Bill > A337

Introduced Session

Under current law, a "governmental affairs agent" is a person who receives or agrees to receive compensation in money or anything of value, including certain reimbursements, to influence legislation, regulation, or governmental processes, by communicating with or making expenditures providing a benefit to, a member of the Legislature, legislative staff, the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, the Governor's staff, or any officer or staff member of the Executive Branch, or who holds himself or herself out as engaging in that business, unless the communication is "isolated, exceptional, or infrequent." Certain communications with the general public are also considered governmental affairs agent activities. However, by regulation of the Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC), a communication is "isolated, exceptional, or infrequent" if it constitutes 20 hours or less of a person's usual work duties. In those cases, that person is not considered a governmental affairs agent. This bill would lower this time threshold to one hour or less, thereby classifying persons as governmental affairs agents subject to the disclosure and reporting requirements under current law when they perform their activities for more than one hour in a calendar year.

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Ryan Peters (R)*,  Bob Auth (R), 

Introduced, Referred to Assembly State and Local Government Committee (on 01/14/2020)