ALBANY — In April 2020, as the coronavirus overran New York, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s team enacted measures to shield hospitals and nursing homes from liability associated with the treatment of patients infected by the deadly virus.
At the time, attention focused on more than $1 million that the Greater New York Hospital Association had poured into Cuomo’s campaign during his 2018 re-election bid. But the influence of seasoned lobbyists loomed large as the liability-waiver amendment was ushered into law in the bustling final days of the budget negotiations that spring.
Some lawmakers in the Senate and Assembly, where the measure passed, questioned last-minute updates from the governor’s team, including the blanket immunity provision for hospitals and nursing homes that would later become a focus in a broader investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice that did not result in any charges. A news release that came on its heels credited lobbyists for the effort to secure “immunity for hospitals and workers from liability in connection with COVID-19.”
The trade group, which has been among the top 10 spenders on lobbying in New York every year for the past decade, claimed it had “drafted and aggressively advocated for this legislation.” GNYHA spokesman Brian Conway, who said the association stands by its advocacy given the “extraordinarily challenging circumstances,” noted it’s “common practice for advocacy organizations to submit draft legislative language.”
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The New York Assembly is called to order to begin a special session in June to debate legislation crafted in response to recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings that have returned the issue of abortion rights to states and allowed lawful gun owners to carry their weapons.
People including lawmakers are seen outside the Senate Chamber prior to session at the state Capitol in Albany.
People including lawmakers are seen outside Senate Chamber prior to session at the state Capitol in Albany.
People including lawmakers gather outside the Senate Chamber prior at the state Capitol on May 31 in Albany.
People gather outside the Senate Chamber at the state Capitol on May 31 in Albany.
People gather outside the Senate Chamber at the state Capitol on May 31 in Albany.
Blair Horner, legislative director at New York Public Interest Research Group in the Senate Lobby at the state Capitol on June 2.
People gather outside the Senate Chamber at the state Capitol on May 31 in Albany.
Blair Horner, legislative director at New York Public Interest Research Group in the Senate lobby at the state Capitol on June 2 in Albany.
People gather outside the Senate Chamber at the state Capitol on May 31 in Albany.
Blair Horner, legislative director at New York Public Interest Research Group is seen outside the senate chamber at the New York State Capitol on Thursday, June 2, 2022, in Albany, N.Y.
State Sen. Robert Jackson is seen outside the Senate chamber at the state Capitol on June 2 in Albany.
Christina Hochul, the head of strategic alliance development for Alexion Pharmaceuticals who is married to Gov. Kathy Hochul's son, exits the SUV transporting Gov. Hochul to a campaign fundraiser on Aug. 6 at The Mouzon House in Saratoga Springs.
Gov. Kathy Hochul arrives for a campaign fundraiser on Aug. 6 at The Mouzon House in Saratoga Springs.
A campaign fundraiser for Gov. Kathy Hochul is held at The Mouzon House on Aug. 6 in Saratoga Springs.
Liz Benjamin, a lobbyist with the public relations firm Marathon Strategies, left, arrives at Fort Orange Club on a night when Republican gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin was hosting a campaign fundraiser on Sept. 13 in Albany.
Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins answers questions from the press about finalizing the budget outside her office at the state Capitol on March 31 in Albany.
Assembly Speaker Carl E. Heastie outside his Capitol office.
Lawmakers pass bills in the Senate Chamber during the last day of session at the state Capitol in June.
State Sen. Liz Krueger in the Senate Chamber during the last day of session at state Capitol on June 2, 2022.
Lawmakers in the Senate Chamber on June 2.
Sen. Robert Jackson during the last day of session at the state Capitol on June 2.
Lobbyists Giorgio DeRosa, left, and Mary Kopley outside the Senate Chamber.
Lobbyists Giorgio DeRosa, left, and Mary Kopley outside the Senate Chamber in Albany.
Lobbyists Giorgio DeRosa, left, and Mary Kopley in the Senate Lobby.
Indeed, the outcome was not unusual.
Lobbyists often are key in shaping or killing legislation and spending bills. Many are veteran lawmakers themselves or had prior jobs — including as agency leaders or legal counsel for top elected officials — that provide them connections and insight into the government’s inner workings, which enable them to shape political outcomes for their clients. They are a constant presence in Albany, customizing pitches to assuage the differing concerns of key officials, strategically framing stories to steer media attention and using the hectic legislative calendar to their advantage.
While lobbyists from professional firms set up frequent formal meetings with lawmakers and agency leaders, they also get trade associations, subject-matter experts, labor coalitions and community leaders to join the chorus. And their relationship-building efforts include hosting top-dollar campaign fundraisers for the same politicians they seek to influence — events that are crucial for lawmakers hoping to secure reelection.
The system’s key players, such as well-known Albany lobbyist Giorgio DeRosa, defend the value of their work.
“We’re seen as being bad for the system by the ‘good government guys’ because we’re being paid for our services, which is just ridiculous — we all have a certain value based on our experience and track record,” said DeRosa, whose firm Bolton-St. Johns had 262 clients last year, the highest number in New York. “We play an enormously important role. We represent clients that have a wide variety of interests and we’re very often their voice, conveying their messages to elected officials or folks in the bureaucracy.”
Their influence is on full display as lawmakers debate the mammoth annual state budget, a Byzantine tangle of spending allocations and rulemaking that has become a vehicle for some of New York’s most controversial legislation.
“Lobbying is all about access,” said Blair Horner, executive director of the New York Public Interest Research group, which advocates for transparency reforms.
“What makes a lobbying firm effective? They have knowledge of the issue and the law — a lot of the 6,000 lobbyists are technical people. Then, there’s the people who are present at the Capitol a lot, so they can be helpful to legislators,” he said. “And lobbyists are really the primary conduit for campaign contributions.”
State Sen. Alessandra Biaggi said that after being elected to the Senate in 2018, she “couldn’t even believe” the omnipresence of lobbyists in Albany. Many are “simply there to protect or expand the financial interests” of their clients, she said, adding that some push issues of public importance.
“Their outsized influence determines, sometimes, what kinds of bills are being passed, and the provisions that are in certain kinds of bills,” Biaggi said.
Still, she was shocked by their access. When first elected, she noticed a sergeant-at-arms regularly walked into the Senate chamber while lawmakers were voting or debating to hand them the business card of a lobbyist. That often would signal the paid advocate was waiting in the lobby, expecting the senator to step outside.
Any advocate who is paid or deploys more than $5,000 a year to persuade public officials on an issue is considered a lobbyist. But the top professional, full-time firms pocket millions of dollars for their persuasive tactics. Many trade groups and large companies rely on them, even when the groups have lobbyists on staff. The 10 highest-earning firms brought in a combined $100 million last year, over a third of the total lobbying spending.
Hochul pitched herself as ushering in a “new era of transparency” when Cuomo resigned last year. But the money that went to persuading officials on state matters has continued to rise on her watch — and she has outpaced the former governor in raising campaign donations, including from entities or individuals doing business with the state.
The hierarchy of professional lobbying firms at the center of that influence has also held fast through the leadership change: nine of the 10 highest-earning firms remained in the top tier between 2020, when Cuomo was in office, and 2021, after Hochul took over.
Those firms boast decades of experience lobbying both parties for myriad clients, ranging from companies and trade groups to nonprofits and local governments.
While most top firms have stayed out of legal trouble, in recent decades both parties’ leading politicians have found themselves roiled in corruption scandals that involve one or more professional lobbyists. Former state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, a Republican, and deceased former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Democrat, are two of many lawmakers whose careers were derailed by criminal cases in which they were accused of making decisions that benefited particular companies in return for illicit compensation. Both were sentenced to federal prison terms.
Even as the lobbying industry is thriving, calls for reform continue.
In years past, meetings between decision-makers and Albany insiders often included a car service sent to legislative offices, a lavish dinner at a political haunt like 677 Prime or Jack’s Oyster House with a generous serving of wine — outings organized by lobbyists but funded by their clients. Now, they are required to ask for separate bills at in-person meetings, and many opt for Zoom.
“That was a cultural change in Albany,” said Richard Gottfried, a longtime Democratic assemblyman retiring this year. “A lot of lobbying used to get done over dinners that the lobbyist was paying for.”
But relationship-building by cashing in at mealtime isn’t entirely off the table.
On a recent August day in Saratoga Springs, shortly before the state Senate primary election, cars piled into the parking lot of the gastropub 550 Waterfront, which sits on a dazzling marina packed with private vessels overlooking Saratoga Lake — one of many Capital Region venues selected for a string of election-year fundraisers.
