Comeon Man!

This one speaks for itself

http://www.gothamgazette.com/blogs/wonkster/2011/11/03/commissioner-now-says-he-is-a-commisisoner/

As I've said before I know and respect Richard Emery but the more he tries to explain this the more I am reminded of the adage that a lawyer that represents himself has a fool for a client.

Because Richard is clearly a democrat and I don't want Blasto to call me a partisan again I'm going to offer Richard some free advice.

If you don't want to resign (and I can't imagine why you would want to remain on PIC) you need to amend the registration so only the law partner that is actually lobbying is registered.  Amend your bimonthly filing to accurately reflect the compensation the partner that made the phone call (lobbied) received for that phone call.  Amend your expenses to remove the compensation of non-lobbying support staff (there is an opinion from the 80's that explaines this).  Then request the withdrawl of the registration since you have not exceeded the $5000 threshold.  Problem solved.

Now demand that Barry explain publicly why the registration was withheld from public view for three months.  If I had to guess knowing how the workflow is done at the commission I would say that program staff sent the registration to Ralph Miccio (attorney since fired) to approve the fact that all the partners were listed on the authorization but not listed as additional lobbyists.  If you never heard from Ralph it sat on his desk (known as the black hole of Miccio) until someone went looking for it.  All of this was avoidable if just Barry Ginsberg knew what was going on in his commission and had one competent staff member with the authority to tell him to get his head out of his ass.  As an aside when I was Ralph's boss we never allowed him to have original documents.

As to your refusal to tell the media who the other commissioners are that belong to lobbying firms take a step back and think about that.  As a commissioner you should think of yourself as a mandated reporter of that activity, but thats your call I already know who they are and have blogged about it previously.