Report: Advocacy Groups Able to Hide Donors, Despite State Donor Disclosure Requirements

Chris Bragg of the Times Union reports that three education advocacy groups – which together spent more than $8.3 million on lobbying in 2015 – were able to avoid disclosing at least some of their donors, despite a 2011 state law that was intended to require some advocacy groups to disclosure their funding sources.

The 2011 law requires advocacy organizations to disclose to the Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE) the source of funding over $5,000 for each source that was used to fund its lobbying activity, where the organization spent more than $50,000 in lobbying during the year, and at least 3% of the group’s total expenditures during the same period were devoted to lobbying in New York.

According to the article, the work-around is pretty simple — donations are first given to an intermediary, which them gives it to the lobbying group. Under the law, only the identity of the intermediary organization must be disclosed.