REMARKS
Council Member Lincoln Restler opens the hearing on New York City's lobbying laws and necessary reforms
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6 min
Council Member Lincoln Restler opens a hearing on potential reforms to New York City's lobbying laws.
- He highlights the need for transparency, accountability, and integrity in government regarding lobbyists' influence.
- He cites the growth of the lobbying industry over the past decade and introduces three bills aimed at increasing transparency and restricting conflicts of interest.
- He thanks Speaker Adrienne Adams for supporting the hearing and his staff for their work in preparing it.
Lincoln Restler
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Good morning.
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I my name is Lincoln Wrestler, and I am the chair of the committee on governmental and state and federal legislation.
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That's a mouthful.
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I'd like to welcome my colleagues who've joined us this morning, especially council member Brewer.
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Well, I'm very happy to see.
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And of course, Brooklyn's newest council member, the 1 and only David Carr.
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It's good to see you both.
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At today's hearing, the committee will be conducting an oversight will be conducting an oversight here on New York City's lobbying laws and necessary reforms.
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Governor doesn't happen in a vacuum.
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We rely on external hit stakeholders for policy expertise and technical information, but we must ensure that there is transparency, accountability, and integrity in our government, and that certain actors do not have an outsized influence.
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We need to put careful limits and reporting requirements in place to prevent people from profiting off of government service.
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And to demonstrate to our constituents that this is a fair and just city with leaders who are prioritizing the needs of our constituents over special interests or self dealing.
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It's been over a decade since the city council held a lobby.
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It's been over a decade since the city council has held a lobbying oversight hearing or considered legislative updates to our current lobbying laws.
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I want to thank Speaker Adrienne Adams for her support in holding our hearing today.
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In the past decade, the lobbying industry has exploded.
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In 2023, lobby were paid over a $131,000,000 to lobby city officials.
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That's nearly doubled with they brought in since our last lobbying oversight hearing over a decade ago.
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It's past time to take a fresh look at our lobbying laws and consider what improvements we can make to strengthen them.
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It is our responsibility to make exceedingly clear to the public who has the ear of their elected officials and how much they are paid to exert their influence.
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In addition to examining the effectiveness of our city's lobby, laws, we will be hearing 3 bills today that I believe would help increase transparency and integrity in our city.
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7677 will close loopholes in existing lobbying rules to end the revolving door of senior staff exiting city government and immediately using their power to lobby on behalf of shady clients.
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I will offer the example of the mayor's first chief of staff, Frank Corona, He was involved in the hiring of all senior officials.
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He was involved in every key policy decision that was made by the Adams administration.
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And yet he freely admitted that he was building a future lobbying practice while working in this very building.
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When he left government at the end of 2022, he was legally permitted to lobby 99% of city workers the very next day.
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The only restriction he faced was advocating on behalf of clients to people who worked in the office of the mayor.
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But every other mayoral agency was fair game.
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To offer some insight into the scale of his practice at Oaktree Solutions, New York Magazine recently reported that corona's firm is generating at least 24 $1,000,000 annually in lobbying fees.
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Beyond senior city hall staffers, current laws failed to take into account the relationships that the most senior agency leaders build across city government, which is by our legislation would ban the most powerful policymakers from lobbying any city agency after leaving public service, not just the one they work for.
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Our legislation would finally make New York City's post government service lobbying restrictions consistent with the wide widely heralded paragon of good governance.
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Albany, New York.
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No one should be allowed to leave a position of power in city government and exercise that power to influence city agencies as they pass through the revolving door.
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And that applies to city council members too.
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That's why our second piece of legislation proposes an expansion anti lobbying rules to ban former council members from appearing before any city agency for 2 years, not just the council.
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The loopholes in our investing system undermine the integrity of our government and the faith that New Yorkers have in us when their needs are being overlooked at the expensive special We need to ensure our public officials are committed to the public good, not to enriching themselves.
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Intro 742 sponsored by my colleague, council member, Gail Brewer, would prevent individuals who have worked as a campaign fundraiser or political consultant from lobbying the elected official whose campaign they worked for for a period of 2 years.
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When a council staffer leads my office, they must wait for a period of time before engaging the council on work related issues.
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The same should be true for our campaign staff.
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I want to thank our committee staff, Cal Council, Jays Reganopathy, and Erica Cohen, for their hard work in putting together this hearing.
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I'd also like to thank my communications director, Neve Mooney, for her terrific work.
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She's also getting married next week, so happy, almost wedding, leave.
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And I lastly wanna thank my chief of staff, Molly Haley, for putting all so much work into this and being extraordinary.
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During the hearing, I will be calling panelist to testify, I'd like to remind everyone who is testifying via Zoom that you will be on mute until you were called on to testify.
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At which point, you will be unmuted by the host.
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For those of you who are testifying in person, be sure to sign up with a sergeant of arms in the back, even if you registered in advance.
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You may approach the witness table when your name is called and turn on your microphone before giving your testimony.
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At this hearing, we will be inviting testimony from the complex of interest board and the city clerk's office, and then for members of the public.
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During the hearing, if council members would like to ask a of the administration or a specific panelist, please let me know and I will call on you an order.
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For all panelists when called to testify, please share your name and the organization you represent, if any.
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And we will be also including the campaign finance board to answer questions as well.
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We will now call representatives of the administration to testify.
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We will be hearing testimony from the city clerk, Michael McSweeney, and deputy clerk, Marissa Costa, Ethan Carrier, General Counsel at the Complex of Interest Board and Carolyn Miller, Executive Director of the Complex of Interest Board.
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And we will also be joined for by Paul Ryan, Executive Director of the Campaign Finance Board.
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At this time, I'd like to firstly recognize Avernikov.
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Thank you very much, council member for joining us this morning, and I'd like to call on the committee council to administer the affirmation.
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Oh, and council member, Shana Huneet.
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I didn't see a sneak in there.
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Good morning.
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And then we'll do that before.
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So why don't I connect with you or you won't go to jail first?
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Why don't we go to council member Brewer for her opening remarks, and then we'll swear in the the folks testifying today.
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Thank you.