Despite the gloom over many upstate New York businesses, there has been one very bright light \u2013 its lobbying industry. For decades, New York\u2019s lobbying industry has had an almost unbroken streak of growth \u2013 with almost each year setting a new spending record.<\/p>\n
2015 was no exception.\u00a0 Last week the state agency responsible for regulating lobbying released its annual report, which found that in calendar year 2015 a record $243.1 million in lobbying spending occurred, a $17.1 million increase as compared to 2014.<\/p>\n
How was all of that money spent?\u00a0 The agency, known as the Joint Commission on Public Ethics, analyzed the data and found that spending on lobbyists made up the bulk of that spending \u2013 $206.7 million of the $243 million, 85% of the total.<\/p>\n
The remaining 15% of the spending \u2013 nearly $20 million \u2013 was spent on advertising, events and other grassroots activities.<\/p>\n
Lobbying over education spending was at the top.\u00a0 Entities representing pro-charter schools or tax credits for the costs of private schools battled the teachers unions.\u00a0 Roughly 11%, or $26 million, of all lobbying spending was the result of the fight over school spending.\u00a0 The teachers unions were dramatically outspent in that fight.<\/p>\n
JCOPE also reported that in 2015, New York had over 6,000 individual lobbyists representing over 4,000 clients. Of that group, nearly one quarter were involved in lobbying state or municipal governments in an effort to obtain public contracts.<\/p>\n
The numbers provided by JCOPE is only part of the story.\u00a0 New York\u2019s lobbying industry is a big donor to elected officials\u2019 political campaigns.\u00a0 Campaign contributions are not reported to JCOPE, thus it is hard to know how much money was spent by all of the groups that spend money on lobbying.\u00a0 But we do know that elected officials are well aware of the importance of lobbyists\u2019 campaign dollars.<\/p>\n
In 2015, there were over 170 campaign fundraisers held during the legislative session.\u00a0 In a typical session, lawmakers are in Albany 60 days and 40 nights, during that time they are able to cram in campaign fundraisers within walking distance of the Capitol \u2013 often within the government complex itself. Who do the state\u2019s elected officials think will show up during weekday campaign fundraisers held in Albany?\u00a0 You guessed it \u2013 lobbyists.\u00a0 They same people who are plying the halls of the Capitol during the day are forking campaign contributions to electeds at night \u2013 one of the most brazen aspects of Albany\u2019s \u201cpay-to-play\u201d culture.<\/p>\n
Why do businesses and other interest groups spend so much money on lobbying and campaign contributions?\u00a0 Because they think it works.\u00a0 They believe they get what they want.\u00a0 New York\u2019s titans of American capitalism do not spend millions of dollars unless they think they get something in return.<\/p>\n
And when it\u2019s been happening for decades \u2013 and that spending keeps going up \u2013 they must be getting what they want.<\/p>\n
The most recent scandals in New York \u2013 notably the convictions of the top legislative leaders \u2013 add another dimension to this pay-to-play culture.\u00a0 Not only are these industries spending big on lobbying and campaign contributions, they are also sources of personal money to corrupt officials.\u00a0 In the convictions of the former Assembly Speaker and former Senate Majority Leader, groups with business before the government provided millions of dollars in outside income to enrich the two men.<\/p>\n
Sadly, Albany\u2019s unsavory pay to play culture is not unique in America.\u00a0 But other states have done something to limit the power of interest groups.\u00a0 Dozens of states place limits on the campaign fundraising of lobbyists; the federal campaign financing system and many states and localities require that campaign donors disclose their employers \u2013 thus making it easier to track the contributions of powerful interest groups; and voluntary systems of public financing allow candidates to rely on clean public resources instead of contributions of those with business before government.\u00a0 Ironically, one of the best public financing systems has existed for decades in the City of New York.<\/p>\n
There is no shortage of examples for reform.\u00a0 What is in extremely short supply in Albany is the interest in taking on Albany\u2019s political culture.\u00a0 Governor Cuomo has repeatedly said that he will make ethics his top priority for this session.\u00a0 Let\u2019s hope he means it, and that he plans to tame Albany\u2019s fat cats.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Despite the gloom over many upstate New York businesses, there has been one very bright light \u2013 its lobbying industry. For decades, New York\u2019s lobbying industry has had an almost unbroken streak of growth \u2013 with almost each year setting a new spending record. 2015 was no exception.\u00a0 Last week the state agency responsible for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1657"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1659,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1657\/revisions\/1659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}