While wildly overreaching with a regulation that crimps speech protected by the First Amendment, New York State’s ethics commission is conducting invitation-only seminars on new lobbying protocols with lobbyists.
The Joint Commission on Public Ethics had no room for the public to see how it expects those who pressure government to behave in a state that, amazingly, counts 21 registered lobbyists for every member of the Legislature.
When a member of the Daily News Editorial Board tried to drop by the meeting simply as a interested member of the public, a receptionist barred entry as an invited lobbyist was admitted.
Later, the commission spokesman said the panel conducted the session in a room that was too small for outsiders. Give us a break. Too small for anyone but the insiders?
Gov. Cuomo has written legislation to subject JCOPE, as it is called, to the Freedom of Information and Open Meetings laws. The panel that demands public disclosure from others must live by the same rules.
Had JCOPE engaged in full public discussion, there is little chance that it would have adopted a regulation that makes newspaper editorial boards an adjunct to lobbyists.
This editorial board, and presumably others in New York, engages in regular conversations with parties interested in the passage or defeat of legislation in Albany.
Some are elected officials, such as the governor or legislators. Some are public relations people, hired by groups ranging from landlords to clergy. Some are the leaders of such organizations.
JCOPE has declared that, of all those people, only the paid PR people must report their activity to the panel. How wrong is this, plus ill-informed and unworkable? Let’s make a list.
Overall, it selectively interferes with speech based on who is speaking and to whom.
As a unit of a media organization this board relies on the free flow of information to make judgments. JCOPE is placing a burden on one significant source.
It also ignores the very real possibility that someone asks to speak with us in confidence in order, for example, to avoid blowback from opposing parties. Now, they will have to file their name with JCOPE.
Still more, the regulation states that a PR consultant must report lobbying if the consultant contacts an editorial board. Okay, does the consultant have to report if the board makes the contact?
And why is reporting limited to the consultant? Why doesn’t the head of the organization that hired the consultant to deliver the message have to report?
And what is an editorial board anyway? Not every media organization has something called an editorial board and they, too, express opinions about legislation. And, say, the consultant urges a columnist to write about legislation? Is that lobbying? Why not?
JCOPE is going haywire — and not just because of this editorial board nuttiness. Where lobbying was once defined as a closed door meeting between insiders, the panel is now moving to define huge swaths of public speech, including through social media, as lobbying. And doing it behind closed doors with the First Amendment hanging in the balance.
