Legislation aims to bring more transparency to NJ lobbying laws

One of the leaders of New Jersey’s legislature wants to make some changes in the state’s lobbying laws

 

Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg said one of the measures she’s sponsored would require state agencies to justify why they have lobbyists.

“I don’t think that public agencies in state government need private lobbyists. They have the administration to call on to articulate whatever their issues,” she said Friday. “They have the whole legislature to call on if they need legislative amendments or anything of that sort.”

A second bill Weinberg proposed would ban lawyers and law firms seeking to influence a state agency from being employed there or holding a contract with it.

That, she said, would increase government accountability and prevent the waste of taxpayers money.

The Senate’s state government committee has advanced the legislation. The Assembly has not yet considered it.