Capital NY: Avella proposes lobbying ban for political consultants

ALBANY—In light of a report that New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has met with a political consultant and campaign strategist who also represents organizations that lobby City Hall, State Senator Tony Avella has introduced a bill that would bar lobbyists from also being political consultants.

“If you're a lobbyist, you can't be a campaign consultant because there's an inherent conflict of interest when you have people who are running elected officials' campaigns and then representing clients who are lobbying that same legislator,” Avella, a Queens Democrat, told Capital.

NY1's Grace Rauh reported last week that de Blasio and BerlinRosen co-founder Jonathan Berlin met at least 20 times last year. BerlinRosen advises clients from labor unions, progressive advocacy groups and real estate firms with business both at City Hall and in Albany, while also doing work for political clients including de Blasio.

“I think it goes to heart of why people mistrust the Legislature and their elected officials, because there is conflict of interest that permeates the Legislature,” said Avella, who chairs the Senate ethics committee.

De Blasio said Wednesday that he does not consider it a conflict when he meets with Rosen.

Representatives from several consulting firms questioned the validity of the bill.

“In general, when they try to put bans on lobbying, you run into First Amendment issues,” said Doug Forand of Brooklyn-based Red Horse Strategies. “So I don't know if you could ever really ban something like this, effectively.”

With talks of ethics reform intensifying after the arrest of former Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver, who stands accused of using his position to rake in millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks, the Legislature agreed to several ethics reform proposals in the state budget.

“I guess I'm at the point where enough is enough,” Avella said. “Why aren't we making substantive changes to the system? We all know that the public opinion of Albany is not good and yet we still continue to tweak the edges, when in fact we're not really going to the heart of the problem.”

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