April 22, 2025
To increase public accessibility and transparency in lobbying spending, the Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government will begin to release preliminary lobbying spending data analyses every two months, Executive Director Sanford N. Berland announced today. The preliminary data from January-February 2025 shows total lobbying spending reached $65.27 million. Detailed charts on January-February 2025 lobbying activity are now available.
“Since the Commission’s creation, one of our top priorities has been to enhance public awareness of, and overall transparency in lobbying spending so the public knows who is trying to influence state and local officials’ decision-making,” Executive Director Berland said. “Releasing bi-monthly aggregated data reports complements the real-time data we have available on our website and the 278 million records we have made available for download on Open NY.”
“These bi-monthly lobbying reports are the latest in our continued efforts to make our data more accessible to New Yorkers,” Chair Leonard B. Austin said. “With more frequent reporting on lobbying spending, the public will be able to see shifts in lobbying over the course of the year. This will shed more light and provide clarity on how lobbying dollars are being used.”
January-February 2025 Preliminary Lobbying Spending and Top Professional Lobbyists
The preliminary lobbying spending for January-February 2025 totaled $65.27 million. Spending on compensation alone reached $57.55 million while expenses totaled $7.72 million. The total expenses included $6.6 million in itemized expenses, $1 million in non-lobbying expenses, and more than $117,000 in expenses less than $75.
The top three Retained Lobbyists, ranked by compensation only, included Brown & Weinraub Advisors, LLC at $4.1 million, Kasirer LLC at $3.0 million, and Bolton-St Johns, LLC at $3.0 million. Greenberg Traurig, LLP came in fourth at $2.8 million, followed by Ostroff Associates, Inc at $1.6 million in compensation. Rounding out the top ten were Hinman Straub Advisors, LLC (#6), The Parkside Group, LLC (#7), Pitta Bishop & Del Giorno LLC (#8), Cozen O'Connor Public Strategies, LLC (#9), and Mirram Group LLC (#10).
January-February 2025 Lobbyists Firms Ranked by Number of Clients
The top three lobbying firms in January-February 2025 included Brown & Weinraub Advisors, LLC with 312 Contractual Clients and 244 Beneficial Clients, Bolton-St. Johns, LLC with 250 Contractual Clients and 252 Beneficial Clients, and Kasirer LLC with 192 Contractual Clients and 196 Beneficial Clients. Greenberg Traurig, LLP came in fourth on the list, followed by Ostroff Associates, Inc. at number five. The remainder of the top ten included Hinman Straub Advisors, LLC (#6), Pitta Bishop & Del Giorno LLC (#7), Constantinople & Vallone Consulting LLC (#8), The Parkside Group, LLC (#9), and Hollis Public Affairs, Inc. (#10).
January-February 2025 Top Topics, Bills, and Parties Lobbied
Miscellaneous Business, Budget/Appropriations, and Health represented the top three lobbying subjects/topics for the start of 2025. Budget bills comprised eight of the top 10 lobbied in January-February 2025, which included Assembly Bill 3007 and Senate Bill 3007, both of which centered on implementing the state Health and Mental Hygiene Budget. In the third spot was Senate Bill 3008, which advocates for major components of the state transportation, economic development bills and environmental conservation budget. In addition, the top three parties lobbied are as follows: Executive Chamber/Office of the Governor with 619 filings, NYS Senate Majority Program and Counsel Staff with 535 filings, and NYS Assembly Majority Program and Counsel Staff with 357 filings.
COELIG Ongoing Efforts to Increase Accessibility to Lobbying Data
A top priority for the Commission since its inception has been to increase public accessibility to the data the Commission holds:
- Open NY: In 2023, COELIG's lobbying data became the largest data set on Open NY when it added its hundreds of millions of lobbying records to the open-platform website. Today, more than 278 million lobbying records are available for download by journalists, researchers, and the public.
- Section 166 Forms: In early 2024, the Commission digitized thousands of the 2022 and 2023 Executive Law Section 166 records of appearance before the 11 Executive Branch agencies and departments designated in that statute, so they are more readily searchable and available electronically to anyone who requests access. The Commission continues to add records for 2024 and 2025.
- Lobbying Registration and Termination Docket: To increase public access to lobbying data, in 2023 COELIG launched an enhanced Lobbying Registration and Termination Docket that provides more transparent information about the contractual agreements between clients and lobbyists, including level of government to be lobbied, description of agreement, compensation and expense information, and more.
About COELIG
Established by the 2022 Ethics Commission Reform Act and made effective in July 2022, the Commission’s charge is to foster public trust in government by ensuring compliance with the state’s ethics and lobbying laws and regulations. It has jurisdiction over more than 330,000 officers and employees at state agencies and departments, including commissions, boards, state public benefit corporations, public authorities, SUNY, CUNY, and the statutory closely affiliated corporations; the four statewide elected officials and candidates for those offices; employees and members of the state Legislature and legislative candidates; and state and local lobbyists and their clients.
The Commission administers, enforces, and interprets New York’s ethics and lobbying laws by providing information, education, and guidance regarding ethics and lobbying laws; promoting compliance through audits, investigations, and enforcement proceedings; issuing formal and informal advisory opinions; and promulgating regulations implementing the laws under its jurisdiction.
The Commission promotes transparency by conducting its proceedings publicly to the fullest extent permitted by law and by making the financial and other disclosures filed by those subject to the Commission’s authority publicly available. These disclosures include, but are not limited to, annual financial disclosure statements filed by over 30,000 individuals, and millions of records contained in registrations and activity and expense reports filed by lobbyists and their clients.