Westchester companies employed 70 lobbying firms in 2011
This is the second of two Business Journal reports on lobbying in New York State. It will examine the firms local businesses employed in 2011 to lobby on their behalf.
At least 68 firms were employed by Westchester companies last year to lobby on their behalf for state and local government issues. Annual lobbying revenue at those firms ranged from thousands of dollars to more than $10 million.
The firms were spread throughout the state, from White Plains and New York City to Albany and several other upstate cities, according to a Business Journal analysis of state records.
A previous report found that state and local lobbying among Westchester companies declined 7.5 percent last year, from nearly $5.5 million in 2010 to just over $5 million in 2011.
No federal lobbying figures were included in the state records.
While spending on lobbying declined locally, government officials at various levels have called for the influence of special interest groups and lobbyists to be curtailed statewide.
However, new state regulations enacted over the past year have muddled the definition of lobbying as it relates to New York state and municipal governments, representatives of several firms said.
Under the Public Integrity Reform Act of 2011, signed last June by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the definition of lobbying was expanded to include any advocacy that affects the introduction of legislation or resolutions.
Additionally, a new database was established listing every firm or individual who appears in a representative capacity before any state government entity, and the former Commission on Public Integrity was replaced with the Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE).
Robert B. Ward, deputy director of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government in Albany, said the perceived increase in lobbying activity is likely the result of the latter changes to disclosure laws.
“There”™s a weird dichotomy between a lot of the public pronouncements and what actually happens at the capitol,” Ward said. “Policymakers ”“ including staff members ”“ routinely meet with lobbyists. They do this partly to get information about the impact of various proposals in the real world, and they do it partly to respond to the sort of requests that we traditionally think of as lobbying.”
Among those firms most often contracted by Westchester companies were several of Albany”™s best-known lobbyists, including Patricia Lynch Associates Inc.; Empire Strategic Planning; Featherstonhaugh, Wiley and Clyne L.L.P.; Cordo and Company L.L.C.; and Meara Avella Dickinson L.L.C., among others.
Other firms popular with Westchester companies included GreenbergTraurig L.L.P. and Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman and Dicker L.L.P. ”“ both full-service law firms with large lobbying practices, and both with offices in Westchester and Albany.
The common denominator among many of the state”™s most successful lobbying firms — a roster that includes former state legislators, top aides, and other principals who played a prominent public-sector role prior to entering the private arena.
Kenneth L. Shapiro is managing partner of Wilson Elser”™s Albany office and founded the firm”™s government relations practice, which is based in Albany.
He said the lobbying culture has become more competitive since he first set up shop in Albany, with firms like Wilson Elser representing clients as both a legal counsel and a legislative counsel.
“At one point in time we did very, very little marketing ”“ it”™s over the past couple of years that we have now started to pitch the firm as a whole and its government relations practice as being part of it,” Shapiro said. “But at one point in time we were solely a government relations firm.”
Last year, the firm lobbied before state and municipal officials on behalf of approximately 140 companies throughout the U.S., and according to state filings, the firm took in $10.2 million in lobbying-related revenue.
Wilson Elser is also the largest law firm in Westchester County by attorneys.
DelBello Donnellan Weingarten Wise and Wiederkehr L.L.P., a White Plains law firm, represents existing clients in a lobbying capacity but does not have a separate lobbying practice.
The firm represented 11 companies as a lobbyist in 2011, netting just over $560,000 in revenue, according to state records.
Mark P. Weingarten, a partner at the firm, said much of DelBello Donnellan”™s work that fell under the banner of lobbying involved meetings with state or local officials on clients”™ behalf for routine issues that weren”™t previously classified as lobbying.
“Many of the activities that lawyers used to do on behalf of their clients with state government didn”™t require registration and were not, per se, lobbying under the old laws,” Weingarten said. “What happened was they expanded it to really include a lot of work with state agencies.”
For example, if an attorney meets with officials from the state Department of Transportation or from the state Department of Environmental Conservation, it counts as lobbying, he said.
“A lot of that stuff became covered activity,” Weingarten said. “There is, in some ways, no way of avoiding it.”