Lobbyists and wealthy donors who fund the Senate’s Democratic Campaign Committee poured in, gathering on the waterfront and in a private, sectioned-off portion of the restaurant with dim lighting and a security guard. Their dark suits stood out in the 86-degree heat, as typical patrons dined nearby in casual, expensive-looking pastels. The attendees each had shelled out between $1,000 and $25,000 for a ticket to the event, hosted by state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Deputy Majority Leader Sen. Michael Gianaris, two of the Legislature’s most influential figures.
“If we have the resources, we will pick the right candidates, and we will be able to be the force for great policymaking,” Stewart-Cousins told the crowd.
Then, after noting that “service is all they know,” the majority leader pointed out the individual Senate committee chairs in attendance that the guests could talk to if they were “interested in” a variety of topics from insurance to agriculture, and even if “contracts aren’t working for (them),” an apparent nod to the direct access the lobbyists and business magnates had gotten for the ticket price.
The swanky lakefront affair, held in an inlet of high society at the height of the Saratoga thoroughbred racing season, was followed a day later by a nearby fundraiser for a rival: the Senate Republican Campaign Committee. A week and a half later, the latter committee held another Albany-area event where they presented the Joseph L. Bruno Leadership Award — a reference to the former state senator and Republican majority leader who ended his own tenure embroiled in scandal but ultimately was acquitted of federal criminal charges.
Besides the more restricted accounts that Republican and Democratic campaign committees can use to support individual candidates, the groups have “housekeeping” accounts without donation limits. But the watchdog Common Cause NY has shown that in the past they have routinely spent on individual races in spite of rules barring such activity.
And while some wealthy event attendees are party loyalists, a number of top lobby firms have made donations to opposing campaign committees in the past several years, as have their clients with business interests in the state. It’s an age-old practice akin to betting every horse in a race.
Verizon is one of those clients. According to state records, within days of the November 2018 election that handed the Republican-controlled Senate back to the Democrats, the company gave thousands of dollars in donations to the Senate housekeeping accounts of both Democrats and Republicans — after sending in repeated $25,000 sums to each party before the election.
The New York City-headquartered company also was one of the top 10 lobbying spenders in 2017, shelling out $1.03 million to sway lawmakers the year before the historic Senate flip.
Businesses like Verizon that lobby the government often contribute to individual politicians’ fundraisers as well as to committees. Meanwhile, the lobbying firms and trade associations that represent them often host candidates’ soirees.
Hochul has raised record levels of campaign contributions from fundraising events since being sworn in as governor last year, employing tactics like setting a $250,000 fundraising minimum to secure her attendance at events organized by major lobby firms. In return, clients willing to donate large sums got to attend and make their case to the politician, sometimes in brief one-on-one meetings. She and her Republican challenger, U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin, have both been making the rounds at Albany-area fundraising venues in advance of the November election.
State lobbyists made their way one rainy September evening to Zeldin’s recent campaign event at the Fort Orange Club, a storied and exclusive membership clubhouse steps from the Capitol in Albany. Paid advocates could historically rely on the space for a private lunch with a politician, away from prying eyes.
This year, elected officials scheduled at least 120 in-person fundraisers in the area between January and early June, while lawmakers frequented Albany to deliberate on legislation. According to data collected by NYPIRG, May 24 was the session’s most popular date.
That Tuesday, three separate political fundraisers were scheduled at the Fort Orange Club; two each at the Renaissance Hotel, the Skinny Pancake and The Olde English Pub; and three in additional bars and restaurants. With entry fees ranging from $100 to $500, it would have cost an enterprising insider $3,750 to show their face at all of the events.
Critics of the fundraising practice, including retiring Assemblywoman Sandy Galef, have attempted to outlaw it for years with little success. The Democratic assemblywoman also sponsored stagnant legislation that would nix people moving directly from a campaign team to a job lobbying the person they just helped get elected.
“I think everybody likes the system as it is” since it got them elected, Galef said. But she sees the Capital Region fundraising gauntlet as an all-too-convenient lobbying tool.
“Who else is up in Albany to come to your events? They’re not your constituents from home. It is just (lobbyists delivering) checks one after the other,” she said.
Those proposals are not the only ones taking aim at perceived cronyism in state government. Chris Tague, a Schoharie County assemblyman, is one of several Republican lawmakers behind a push for elected officials to face term limits. He is also among a bipartisan set of officials who think oversight of lobbyist-politician relationships needs change.
