ALBANY – In a major break from the past, state budget backers dominated New York’s top-spending lobbyists in the first 10 months of the year.
The Committee to Save New York, the business coalition allied with Gov. Cuomo, topped the list by spending nearly $9.8 million.
That’s according to a new report by the New York Public Interest Research Group, which said the $187.5 million in total lobbying spending from January through October is about $26 million shy of last year’s record but on pace to beat it.
Second this year at $6.8 million was SEIU 1199.
The powerful healthcare workers union backed Cuomo’s health care-cutting budget proposal after the governor brought union leaders into the 2011-12 budget-making process. Last year, SEIU spent $3.6 million fighting former Gov. David Paterson’s proposed health care cuts.
Report author Bill Mahoney said lobbying to support rather than oppose the budget is “the most drastic change from every other year in the last decade, at least.” He noted last year’s top lobbying spender, the American Beverage Association, ponied up $12.9 million to oppose Paterson’s proposed soda tax.
“Cuomo is clearly skilled at getting a lot of these interest groups on the same page … and making sure they were willing to speak up about it,” Mahoney said.
Wal-Mart, fighting to open stores in New York City against small retail and union opposition, was fourth this year at nearly $2.7 million, well above the $113,432 it spent in all of 2010, the report found.
Meantime supporters of Cuomo’s successful push to legalize gay marriage outspent opponents better than 2-1 ($2.8 million to $1.1 million).
Five House members spent about $125,000 combined presumably to protect their districts in the upcoming reapportionment, in which national population shifts will eliminate two of New York’s 29 congressional seats. A sixth member signed a $5,000-per-month lobbying contract Nov. 1.
Brookfield Financial Properties LP, owners of the site of the Occupy Wall Street protest, Zuccotti Park, was 41st at $371,477. That was up slightly from $362,496 last year, but Brookfield did not identify legislation on which it lobbied.
The New York State United Teachers Union was third at $4.1 million after spending nearly $4.8 million in 2010.
Mahoney said much of lobbying spending goes toward buying commercials.
“TV time is expensive,” he said.