Senate, Assembly Introduce “Pay-to-Play” Disclosure Bill

Both houses of the Legislature introduced a bill today that could be viewed as being a response to the Moreland Commission’s issuance of subpoenas to law firms that employ state lawmakers.

Read the bill (A.8199/S.5962) and sponsor’s memo.

It would require all businesses seeking state agency contracts to submit to the State Comptroller a list of all political contributions made to the Governor, Lt. Governor, Attorney General or Comptroller.  A similar political contribution report would have to be made by businesses contracting with either house of the State Legislature.

Any business that fails to provide such information, or knowingly provides false information, would be automatically disqualified from the contract it is seeking (or has been awarded), and would be prohibited from receiving any other state contracts for four years.

(H/t to the Daily Politics blog, which first reported on this bill.)