People trying to influence city government spent $138 million on those efforts in 2024, according to data released this week — an all-time high, fueled in part by deep-pocketed developers seeking lucrative casino licenses.
Clients paid lobbyists a total of $138,387,171 last year, the highest number ever recorded, and an increase of more than $7 million compared to 2023. The figures were disclosed in the annual lobbying report published March 1 by the City Clerk’s office.
All over the list is billionaire New York Mets owner Steve Cohen, who is mounting a huge lobbying campaign for his proposed casino next to Citi Field. Cohen, who needs to secure special city and state approvals to build on what is technically parkland, was the city’s top-spending client last year through an LLC known as Queens Future, which paid out $1.4 million to lobbyists.
Queens Future gave that money to 14 different firms on its payroll — the biggest number of lobbyists retained by any one client. Cohen’s team paid the heftiest fees to Tusk Strategies and lobbyist Marcos Crespo. (New Green Willets, a separate LLC also associated with Cohen’s casino proposal, was the eighth-ranked client spender, at $508,000.)
Cohen’s team reported lobbying dozens of city officials, including executives in the Economic Development Corp., Parks Department and the mayor’s office, according to public records. Those efforts appear likely to pay off: a City Council committee on Thursday will hold a hearing to advance the land-use changes Cohen needs to have a shot at a casino license, which have faced little opposition at the local level. (Cohen has had a harder time getting the same permission at the state level, as state Sen. Jessica Ramos refuses to introduce a bill to permit so-called parkland alienation.)
Six out of the 10 top-spending clients were casino hopefuls. Genting, the Malaysian conglomerate seeking to open a full-fledged casino at its existing Resorts World racetrack in Jamaica, Queens, ranked second; Bally’s was third as it pushes its Bronx proposal; the Soloviev Group, which envisions a casino on Manhattan’s East Side, ranked eighth; and Thor Equities, campaigning for a Coney Island complex, was ninth.
As for the lobbyists themselves, Kasirer led the pack as it has for years. The Suri Kasirer-led firm took in $17 million from 244 different clients — among them Northwell Health, Charter Communications and Brookfield Properties.
Bolton-St. Johns ranked second with $10.4 million in compensation, while Pitta Bishop & Del Giorno — a firm with connections to Mayor Eric Adams — ranked third with $6.8 million.