“One of the problems in Albany is that the ethics commission is controlled by politicians,” Tague said, noting that commissioners have long been chosen by state government leaders. “Because that’s ridiculous. It should be independent.”
For Steve Malito, who leads state-level lobbying for the firm Davidoff, Hutcher & Citron, lessons in government started early. His father worked closely with former New York City Mayor John V. Lindsay.
“My life was spent on Saturday afternoons in the now sadly removed tree house in Gracie Mansion,” Malito said. He could also be found with coloring books in the corner of Lindsay’s office, and later on, behind the bar during political fundraisers.
“A lot of (lobbyists) have done this in one way shape or another,” he said. “But for me, it’s truly been out of the womb and into politics.”
Mary Kopley, another longtime lobbyist, took a different route: while studying biology at Russell Sage College she got a “little job” in the Legislature to help pay for school, and fell in love with politics.
Kopley has been a corporate lobbyist since the 1970s, when she was one of few women in the role; now she works for Bolton-St. Johns. But while she sees herself as “an education and a resource tool,” the people in her life took some convincing.
“I really think that one of my immigrant grandmothers thought that I was going to be a prostitute,” Kopley said.
Lobbyists Giorgio DeRosa, left, and Mary Kopley in the Senate Lobby.
Kopley went on to represent myriad interests, including the Girl Scouts.
The group’s operations, she said, were often caught in the crosshairs of legislation. She helped stave off a property tax change that would have tanked the Lake George Girl Scout camp, and fought an early recycled packaging rule that could have put Girl Scout cookies out of business.
“Nobody was going to get in the way of the Girl Scouts,” Kopley said. “And when the Girl Scouts started talking about cookies, people started thinking about other issues, too.”
But not all clients find so much sympathy. And though many pay lobbyists like Kopley on retainer, data from the last decade show that some of the companies with the highest one-time jumps in lobby spending shell out the extra bucks when they need to reframe an issue or “kill” a legislative plan for the sake of their core business model.
Uber, the app-based car service, spent an extra $6 million in the second half of 2015 when it fought a proposed cap on the size of its fleet in New York City. Its spending spiked again during a similar clash in the latter half of 2018, though it spent nearly $2 million less, and lost the battle to the New York Taxi Workers Alliance and its allies.
E-commerce giant eBay saw expenses spike in early 2017 as it fought a tax proposal in the budget that would have seen the state collect hundreds of millions of dollars from out-of-state online sellers.
And oil and gas corporation ExxonMobil spent $2.05 million on New York lobbying in the second half of 2012, a one-time jump of over $2 million. The extra funds went to an ad campaign launched by a trade association, the Independent Oil & Gas Association of New York, which made the case for shale-gas drilling right as the state Department of Environmental Conservation was set to begin allowing some fracking of the Marcellus Shale.
The lobbying methods employed by these companies are carefully planned by political strategists, with one message going to the public, and others to each key legislator. Assemblyman Will Barclay, a Republican who leads the chamber’s Minority Conference, said he hears different arguments than some of his Democrat peers.
“If I had a nickel for everybody telling me that their bill is going to save the state money I’d be an extremely rich person,” Barclay said, noting the messaging is tailored to his fiscal conservatism.
Some large companies or trade groups even get different people to deliver their message.
“As politics became more and more fractured and less and less bipartisan, clients would begin to hire multiple lobbyists,” said longtime power broker James Featherstonhaugh. He said the change happened in the last 15 years, before which it was “rare” to hire more than one firm.
Like many lobbyists, Patrick B. Jenkins is frequently typecast, hired to persuade allies of Assembly Speaker Carl E. Heastie given their preexisting relationship. But Jenkins, who runs the highest-earning Black-owned firm, formed other insights and relationships doing prior government and campaign work.
Jenkins sees how “a lot of times, lawmakers are pursuing an issue based on a limited view of something from their district,” and the research he shares can often convince them of his client’s perspective.
Lobbyists often leverage popular support to give lawmakers incentives to get on board. But some topics rally voters more easily than others: while fossil fuel companies like Exxon face an uphill battle, environment-friendly messaging helps smooth the way.
This past spring, the Legislature passed a semiconductor manufacturing bill in a hurry, introduced at the request of Hochul just days before session-end. The program committed up to $10 billion in state tax credits to businesses that launch “Green CHIPS projects.”
