JCOPE Releases 2016 Annual Report

Last week, the Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE), the state’s ethics and lobbying regulator, released its 2016 Annual Report.

The report finds that $242.7 million was spent on lobbying in 2016, slightly less than the $243 million that was reported in 2015. (Although it does not appear that JCOPE re-calculated their 2015 lobbying numbers in the wake of this recent settlement, which would mean that lobbying spending actually decreased in 2016 by more than $6 million.)

The top five spenders for 2016 were the Rent Stabilization Association of NYC ($3.6 million); the Greater NY Hospital Association ($2.85 million); the New York state Nurses Association ($2.37 million), Uber ($2.3 million) and Families for Excellent Schools ($2.1 million).

Read news coverage from Capitol Confidential, State of Politics, the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, and Politico NY (behind a paywall).