Who pays to lobby in Trenton.
Registered lobbyists, the clients they represent and what those clients reported spending on lobbying in 2025, from New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission records.
registered lobbyists
ELEC's stated number of lobbyists for 2025, up from 908, in its May 4, 2026 release. Not recomputed: ELEC's agent directory could not be opened (see gaps). ELEC's 2025 annual report separately gives an average of 906 lobbyists, a different measure it does not define further.
clients (lobbyist employers)
ELEC's stated number of represented entities for 2025, in the same release. Not recomputed, for the same reason. It is far more than the 920 clients with their own annual filing below; ELEC's records opened here do not explain the difference.
| New Jersey Realtors ELEC adds two filers here: NJ Realtors ($453,391.30) and its Issues Mobilization Fund ($977,800.00, all communications). ELEC's release prints the sum as $1,431,191. | $1,431,191.30 |
| Engineers Labor Employer Cooperative 825 | $1,152,468.25 |
| Public Service Enterprise Group | $853,508.24 |
| Chemistry Council of NJ (includes State Street Associates) ELEC adds two filers here: Chemistry Council of NJ ($269,992.36) and State Street Associates ($493,584.67). ELEC's release prints the sum as $763,577. | $763,577.03 |
| NJ Coalition of Automotive Retailers Inc (NJ CAR) | $672,917.00 |
| Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of NJ | $604,794.00 |
| NJ Business & Industry Association | $505,718.49 |
| National Association of Realtors ELEC's footnote says this whole amount went to the Issues Mobilization Fund, which reported $500,000.00 in receipts. It overlaps the first row, so the two rows should not be added. | $500,000.00 |
| College Achieve Public Schools Inc | $495,000.00 |
| Comcast Corporation | $488,552.00 |
| Verizon | $469,261.28 |
| South Jersey Industries | $438,934.89 |
| Sayreville Seaport Associates Urban Renewal LP | $438,471.00 |
| Hackensack Meridian Health | $435,181.21 |
| Associated Builders & Contractors of NJ | $414,000.00 |
| Prudential Financial, Inc. | $412,342.00 |
| Health Care Association of NJ | $409,323.94 |
| Plymouth Rock Management Company of New Jersey | $396,210.00 |
| Atlantic City Electric | $392,879.52 |
| Labor Industry Cooperative Fund | $386,937.21 |
| RWJBarnabas Health | $386,604.23 |
| Uber Technologies Inc | $366,194.07 |
| AARP NJ | $363,278.95 |
| Inspira Health | $361,081.28 |
| NJ American Water | $356,200.00 |
Total expenditures each group reported on its annual lobbying report to the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission for calendar 2025, as listed by ELEC with reports received by 5:00 p.m. on March 24, 2026. The total takes in in-house salaries, payments to outside lobbying firms, support staff, assessments and dues, communications, travel and lodging, and benefit passing (meals, entertainment, gifts, travel and lodging given to officials). It is spending, not lobbyists' pay: what firms took in is a separate measure, kept out of this table. It is not campaign giving. The first ten rows are ELEC's own top ten, which it prints in whole dollars; cents come from ELEC's filer list. Rows 11-25 are the next filers on that list, each on its own. Rows are not to be added: two of them overlap.
Sources: ELEC, 2025 annual reports: summary of expenditures by category; ELEC, 2025 annual reports: expenditures ranking; ELEC, 2025 annual reports: receipts ranking; ELEC news release on 2025 lobbying, May 4, 2026; ELEC, 2025 Annual Report, April 2026; ELEC, 2025 annual report quick facts; ELEC, Lobbying Overview, May 2024.
How to read this
New Jersey calls a lobbyist a governmental affairs agent and a client a represented entity. An agent registers with ELEC before lobbying or within 30 days of being hired, whichever comes first, and files a report of activity each quarter. Money appears once a year: any agent, client or grassroots group that takes in or spends more than $2,500 in a calendar year files an annual report, due Feb. 17, 2026 for 2025. Firms file Form L1-A, clients L1-L, groups that only reach the public L1-G, and a client whose whole spending was a firm's fee can file an L-2 naming that fee. ELEC's statewide total for 2025 is $110,560,405.02, which adds every filer's report as filed and does not net anything out. A client's fee to a firm and the firm's cost of paying its own staff can both be in it, and so can the National Association of Realtors' $500,000.00 passed to a fund and that fund's own spending. What firms took in is a separate figure: Princeton Public Affairs Group Inc reported the most receipts of any firm, $10,828,371.00, and $4,782,180.20 in its own expenditures. Registering and spending on lobbying are lawful and public; these records do not show that any official acted because of it.
What is not here yet
- ELEC's web pages, including its annual lobbying page, its quarterly summaries page and its home page, answered with a bot check that turned away our requests on Nov. 5, 2026. We did not try to get around it. Its PDF files opened normally when pulled, so this page rests on those. An independent check the same day recounted from the saved copies and did not reopen these files live, after ELEC's bot check turned away a request for its campaign finance PDFs (HTTP 403). Replies saved as raw/blocked-reply-*.html.
- No current directory of agents and represented entities was pulled, so there is no list of 2026 registrations, and the 947 and 2,771 counts are ELEC's stated figures, not recomputed. Not yet checked: whether ELEC publishes the directory as a file; its search forms sit behind the same bot check.
- ELEC's press releases page was read with a fetch tool, not saved. The same tool did not return its annual lobbying page or quarterly summaries page, so other files listed there are not yet checked.
- 2026 money is not available: annual reports for 2026 are due in February 2027. Quarterly activity reports for 2025 and 2026, and quarterly summaries after 2015, are not yet checked; ELEC's addresses we tried for late 2025 and 2026 summaries returned 404.
- The lists show reports received by 5:00 p.m. on March 24, 2026. Reports filed or amended later are not included; ELEC's release says earlier totals can change for that reason.
- Individual annual reports were not opened, so client-by-client payments to each firm, and which bills each spender worked on, are not yet checked. Amounts come from ELEC's lists.
- ELEC's release gives two figures for Engineers Labor Employer Cooperative 825 in 2024: $883,169 in Table 3 and $833,169 in Table 4. ELEC's 2024 filer list shows $833,169.08. Only 2025 figures are used here. Its top-ten total ($7,467,726) is also $1 more than its printed rows add to; we do not use that total.
- ELEC's sector tables add fees that are not on the summary list and cover 1,633 entities; they are not used here. Its counts of contacts on bills are not used either.
- Beyond the two combinations ELEC itself makes, filers are not grouped, so related companies or funds may appear on separate rows, and rows 11-25 have not been checked for that.
Gaps in the lobbying records as of the date checked.