The massive industry-specific tax break was sold to legislators in record time. The pitch leaned on its “green” environmental clauses and promise of new jobs for New Yorkers to manufacture semiconductors, or “chips,” which power equipment from cars to refrigerators.
Both green messaging and job creation are effective lobbying messages in part because they often generate positive news coverage.
“It’s a hyper-competitive state, and there are demands to get the focus of elected officials, policy makers and staff constantly,” said Patrick McCarthy, Albany lead for the firm Mercury Public Affairs. He added that lawmakers are more apt to take a proposal seriously if their voters care.
Lobbyists sometimes use national news to help contentious plans break through. In 2019, the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act — which set ambitious emission reduction goals — did just that. The law, passed quickly that June, was catapulted when then-President Donald J. Trump stunted federal efforts to move away from fossil fuels.
But the proposal was not new: a coalition called NY Renews, run by Tides Advocacy, had drafted and begun lobbying for it years earlier. The coalition's over 330 disparate members — nonprofits, religious groups and labor unions — were also equipped with toolkits to guide lobby visits for their own "decentralized action."
According to Jeff Jones, a lobbyist representing environmental groups, coordination is common in the sector.
“Political leaders in New York don’t get very far if they’re trying to destroy the environment,” Jones said. He thinks the climate act is an Albany lobbying example where “grassroots organizations have succeeded” though fossil fuel interests are “chipping away at the edges.”
But while the climate act set emissions targets, it didn’t specify how the state would get there. Basil Seggos, commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Conservation, said the agency has since reached out to constituents beyond Albany’s “traditional circles.”
“But of course, we get incoming requests for information, or for an exchange of ideas from the lobbying community, and that can be from the business side, it can be from the environmental side,” Seggos said.
Many lobbyists describe agency conversations as a crucial part of their work, and filings show a number of agencies beyond the DEC hear from lobbyists on the climate act.
The Independent Power Producers of New York, a trade association, has lobbied agencies about the plan. Its leader Gavin Donohue is a subject matter expert who was a prominent member of the DEC under Pataki, and is a member of the 22-person council defining next steps.
Donohue, who is registered as an in-house lobbyist, has talked with officials about solutions on how the climate act is “going to cost a boatload of money” and why he thinks more than wind and solar are needed to “keep the lights on.” He said he frequently builds coalitions with groups who benefit from shared positions.
“Having, for example, labor union support or environmental group support on an initiative, so it’s not just an industry thing, is critically important to getting any success,” he said.
In some cases, coalitions begin far from New York.
In the mid-2000s, the Ultimate Fighting Championship and its mixed martial arts battles were gaining traction across the country. Its new owners Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta, who bought the company for $2 million in 2001, promoted its “unified rules” and legitimacy. But New York had outlawed any “extreme fighting” in the mid-1990s, with lawmakers and opinion columnists calling it “bloody public spectacle.”
To make inroads in the state, the brothers hired last year’s top-earning lobbying firm, Brown & Weinraub.
“We did everything we could to humanize the fighters,” said firm principal David Weinraub, who became increasingly passionate about the issue to which some lawmakers remained “viscerally opposed.”
“We brought up the fighters to have them meet legislators and staffers directly so they could see these guys were human beings, strategists,” Weinraub said. “I would point out the safety, how a (fighter) could quit, and how they really don’t take as much head shots as in boxing. We got Johns Hopkins to do a study; classic lobbying, we went around armed with information.”
But back in Las Vegas, where the Fertitta brothers were the largest non-union casino operators, Nevada’s powerful Culinary Union said their workers were being deprived of their right to organize. It urged allies across the country to pressure the businessmen.
Neal Kwatra, a lobbyist who had been working on the union side for New York’s Hotel Trades Council, said his members joined the Culinary Union’s long-term campaign against the employers they said were “recalcitrant for years and fought the union aggressively, committing lots of unfair labor practices.”
The workers in Las Vegas realized they had no leverage, but with solidarity from states like New York, the UFC’s owners might feel the pressure.
“They had all these controversies, frankly, associated with the sport at the time,” Kwatra said. “They weren’t paying their fighters well. There were all sorts of scandalous issues. So we were thoughtful about amplifying that stuff in New York, raising questions.”
Both the union and other activists who raised arguments against the UFC had a powerful ally in Silver, then the Assembly Speaker, who was staunchly opposed to the sport. The speaker, like the Senate majority leader, have enormous influence on which laws pass, given their unilateral power to decide what their chamber can vote on. While some of Silver’s colleagues — especially in the Senate — started to change their minds, he never budged.
