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A new City Council bill would temporarily bar political fundraisers and campaign consultants from lobbying the people they helped elect — a policy that, if enacted, would likely affect members of Mayor Eric Adams’ inner circle.
The bill, introduced Thursday by lawmakers Lincoln Restler of Brooklyn and Gale Brewer of Manhattan, would apply a one-year lobbying ban on former campaign staffers who seek to influence their former bosses. As the Daily News first reported, those affected by the restriction would likely include Vito Pitta, the compliance attorney for Mayor Adams’ 2021 and 2025 campaigns who has since lobbied the administration on a range of issues; and Brianna Suggs, Adams’ onetime fundraiser who later started her own lobbying firm.
Restler, in a Thursday press conference, said the bill would address “a longstanding issue” that had drawn scrutiny years before Adams took office.
“It’s an area where people are trading in their influence inappropriately,” Restler said. Still, he did not deny the implications for Adams’ City Hall.
“It continues to be something that we read all about in the newspaper with regard to consultants for the mayor and others,” Restler said.
Restler is also the main backer of two other bills, first introduced last year, which would impose two-year lobbying bans on former elected officials and former “high-level employees” of the mayor’s office, City Council and Law Department. That legislation, set to face its first hearing next week, has an obvious bearing on Frank Carone, Adams’ former chief of staff who founded his own lobbying firm after departing City Hall in 2022.
One lobbyist reached for comment Friday said this week’s bill would not have any dramatic impact on the city’s $130 million-a-year lobbying industry, since many top lobbying firms do not work directly on political campaigns.
“Kasirer, Capalino — for the most part, they’re not doing political work,” the lobbyist said. “It’s fairly inconsequential.”
Also, the bill would not address other ways in which campaign work can evolve into City Hall influence. The lobbyist noted that the bill would not touch labor unions, which exert significant sway on campaigns by deploying volunteers and spending money on advertisements — support that they can leverage once their preferred candidates are elected.
Pitta, Adams’ campaign attorney, leads the government relations firm Pitta Bishop & Del Giorno. The firm has reported lobbying city officials this year on behalf of more than a dozen different clients, including developer Hillel Shohet in his effort to build a new hotel in Midtown Manhattan.
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Nick Garber , 2024-04-12 18:31:15
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