JCOPE Staff Offers Legislative Recommendations

At JCOPE’s meeting last Tuesday, Executive Director Seth Agata announced the release of 19 staff recommendations for legislative changes.  However, these proposals have not been approved or endorsed by JCOPE’s commissioners.

The reform proposals put forward by JCOPE staff include:

• allowing JCOPE to release more information relating to its activities;
• making it a class E felony to offer a false statement or report to JCOPE with the intent to defraud the state;
• requiring electronic filing by all lobbyists and clients;
• requiring all Financial Disclosure Statements to be filed electronically
• requiring lobbyists to report campaign contributions, solicitations and political consulting activities;
• changing the ‘Source of Funding’ reporting to prevent avoiding disclosure and increases penalties for knowing and willful violations of the Lobbying Act;
• authorizes civil penalties of up to $10,000 for any lobbyist or client who knowingly and willfully fails to comply with JCOPE requests during a random audit;
• doubles the required record retention period for lobbying records from 3 to 6 years;
• authorizes the debarment of any lobbyist or client who fails to file a required statement or report, files a false statement, or provide illegal gifts to public officials;
• clarifies that the ban on contingent retainers applies to agreements with third parties;
• repeals JCOPE’s authority to waive penalties for late registration and reports;
• increases within which JCOPE can initiate enforcement actions from one year after the subject’s has left state service and one year from the subject’s last Lobbying Act filing to five years; and
• requires registered lobbyists to complete an online ethics training every two years (instead of three) and authorizes civil penalties of up to $10,000 for failure to do so.

 

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