Record Spending On State Lobbying
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- April
- 9
The state Commission on Public Integrity released its annual report today that shows record spending within the lobbying industry.
A record $171 million was spent on lobbying in 2007, up from $151 million in 2006, according to the commission. The money covers 3,271 clients, represented by 5,357 lobbyists and 57 public corporations.
For the 11th straight year, the firm of Wilson, Elser, Moskowitz, Edelman & Dicker reported the highest lobbying compensation at $9.6 million. That is followed by Patricia Lynch and Associates at $6.7 million, then Bolton St. Johns, Inc. at $5.7 million.
The highest expenditure was by Verizon at $3.2 million, followed by the Trustees of Columbia University of the City of New York at $2.2 million and the New York State United Teachers at $2.1 million.
It’s curious, though, that the highly criticized commission handed its annual report today—when most of the media is focused on the state budget and the report, which usually garners headlines, will be overshadowed.
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 at 12:07 pm by Joseph Spector.
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Jay Gallagher has covered Albany for Gannett News Service since 1984 and has been Albany Bureau chief since 1989. He`s a native of the Boston area and likes to point out that in this millennium, the score is Red Sox 1 championship, the Yankees 0. 
Cara Matthews has been a statehouse correspondent in the Albany Bureau since August 2005. Prior to that, she covered Putnam County government and politics at The Journal News for nearly five years. Before that, she worked at newspapers in Connecticut and covered the state Legislature for one of them. 
