NEW JERSEY
The Star-Ledger
By The Auditor/The Star-Ledger
The New Jersey Catholic Conference, the lobbying arm of the state’s bishops, is getting a little help from one of Trenton’s higher powers.
The bishops, who have been battling bills that would extend the statute of limitations on lawsuits for child sex-abuse cases and a measure that would establish a system for physician-assisted suicide, have hired the prominent State Street firm Princeton Public Affairs Group.
Dale Florio, the firm’s founder, is the consummate Trenton insider to whom, for example, the Orthodox rabbis in Lakewood turned when they wanted to get their yeshiva a chunk of the state’s higher education grants.
Patrick Brannigan, executive director of the Catholic Conference who is a registered lobbyist, said it was the first time the organization had hired an outside lobbyist in his seven years there, although he wasn’t sure if it had done so earlier.
Brannigan said the firm would be dedicated to all the group’s causes, not just opposing those two bills.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.