BILL NUMBER: S7681
SPONSOR: COMRIE
 
TITLE OF BILL:
An act to amend the public authorities law, in relation to prohibiting a
state or local authority from employing or designating a lobbyist to
engage in lobbying
 
PURPOSE:
This bill will ensure public authorities do not hire private lobbyists
for official state business.
 
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:
Section 1 amends section 2859 of the public authorities law to prohibit
public authorities from hiring external lobbyists for direct or indirect
lobbying and provides for termination of lobbying contracts without
penalty, while ensuring all parties receive agreed upon monies for work
performed prior to this bill becoming law.
Section 2 is the effective date.
 
JUSTIFICATION:
Several public authorities in the State hire contract lobbyists to push
their priorities before the legislature and Executive.
These are public entities who pay lobbying firms to represent them in
Albany, when they should already have ready access to the executive,
legislators, and staff. Government officials are always receptive to
outreach from any government entity and therefore, it is duplicative and
an added public cost for public authorities to use public funds to hire
contract lobbyists.
At least six other states including Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Illi-
nois, Massachusetts and Virginia explicitly prohibit their authorities
from contracting with lobbyists and several others restrict using public
funds to pay contract lobbyists.
This bill does not prohibit any authorities from hiring any in-house
staff to advocate for them, nor does it prohibit them from hiring lobby-
ists to petition the federal government on their behalf. It just prohib-
its them from contracting with private, external lobbyists for official
state business.
 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
None.
 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect immediately.