Education lobbyists’ backers stay in the shadows
ALBANY – Three groups pushing education reforms that spent heavily lobbying state government this year funded at least a portion of their efforts though donations whose original sources are essentially untraceable.
Those question marks remain despite a 2011 ethics reform law meant to illuminate the sources of funding behind major lobbying efforts. Gaps in the law, however, appear to have allowed deep-pocketed groups or donors seeking anonymity to work around the requirements.
StudentsFirstNY Advocacy, the Coalition for Opportunity in Education, and Families for Excellent Schools spent more than $8.3 million during the 2015 legislative session lobbying state government to promote charter schools and other issues, according to recent lobbying disclosure filings. The three nonprofits allied themselves with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in an ultimately unsuccessful push for the Education Investment Tax Credit, which would have incentivized donations to educational efforts, both public and private.
The original donors behind more than $3.4 million of the spending remain murky in the groups’ biannual filings. In one instance, StudentsFirstNY Advocacy received a $1 million donation from a heavily overlapping but technically separate group run out of the same office, obscuring the original sources of the seven- figure gift.
Billy Easton, executive director of the union-backed group the Alliance for Quality Education – which does disclose its donors under the 2011 law – called the groups’ methods part of their effort to “not let New Yorkers know who is trying to control the politics of the state.”
Charter supporters have poured money into Albany lobbying efforts in an effort to counter heavy lobbying spending by teachers unions.
A group backed by union interests, dubbed Hedge Clippers, has in recent months held large protests at the residences of major charter school financial supporters. Those supporters’ identities are known in part because their names have surfaced in the past in public disclosure filings, and some surely would prefer to escape such treatment.
The 2011 state ethics reform law came amid criticism of a nonprofit that spent millions supporting Cuomo’s early agenda but didn’t have to disclose its financial backers. The reform – passed with Cuomo’s support – requires issue-oriented nonprofits, designated as 501(c)4 groups, spending more than $50,000 in a year on lobbying to disclose donations of more than $5,000.
The law took effect in 2013. Loopholes quickly became apparent.
The most generous education reform spender so far this year is the Latham-based Coalition for Opportunity in Education, which spent $4.7 million in an unsuccessful push for the Cuomo-backed education tax credit. The names of most of the donors to the group were disclosed, but one of its largest gifts came from a shadowy source.
On May 8 – roughly six weeks before the end of the legislative session – the coalition received Education lobbyists’ backers stay in the shadows - City & Region - The Buffalo News: