobbying, such as advocacy to get the governor to take policy positions, or lawmakers to agree to legislation, or agencies’ regulatory decisions. If a form of advocacy is not on the list, then it is exempt from disclosure. One example is efforts to influence gubernatorial nominations that are sent to the state Senate for approval. Those are not considered lobbying under the law and spending to influence those decisions does not need to be reported.
The problem with that is obvious. For example, under current law, advocating to influence the Public Service Commission’s determination of utility rates is considered lobbying. Thus, entities trying to impact those rates have to report their actions to COELIG. However, the members of the Public Service Commission – the people who decide the rates – are nominated by the governor and approved by a majority vote of the state Senate. Under New York’s current law, attempting to influence who sits on the PSC is not currently considered lobbying.
In that case, advocating to influence utility rates is lobbying, but advocating to determine who makes the decision on those rates is not. How does that make sense?
Legislation has been approved by the state Senate to close that loophole, but seemingly for no apparent reason, has failed to be approved by the state Assembly. If COELIG weighed in with its support, perhaps that could push the state Assembly to finally do something about it.
Lobbying has the potential to contribute to democracy and the public policy formation process by providing decision makers directly with valuable insights and data. However, without transparency and integrity, it can be used to steer public policies away from the public interest – particularly if a small group of powerful interests use their wealth, power and dominant positions to unfair advantage.
Strengthening the agency that regulates and monitors those relationships and actions is in the public’s interest. In addition, the agency should advance its plan to place oversight of lobbyists’ role in raising money for those who they seek to influence. If they do so, they will go a long way toward creating a policymaking environment far less susceptible to conflicts of interest. And the public will get a more complete picture of “how the sausage is made” in Albany’s lawmaking process. Lastly, the public should expect that COELIG embraces a plan to plug a glaring lobbying disclosure loophole. The public has a right to know who is trying to influence government appointments.
Blair Horner is senior policy advisor with the New York Public Interest Research Group.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.
