Debating Lobbying Reform
February 27th, 2006
Calling the current way of life at City Hall a “kind of Jack Abramoff-on-the-Hudson scenario” that benefits lobbyists and politicians while harming voters, the New York Times lauded proposed lobbying reforms as a step in the right direction.
However, Mayor Bloomberg and Council Speaker Quinn’s proposal is not an end it itself, says the Times. The city needs to get laws and technology in place to make the proposals into a workable policy, and someone has to be in charge.
“Someone has to be assigned the task of seeking out violations and attacking them with real teeth,” the Times writes, “and given the resources and authority to do so.”
As Wonkster has written before, not everyone takes such a positive view of the proposal. Today the New York Post has its say.
It starts by calling the mayor a hypocrite, noting that Bloomberg suspects people are being bought off because he’s been doing his share of buying with his $140 million of annual local philanthropy.
If the Post isn’t convinced the mayor is particularly righteous, it also is not willing to condemn lobbyists as an entirety.
“Lobbyists, despite their (sometimes deservedly) unsavory reputations, perform a real public service — representing before government the interests and concerns of individuals from across the political and social spectrum,” writes the Post. “After all, the First Amendment grants the people the right to petition their government — and that includes the right to hire other people to do it for them.”
By Joshua Brustein on February 27, 2006, 8:29 amIn category: Electoral Politics, Gotham City, Governing | No Comments »