In 2016, New York became the final state to legalize the sport. That same year, the parties at apparent loggerheads dissipated: the brothers announced they’d sold off the UFC for $4 billion, and Heastie became speaker after Silver was convicted for receiving unrelated kickbacks while in office.
Omar McGill carries a box of bills to the Assembly Chamber on the final day of session at the state Capitol in June.
When Assemblyman John T. McDonald took office 10 years ago representing Cohoes, Rensselaer and parts of Albany and Troy, he faced a steep learning curve.
“It was absolutely horrible. I thought I had to read each and every bill,” McDonald said.
His office soon filled up with activists, lobbyists and constituents. While he “used to think lobbyists were these heathens,” he appreciated their respectful, informed perspectives amidst the “firehose.”
The state had 5,747 registered lobbyists last year, amounting to 27 per lawmaker. They approached members like McDonald about many of the over-17,000 bills introduced in the Legislature since 2021. Six percent of those bills passed both the Senate and Assembly this year, and will become law unless vetoed by Hochul.
Albany Assemblywoman Patricia Fahy, whose district stretches from the city of Albany through Bethlehem, Guilderland and New Scotland, found this year’s end-of-session mayhem in late May and early June conjured the usual chaos.
“My head is spinning, it’s like 50 fast balls coming at you,” Fahy said at the time, while preparing a debate from her Capitol office and watching the lineup on her desktop. “You’re an inch deep on everything, because there’s 11,000 bills in the mix. That’s why you rely on the word of somebody, you rely on staff.”
Fahy spent the end of session fielding surprises. She weighed constituent complaints on a final flurry of bills before casting her votes, while managing the well-timed doubt lobbyists were sowing in colleagues’ ears on initiatives she sponsored. She and McDonald both said they keep an eye on corporate spin.
“They have more lobbyists, and they have more communication firms than you could ever dream of, that are continually either controlling the message or making sure you don’t understand the message,” McDonald said.
Assembly members and guests recite the Pledge of Allegiance during the start of session on Tuesday, May 17, in the Assembly Chamber at the Capitol in Albany.
Some advocates for grassroots influence, like Evan Nison, think “there’s too few (lobbyists), not too many.” Nison is co-creating CrowdLobby, a platform which organizes public fundraisers for lobbying goals and recently paid top-30 firm Malkin & Ross $12,000 for its first New York initiative.
Other groups have a different take. Influential grassroots organization VOCAL-NY, for instance, trains their own members to lobby on core issues: the impacts of HIV/AIDS, drug use and mass incarceration. They hold significant sway in elections by endorsing candidates, but are critical of moneyed interests in campaigns.
“Oftentimes grooming by larger corporations happens on the campaign trail, way before they’re even elected officials,” said Celina Trowell, a VOCAL-NY organizer.
Professional lobby firms get most criticism for corporate clients. But like law offices, they also represent charter schools, social campaigns and indigenous nations, and lawmakers rarely turn down their meeting requests. When they do, it quickly becomes a scandal.
In spring 2019, Biaggi and fellow state Sen. John Liu refused to meet with representatives from top-10 firm Mercury Public Affairs, taking a stand against its decision to hire ex-state Sen. Jeff Klein while he was under investigation for sexual harassment by the state ethics commission. While Biaggi and Liu said they were happy to meet Mercury’s clients directly, and the firm told journalists that the boycott “hasn’t impacted us at all,” the move made headlines still referenced by other state senators.
The line echoed in Albany is that without lobbyist meetings, elected leaders miss key perspectives that could impact their proposals’ effectiveness, lending credence to the idea that the state's top firms have become a savvy “permanent government” that outlasts politicians, driving the system — for a fee.
Rebekah F. Ward can be reached at rebekah.ward@timesunion.com and 315-939-0938. Habla español y elle parle français. She joined the Times Union in 2021 as an investigative reporter and is the newsroom's first Joseph T. Lyons fellow. Her previous coverage spanned New York, but she also reported from Colombia, Mexico and Canada for outlets including Reuters, France 24 and the OCCRP. Ward has a background in Peace & Conflict Studies and Psychology (Colgate University, '13), past work in international development media and a master's focused on migration reporting and international/financial investigations (Columbia Journalism School, '19).