Assembly Bill 09006C was signed by New York Gov. Hochul and replaces the Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE) with a new Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government effective July 8.

The substantive law enforced by the ethics body was not altered, and all lobbyist reporting and disclosure requirements will remain the same.

The agency’s overhaul is designed to increase greater transparency.

While members of the ethics agency will still be appointed by the governor and legislative leaders, deans at the state’s law schools will comprise an independent review committee charged with approving appointees to the new commission.

Individuals who were registered as lobbyists in the previous two years are prohibited from serving on the commission.

The New York Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE) announced it expects the online filing system to be back online by March 11.

JCOPE’s online system has been down since February 21 following a malicious cyberattack.

All filings due during the outage will be granted an automatic 21-day extension and the March 15 lobbying bi-monthly report deadline is extended to March 31.

JCOPE will distribute additional guidance to lobbying filers before the system is back online.

A malicious cyberattack targeted the New York Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE) last week, resulting in an outage of the Lobbying Application, the online filing portal for lobbyists.

The online system will remain down until JCOPE is confident it can be restored safely.

Extensions will automatically be granted for any filings that were due and could not be submitted due to the outage.

During the 2022 State of the State speech, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a plan to replace the Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE) with an independent watchdog agency prioritizing transparency.

While JCOPE members are appointed by elected officials, the new agency would have a rotating board of five members made up of the 15 state-accredited law school deans or their designees.

These members will be prohibited from communicating with outside parties regarding any potential or ongoing investigations.

Unlike JCOPE, the new agency would be subject to the Freedom of Information Law and the Open Meetings Law.

The New York Joint Commission on Public Ethics appointed Sanford Berland as the new executive director.

Berland previously served as state judge in both the Court of Claims and Supreme Court of New York.

Before his appointment, the position had been vacant for two years.

Berland becomes the fourth executive director in the ethics agency’s history.

The Joint Commission on Public Ethics opened the online Lobbying Application for the submission of bimonthly reports and posted updated PDF forms.

Additional time has been provided to file bimonthly reports covering the January 1 to February 28 reporting period.

These reports will be considered timely if submitted by March 22, 2021.

JCOPE recommends users review statement of registrations before filing the bimonthly reports.

In certain cases, information not previously reported in a registration cannot be added directly to the report and requires an amended registration or updated organization profile.

Resources to help navigate the Lobbying Application can be found at https://jcope.ny.gov/2021-22-lobbying-biennial-period-information.

For any questions or technical assistance, please contact the JCOPE Helpdesk at helpdesk@jcope.ny.gov or by phone at 518-474-3973.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo appointed attorney Camille Joseph Varlack as the new chair of the Joint Commission on Public Ethics.

The appointment comes after the former chairman, Michael Rozen, resigned on February 10.

Ms. Varlack is a partner at the Manhattan law firm Bradford, Edwards, & Varlack, and previously served in Gov. Cuomo’s administration as an aide, deputy director of state operations, chief risk officer, and special counsel.

The appointment of Ms. Varlack takes effect immediately.

On February 24, the New York Joint Commission on Public Ethics plans to open the online Lobbying Application.

Additionally, the commission will post updated paper forms for the submission of bimonthly reports.

The writable PDF forms will be available to paper filers on the JCOPE website.

Due to changes in the lobbying regulations and to the online filing system, JCOPE is also allowing additional time to file bimonthly reports due in March.

Bimonthly reports covering the January 1 to February 28 reporting period will be considered timely if submitted by March 22.

The online system was also updated to improve functionality, transparency, and the filing process.

Changes made include removing the auto-population of lobbying activities reported on a registration to the filer’s bimonthly report; allowing filers to add additional information to an existing party name; adding a comprehensive drop-down menu of itemized expenses; an updated parties lobbied database; and also adding an expense chart for reporting coalition contributions by members of unstructured coalitions.

The Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE) announced additional time to file registrations and reports due in January 2021.

Any filing due in January will be considered timely filed if submitted by January 29, 2021.

The extension is in response to the breadth of changes to the lobbying regulations taking effect January 1, 2021, and the corresponding changes to the online filing system.

Additional guidance relating to upcoming registrations and verification of user profiles is expected soon.

The 2021-2022 Statement of Registration is expected to launch on December 16, 2020.

The Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE) published the second draft of proposed revisions to state lobbying regulations.

JCOPE adopted the revisions on an emergency basis and submitted Notices of Emergency Adoption for each.

The revisions will be effective January 1, 2021; cover lobbying activity in the 2021-22 biennial lobbying period; and be applicable to registrations, bi-monthly reports due March 15, 2021, and client semi-annual reports due July 15, 2021.

Key revisions include changes to the definition of designated lobbyist, direct lobbying activities by volunteers, grassroots lobbying, coalitions, and prohibitions relating to the receipt of stock options as compensation.

Revisions to the source of funding regulations address segregated funds for out-of-state activities and reporting of anonymous contributions.

JCOPE is requesting comments on the revised regulations as soon as possible.

The 45-day comment period runs until December 28, 2020.

On October 1, the Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE) announced the final draft of Advisory Opinion 20-02, providing guidance to identify the permissibility of a gift to a third party at the direction of or on behalf of a public official.

Statutes and regulations presumptively prohibit a gift to a public official from an interested source or gifts to a third party solicited by a public official or an intermediary.

Advisory Opinion 20-02 allows the presumption of impermissibility to be overcome by taking into account specific situations including: the nature or purpose of the gift; nature of the donor’s pending business with the official; and prior history of gifts to the cause or third-party organization.

JCOPE will determine whether a gift violates the law or overcomes the presumption on a case-by-case basis.

The New York Joint Commission on Public Ethics introduced a new feature on the state Lobbying Application.

Their aim is to minimize the risk of duplicate profiles and improve functionality.

Additionally, this feature allows creating or claiming an organization profile (lobbyist, client, public corporation, or coalition).

In turn, this allows information to prepopulate a client’s semiannual report, provide more transparency, increase reliability, and reduce filing delays.

JCOPE also announced the mechanism to assign an individual as a Chief Administrative Officer and Delegated Administrator has changed.

To authorize an individual for either of these specific roles, the individual’s user identification number must be provided.

The ability to assign an individual as the CAO or the DA merely by entering their first and last name in a search field has been eliminated.

Any questions about navigating the Lobbying Application may be directed to the JCOPE Lobbying Helpdesk at (518) 474-3973 or by emailing helpdesk@jcope.ny.gov.

The Joint Commission on Public Ethics announced the suspension of the Lobbying Random Audit Program to avoid unnecessary administrative burden during the COVID-19 emergency.

Effective immediately, no new audits will be initiated by JCOPE until further notice.

Complying with ongoing audits is voluntary until the commission resumes the audit program.

Any questions regarding this policy should be emailed to helpdesk@jcope.ny.gov, with ‘Audit’ in the subject line.

Due to the COVID-19 emergency, the Joint Commission on Public Ethics announced a deadline extension for all lobbying filings until April 15.

The extension includes bimonthly reports covering activity for the reporting period of January to February 2020.

JCOPE also announced temporary procedures regarding hand delivery of report filings and checks.

Until further notice, visitors are not allowed into the JCOPE offices. Beginning April 15, JCOPE will accept hand delivery of lobbying filings.

However, the commission is not accepting hand delivery of checks until further notice.

Instead, any checks should be submitted either by mail or by submitting the filing through the online Lobbying Application using a credit card to pay the submission fee.

If neither option is possible, JCOPE asks filers to hold all checks for hand delivery until further notice.