How will Agata get out of this mess?

The mess I'm referring to is the year long waste of time and resources otherwise known as the proposed comprehensive lobby regulations aka the we never bothered to check to see if we had the authority to issue lobby regulations so lets call them guidance now that Grandeau made us look foolish again.

Various JJOKE commissioners who have extensive experience with the legislature and regulations have been asking some difficult questions since Monday.  Questions like which staff member (Martin or Monica) will take the blame for this glaring legal mistake?  Or what can we do to salvage this PR disaster?  Or when will Agata get back from vacation and fall on his sword and resign?  Some are even trying to follow the Agata company spin and are telling people and the media it's all just a big communications mistake these were never meant as real regulations only "guidance regulations". 

Will the commissioners with reputations in government service go along with Agata's big lie?  Yates, Weismann, Levine and Dearing know you need legislative authority as an agency to issue formal regulations.  How foolish are they willing to look saying these were never really regulations?  Just take a look at all the material JJOKE has published calling them regulations . . . for Gods sake you published them in the state register under title 19 as

"Title 19 NYCRR Part 943 is added to read as follows:


OFFICIAL COMPILATION OF CODES, RULES AND REGULATIONS OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK

TITLE 19. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

CHAPTER XX. JOINT COMMISSION ON PUBLIC ETHICS
PART 943: LOBBYING"


And yes I've printed all the proof to use in my Article 78 proceeding.

Here is a suggestion that JJOKE staff can do the exact opposite of since we all know if I say black they will say white.

Next meeting put out amended regulations oops guidance for further comment.  Title the document "guidance" and hope everyone forgets you spent a year doing regulations you were never authorized to issue.  Pass the source of funding regulations and when asked act like those were the only regulations you were working on.  Hold a vote on the guidance next year and I will not have standing to bring an Article 78.

Given enough time you can use the strategy of calling them best in the nation guidance.

Except those of us that know about these things will always know Agata stepped on his dick but so did all the experts that submitted comments that failed to note the lack of authority to issue lobby regulations.

Is it any wonder why I keep adding clients?   JJOKE making Grandeau richer every time they screw up.
  

How many JJOKE lawyers does it take to screw up regulations?

ALL OF THEM

Read todays story by Chriss Bragg in the Times Union http://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Long-discussed-lobbying-rules-now-only-advisory-12327130.php

JJOKE has been touting all the work they have put in on these "regulations" for well over a year and they just now decide that they really aren't enforceable regulations they are just guidance regulations.  TOO FUNNY what exactly is a guidance regulation?

It's the best Seth Agata could come up with after I again alerted them that JCOPE did not have statutory authority to issue regulations.

How is it possible with all those genius lawyers at JJOKE that none of them bothered to check if they had statutory authority to issue lobby regulations?

INCOMPETANCE  plain and simple.  Think about all the lawyers that now look like incompetent fools:

Seth Agata
Martin Levine
Monica Stamm
another dozen or so JCOPE staff lawyers whose names I don't remember but I'm sure all wrote chapters for Agata's book Lobbying Compliance for Dummies or was that Lobbying Compliance by Dummies?

Well over a million dollars a year in staff salaries wasted on proposed comprehensive lobby regulations that they now can't issue as regulations but will have to call guidance.

And JJOKE was not alone think of all the lawyers and groups that submitted comments and never bothered to verify that JJOKE had the authority to issue these lobby regulations.  Lobby compliance firms and good government groups alike missed this basic legal point - should they really be the ones anyone relies on for compliance advice?

But they are welcome to join me in the Article 78 if Agata and JJOKE insist on issuing regulations.

And right now Agata and the JJOKE commissioners are pulling their hair out they know I am legally correct that they lack authority to issue lobby regulations but they would rather slam their collective dicks in a car door than publicly admit that.  They need to buy time, delay postpone and hope they can convince the legislature to pass yet another best in the nation lobby reform that grants them the authority to issue these regulations.

Now if I was a lobbyist, and I'm not or if I was a PR firm I would do all I could to insure that doesn't happen.  wait a minute did I just engage in grassroots lobbying under the new regulations?  Do I have to register?  Or because they are not enforceable regulations but merely guidance am I in the clear.

Lets make it easy for JJOKE   I make way more that $5000 for advocating against your regulations, I'm not registered as a lobbyist please please please bring an enforcement action against me for failure to register as a lobbyist and lets let a court decide.

And one last thing what did Agata do after creating this cluster fuck?

From: "Agata, Seth (JCOPE)" [Add to Address Book]

To: "Grandeau@ix.netcom.com"

Subject: Automatic reply: JJOKE regulations .... excuse me "guidance"

Date: Nov 3, 2017 10:08 AM

I will be out of the office beginning Thrusday, November 2d and returning to work on Monday, November 13th.

Even Nero hung around while Rome burned.