JCOPE Releases 2018 Mid-Year Lobbying Data

Organizations spent $129.9 million between January and June 2018 on efforts to influence State and local government decision making, according to data released today by the Joint Commission on Public Ethics ("Commission"). This represents a more than $8 million increase – or about 6.7 percent – over lobbying expenditures during the same period in 2017.

Among these top lobbying spenders for the first part of the year was 1199 SEIU Labor Management Initiatives, Inc. Healthcare Education Project, which led all organizations with more than $3.6 million in lobbying expenditures. Other top spenders were the Greater New York Hospital Association, Inc. ($2.28 million), NYS Nurses Association ($1.4 million), Uber Technologies, Inc. ($1.3 million), and NYS Laborers-Employers Cooperation & Education Trust ($1.18 million), which only began lobbying this year. New to this year's list was FWD.US ($782,907), which advocated for criminal justice reform.

The data shows that approximately $113 million of the total lobbying spending for the first half of 2018 went to compensation for retained and in-house lobbyists. About $4.7 million was spent on advertising, nearly $789,000 on events, and the remainder on other lobbying-related expenses. 

The top ten lobbying firms received a little more than $40.5 million in total compensation and reimbursed expenses, about $5 million more than the same time last year. Eight of the top 10 professional firms on the 2017 mid-year list remain on this year’s list, with Kasirer LLC leading all lobbying firms through June 2018 with almost $6.3 million in total earnings. SKDKnickerbocker LLC entered the top 10 for the first time, earning $4.13 million. 

In terms of the number of clients, Brown & Weinraub, PLLC led all lobbyists with 180 clients through June 2018, followed by Kasirer LLC, which registered to represent 176 clients. Bolton St. Johns, LLC was third highest with 154 clients. 

These most recent figures come from data submitted to JCOPE by lobbyists, their clients, and public corporations, covering lobbying activities from January 1 through June 30, 2018. Registered lobbyists and public corporations must file bi-monthly reports that include the amount of compensation and reimbursed expenses for lobbying activities that were received during the previous two months. For clients of lobbyists, filings must be submitted twice a year that detail lobbying expenditures during the previous six months, including how much was spent on advertising.

As of June 30, 2018, there were 7,444 individual lobbyists reported on lobbyist registrations in New York State, representing 4,712 clients.  

JCOPE has updated its publicly available sets of the complete data filed by lobbyists, their clients, and public corporations to include reported information from the first half of 2018. Those datasets can be found at https://jcope.ny.gov/lobbying-datasets.