Panel works on rules for state lobbyists

A state ethics panel began the process of creating new lobbying rules Thursday in Albany, but those rules may not apply to the millions already spent by companies to indirectly influence lawmakers.

Revelations this week that a nonprofit that flooded the airways with ads supporting Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's policies took money from gambling interests shortly before the governor made legalizing casinos a priority has put the administration on the defensive.

"The recent disclosures of this week have left me stunned," said Ravi Batra at a hearing of the New York State Joint Commission on Public Ethics, a panel on which he is a commissioner.

When state lawmakers created the commission last year, they established that, in most cases, lobbyists who spent or earned more than $50,000 in a year on lobbying must disclose the identity of any person or company that provided them at least $5,000. The rules were supposed to take effect on June 1, but the panel has yet to draft final rules. Under state law, new agency rules must be published for at least 45 days and then be reviewed by several state agencies before being adopted.

Good government groups differed over whether the disclosure rules should be retroactive.

"The public needs to know who is lobbying public policy," testified Barbara Bartoletti, legislative director for the League of Women Voters. But she said that people may have contributed money to organizations before the rules were finalized with the "presumption that it would not be reported."

Batra, however, pointed out that requirement was signed into law in August, giving people time to prepare for the disclosure of their names.

The New York Times reported this week that the gambling company Genting gave $400,000 to the Committee to Save New York, a nonprofit created by real estate and business groups that spent millions to buy ads supporting Cuomo's policies. The New York Gaming Association also gave $2 million, the Times reported.

In January, Cuomo hailed a proposal by Genting to build a casino and convention center at the Aqueduct racetrack as an economic development project. The Cuomo administration has said there was no connection.

The Committee to Save New York's board includes well-known names in the business community and people with connections to Cuomo, such as State University of New York chairman H. Carl McCall and Felix Rohatyn, who is chairman of Cuomo's New York Works task force that's charged with coordinating billions of dollars of infrastructure investment.