How To View Lobbying Disclosure Reports on the Secretary of State’s Website

STEP 1: Go directly to:

www.secretary.state.nc.us/lobbyists/

OR go to the Secretary of State’s home page at:

http://www.sosnc.com

Scroll down and click on
Lobbyist Registration Section

STEP 2: In the left hand section, under “Lobbyist Registration,” choose “Search for a Lobbyist” or “Search for a Principal.” Principals are the lobbyists’ clients. You can also get a list of “Legislative Liaison” – staff members of state government agencies that lobby on behalf of their agency, but they don’t file disclosure reports under the current law.

STEP 3: Choose the two-year legislative session (TERM) of interest to you. Then type in just a key word in the name of the lobbyist or principal you want to research.

STEP 4: This will bring up options with that name. Choose the one you want and click.

STEP 5: After clicking on a specific name, you get options for terms, lobbyists, and principals. Click on the Yellow Icon that corresponds to the combination you want. (If you are on the screen for a lobbyist, you can click on a principal’s name in the list to look up other lobbyists for that principal and to look up the principal’s disclosure reports.) If there is no Yellow Icon, then no reports are available on-line. You’ll have to get them from the Secretary of State’s office.

STEP 6: The Yellow Icon takes you to a screen with options for disclosure reports. Under current law, there are 4 reports in the biennium term of the General Assembly, i.e., 2 reports per year. The lobbyist and the principal each file disclosure reports. One report is filed 60 days after the session ends for that year, and the other covers the rest of the year. There are also Registration and Authorization forms for each lobbyist and lobbyist’s principal, which give information about what general topics the lobbyist will work on, name and address of contact people, and date when lobbying begins. Click on the Icon for the report you want. These are all PDF files. Sometimes information on the lobbyist’s report is repeated on the principal’s report, so don’t double count these items. The compensation paid lobbyists is only on the principal’s report, at the very end.

For questions, call the Secretary of State at 919-807-2000 and ask for the Lobbyist
Registration Section or call direct, 919-807-2268. Prepared December 2005