JCOPE Releases 2015 Annual Report

Last Thursday, the Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE) released its 2015 annual report (Read JCOPE’s press release here, and the full report here.)

Groups and individuals trying to influence state and local governments reported spending $243.1 million in 2015, an increase of about 8% (about $18 million) over 2014 lobbying spending. JCOPE’s data is not broken between state and local government lobbying, but much of this increase appears to have occurred in New York City, which saw a $14 million increase in lobbying compensation and expenses in 2015.

The report notes that in 2015, changes to the Lobbying Act expanded the reporting requirements for local lobbying.  Before the law was changed, lobbyists only had to report their local lobbying activities where the local government’s population exceeded 50,000.  State law was changed in 2015 to reduce the population threshold to 5,000.

Read news coverage of the report’s release in the Daily News, the Press & Sun-Bulletin and Politico New York.