Complaint asks JCOPE to probe City Councilwoman Chin’s member item

The state’s former top lobbying regulator filed a complaint Monday urging the Joint Commission on Public Ethics to investigate whether discretionary funding New York City Councilwoman Margaret Chin directed to a nonprofit wound up being used to promote her legislation without complying with lobbying disclosure laws.

David Grandeau, who worked as executive director of the Temporary State Commission on Lobbying before the regulatory body was succeeded by JCOPE, said he felt compelled to call for an investigation into Chin and the Citizens Committee for New York City, Inc., a nonprofit that describes itself as a “micro-funding” organization that raises money and awards it to projects that benefit New Yorkers.

“I’ve practiced quite a bit in this area, and this is the first time that I’ve ever seen an elected official use city or state funds to support their own lobbying on a bill, and I thought it was a unique circumstance that JCOPE should investigate,” Grandeau said.

He declined to comment further on the complaint.

During both of the past two budget cycles, Chin directed $5,000 in discretionary funding to the Citizens Committee for New York City “to provide for reusable bag giveaways and outreach events about the environmental impacts of single-use carryout bags,” according to city budget documents.

The complaint contends Citizens Committee’s publishing of advertisements, op-eds, letters to the editor and website content constitutes lobbying because it promoted the plastic bag legislation, which would impose a 10-cent fee on plastic or paper bags at retail and grocery stores in an attempt to discourage the use of non-reusable carryout bags. The legislation, which Chin is co-sponsoring, has been described as a way to cut down on the $12.5 million the city spends annually disposing of plastic bags, but opponents of the measure have said it would amount to a regressive tax on low-income and minority communities.

Additionally, the complaint said the Citizens Committee engaged in lobbying when it accepted the discretionary funding grants and used “said delivery device (reusable bags imprinted with a grassroots lobbying message) to further the client’s grassroots lobbying message….”

The Post previously reported that the bags in question were paired with fliers suggesting that recipients “call or email your Council member” about the legislation.

Since the $5,000 grants meet the threshold at which lobbying activity must be reported to JCOPE, the complaint contends the Citizens Committee should have filed paperwork with the regulatory body disclosing Chin as its client and listing activities it undertook on her behalf.

The committee is registered with JCOPE to conduct in-house lobbying, which according to its 2015-16 disclosure documents included lobbying the state Legislature and New York City Council on member item funding, or individual lawmakers’ discretionary funding, and on a plastic bag bill. The Citizens Committee also reported “in-house expenses” used multiple times to host “a bag giveaway to educate people not to use plastic bags.”

A spokesman for the Citizens Committee said the member item referenced in the lobbying forms was not related to the discretionary funding it received from Chin. New York City budget documents show the Citizens Committee has received discretionary funding from several members of the Council. The organization declined to comment further.

The complaint also alleges that the purpose of the discretionary funding, as described in budget documents, amounted to lobbying, and therefore Chin should have been compelled to file a report with JCOPE detailing the Citizens Committee’s activities.

Chin spokesman Paul Leonard told City & State the councilwoman did not know fliers handed out with the bags existed, and thus there “couldn’t have been any coordination between our office and the Citizens Committee.”

He was previously quoted saying the allegations amounted to an attack from those with an anti-environmental agenda.

“This is a ridiculous, politically motivated attack by those with an anti-environmental regulation agenda on legitimate Council funding to increase the use of reusable bags, and reduce the amount of single-use bags clogging our City’s waste stream,” he told the Post.

You can read the complaint below: 

JCOPE Complaint - Citizens Committee and City Councilperson Margaret Chin by City & State NY