The New York State Laborers-Employers Cooperation and Education Trust, which represents construction workers and has pushed for prevailing wage laws, spent $2,186,536 on lobbying in Albany last year, according to the annual state lobbying report.
This represented the fourth largest lobbying expense by a single organization. (Uber led the pack, spending $6 million — of which $5.1 million was for advertising.) The state report says the Laborers-Employers fund filed for the first time in 2018.
Overall, the real estate and construction industries — which spent $39 million on lobbying — ranked second behind the hospitals, health care and mental hygiene groups who spent more than $47 million.
In total, special interests spent a record $261 million in 2018 — a $21 million increase from 2017 and a 50 percent increase compared with 2007.
“It underscores that, increasingly, Albany is a big money game,” Newsday quoted Blair Horner from New York Public Interest Research Group as saying. The organization lobbying and campaign contributions. “It continues a well-trod path of ever upward spending” to influence lawmakers.
The report said 7,790 lobbyists were registered, serving 5,041 clients in 2018, an increase of 20 percent in the year.
