Review of the Public Integrity Reform Act of 2011, Part 2: Project Sunlight

Now that the Governor has approved the new ethics law (Chapter399 of the Laws of 2011), I will be posting more in-depth explanations of the various parts of the bill.

Part 1: The Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE)
Today: The Project Sunlight Database

The Project Sunlight Database

Chapter 399 Part A, § 4 establishes the “Project Sunlight” database, which will dramatically increase the amount of information available to the public regarding people and entities who are trying to influence state agencies and other government actors.

Effective January 1, 2013, state agencies, SUNY, CUNY and other entities, including commissions and public authorities at least one of whose members is appointed by the Governor” must provide to the Office of General Services (OGS) a list of anyone who has “appeared before” the body “in a representative capacity on behalf of a client or customer” relating to:

(i) a procurement of goods, services or property;
(ii) a rate making proceeding;
(iii) a regulatory matter;
(iv) a judicial or quasi-judicial proceeding; or
(v) an attempt to adopt, repeal or revise a regulation.

OGS must, in turn, make this database available to the public “on a webpage subject to statutory confidentiality restrictions” in a manner that is “readily searchable and available for download.”

This is similar to the “Project Sunlight” database that then-Attorney General Andrew Cuomo launched in 2007 and improved in 2009, and which is still in operation under the current Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

Exactly how OGS will collect the information and administer the database remains an open question.

It is also interesting to note that the Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE), which will have the responsibility for lobbying registration and reporting, does not appear to have any role (at least according to the statute) in creating or using this database to fulfill its responsibilities.