Lobbying Registration Year Opened November 1, 2016
ANNAPOLIS, Md. – The State Ethics Commission administers a lobbying regulatory program including registration, disclosure, reporting and standards of conduct for executive, legislative, and grassroots lobbying. The lobbying registration year opens November 1 and ends October 31 the following year. A registration is only valid for a one-year period requiring a new registration for each year in which a person engages in activities requiring registration. Registration must occur within five days of engaging in such activities.
More than 3,000 lobbying registrations are filed each year identifying the name of the lobbyist, the employer, and the topics of the activity to be lobbied. The easiest way to file registrations and reports is through the Commission’s Lobbying Electronic Filing System.
The Maryland State Ethics Commission updated its Electronic Lobbying Reporting system to enable the Ethics Commission to accept electronic payments. This service integrates the Ethics Commission’s Electronic Lobbying Reporting system with a web-based and mobile-ready electronic payment processing service that allows users to pay for annual registration with a credit or debit card.
The service is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and accepts all major credit or debit cards. Lobbyists needing to renew their registration can access the Electronic Lobbying Reporting system through the Commission’s official website, https://lobby.ethics.state.md.us/.
Lobbyists can complete the entire registration process online. If electronic payment is elected to pay the $100 registration fee, the registration will be activated promptly following verification by the State Ethics Commission without requiring the submission of documentation.
A registrant may terminate his or her status as a regulated lobbyist by:
- Ceasing any activity that requires registration
- Filing a notice of termination with the Commission (no special form for this purpose)
- Filing the required activity report(s) within 30 days after filing the notice of termination
Individual counties, school boards, and municipalities may have their own lobbying regulations. The specific requirements of each jurisdiction may vary. Each jurisdiction should be contacted directly to determine the nature and extent of local requirements.
About NIC Maryland
NIC Maryland builds, operates, maintains, and markets the official website of the state of Maryland, www.maryland.gov and its digital government services. NIC Maryland is a collaborative public/private partnership managed by the Department of Information Technology (DoIT) and NIC Maryland. NIC Maryland helps Maryland state and local government entities web-enable their services and operates without tax funds through a self-funded digital government services contract. NIC Maryland has developed dozens of eGov products and services for the state of Maryland since the contract was awarded in August 2011.
About NIC
Founded in 1992, NIC (NASDAQ: EGOV) is the nation's leading provider of innovative digital government solutions and secure payment processing, which help make government more accessible to everyone through technology. The family of NIC companies provides digital government solutions for more than 4,500 federal, state, and local agencies in the United States. Forbes has named NIC as one of the “100 Best Small Companies in America” six times and the company has been included four times on the Barron’s 400 Index. Additional information is available at http://www.egov.com.