Two rail companies see a lobbying loophole and aim for it
(The following article by Danny Hakim was posted on the New York Times website on February 10.)
ALBANY, N.Y. – Some loopholes are big enough to drive a train through. A private train, loaded with 155 state legislators, their spouses and their staffers, as well as officials from six state agencies.
Welcome to the gravy train, Albany style.
This week, the state’s Lobbying Commission disclosed that two rail companies, Canadian Pacific Railway, based in Calgary, and the New York Susquehanna & Western Railway, based in Cooperstown, had applied to take members of 17 different legislative committees and six state agencies, along with their families and staffs, by private train from Saratoga Springs, N.Y., to Montreal, and to provide breakfast and lunch along the way, as well as dinner in the Canadian city.
The disclosure that the rail companies are aiming to pay for face time with most of the New York State Legislature could not come at a more awkward time, just as the political world is buzzing over the widening scandal surrounding the disgraced Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
It also comes as the Lobbying Commission’s administrative staff has imposed a $75 a year gift limit, instead of allowing lobbyists to give legislators as many gifts worth $74.99 or less as they pleased. But the railway companies are revealing one of the many loopholes in the ban: if public officials are attending some kind of informational session as part of a paid trip, it does not count as a gift, and the railroads have set up just such sessions.
As a result, the state’s Ethics Commission, which oversees the executive branch, has approved the trip. At a Wednesday meeting of the state Lobbying Commission, which oversees lobbyists and their clients, the executive director, David M. Grandeau, called it “the kind of loophole that allows the Jack Abramoffs of the world to operate.”
But the