Dale Floriois the founder and managing partner of Princeton Public Affairs Group, Inc. (PPAG), the largest state lobbying firm in the country. Located across the street from the State House in Trenton, NJ, the firm employs 13 professional lobbyists, including a former state Senate president and the longest-serving speaker of the state General Assembly.

Florio has been named several times as one of the most influential people in the state by local magazines and news outlets. He has long been active in local politics: in 1979, when he was just 24, he was elected to the Borough Council in his hometown of Somerville, NJ. He later served 18 years as chairman of the Somerset County Republican Organization. He was appointed by Governor James Florio (no relation) to the New Jersey Building Authority, he was a member of Governor Christine Todd Whitman’s transition team, and he served on the Finance Committee for the election campaign of Governor Chris Christie.

Before founding PPAG in1987, Florio worked briefly as an administrative assistant in the General Assembly, and then in government affairs for the National Association of Manufacturers and for Philip Morris Companies Inc. He has a bachelor’s degree in economics from Allegheny College and a law degree from Seton Hall University Law School.

Beth Leech: You have a degree in economics and a law degree. What made you decide to become a lobbyist?

Dale Florio: I had two gentlemen in my life who had a huge influence. Onewas a state legislator at the time, Walter Kavanaugh. He was in the state assembly in New Jersey, from my hometown of Somerville. The other individual, Frank Torpey, was in public affairs for Johnson & Johnson, which has a significant footprint in the state. They were best friends. I was very active in athletics throughout my high school career, and they just took an interest in me. We went to the same church and they knew my parents, and so I would find myself in their company quite a bit.

Through Frank Torpey and Assemblyman Kavanaugh, I had a chance to observe the dynamics of elected politics and public affairs work. So, at the age of 24, at Kavanaugh’s urging, I ran for Somerville Borough Council and was elected. However, before my first term was over, I realized that being an elected official was really not what I wanted to be.

Leech: What didn’t you like about it?

Florio: At twenty-four, I was probably too young to be an elected official. I didn’t enjoy the scrutiny. I remember during the first or second year of my term, I had a New Year’s Eve party at my apartment, and the police came to the door and said that neighbors were complaining about the noise. And here I was an elected official in town—and it’s probably not the kind of notoriety that you want. I decided that the microscope placed on a public person was not for me. I just wanted my privacy. At twenty-four, I did not want everything I did to be measured in the context of being a public official.

Leech: Was being a council member your full-time job?

Florio: No. I was working for the National Association of Manufacturers [NAM], the largest industrial trade association in the country. In the third year of my three year term, I started working for Philip Morris USA in New York City, doing government relations for the company. I really liked government-relations politics more than my elected official role. In May of my third year on council, I was married. My wife, Leslie, was already living in New York City. So you can say I left elected politics for love when I moved in with her!

Leech: What did you do when you worked for the National Association of Manufacturers?

Florio: NAM had regional offices around the country. We were the grassroots arm of NAM. We kept New Jersey members aware of what was going in the nation’s capital on issues that affected manufacturers, arranged meetings with members of Congress, and encouraged companies to join NAM.

Leech: Then you went to work for Philip Morris and you were based in New York. What did you do in that job?

Florio: This job change was a pivotal experience for me. I was twenty-seven, and Philip Morris was just beginning to create a public affairs unit in the tobacco side of the company. The individual who recruited me and became my boss, Bernie Robinson, was just a master at the art of public affairs. I learned a lot from him. I traveled the country to different state capitals, getting to know state legislators and other contract lobbyists. I participated in all the national conferences, such as the National Governors Association and the National Conference of State Legislatures. During that time, I had a chance to see the country, visiting forty-five different state capitals.

Leech: What year was this?

Florio: I worked for Philip Morris from 1982 to 1987. I was there at a time when secondhand smoke first became an issue among public policy professionals, when it was first argued that that secondhand smoke could be harmful to nonsmokers. Up to that point, the basic argument about smoking in public places was: “If I choose to smoke, it should be up to me.” But now there was a new argument for the opposition, saying: “That’s fine if you smoke, but maybe your secondhand smoke affects me as a nonsmoker.” We also dealt with other issues, including taxes on cigarettes and tort reform issues. But during my time there, the debate about smoking in public really heated up.

Leech: How, as a lobbyist, do you deal with an issue like that—when a product is clearly bad for people?

Florio: Maybe it’s part of my upbringing, but I am definitely somebody who believes you should be able to make your own decisions on what is best for you. I never smoked cigarettes but my mother did. My father would smoke an occasional cigar. So I made a determination that I wasn’t going to be a smoker. Unless a product is outlawed, I have never liked the namby-pamby society of people telling me what to do. But it was tough because the secondhand smoke issue made it much more difficult.

Leech: My question, then, is how does one go about advocating to state legislators about an issue like that?

Florio: We basically said employers should make the determination about smoking in the workplace. We don’t need the state, or the city, or the county making those rules. People think of a restaurant as a public place, but it’s not a public place. It’s a place where the public’s invited. If you’re in the hospitality business, you will make decisions in the best interest of your business, whether that is smoke-free or smoking sections. Back in the eighties, we definitely were defending the freedom of the entity to make its own decision. The country went through a period of people always being asked, “Do you want smoking or nonsmoking?” sections in the restaurant, and “Do you want to sit in the back of the plane or the front of the plane?”

Leech: Yes, I remember that separation of smokers and nonsmokers.

Florio: We were behind all those arguments.

Leech: When you were working for Philip Morris, you were going from state capital to state capital. But when you arrived in a city, you wouldn’t necessarily know anybody, so how did you choose whom to approach?

Florio: What you’re touching on is a reason why I eventually migrated to what I’m doing today. You’re correct that when I went into Albany or some other state capital, I wouldn’t necessarily know anyone or at least the people that were making the decisions on my issues. What you do is hire the principal public affairs group of Albany to work with you. Or you might join a trade association to help you stay informed or introduce you to key decision makers. At the end of the day, however, you probably need to hire a local public affairs consultant. The tobacco industry was under constant attack, so we had lobbyists in every state, which made it an expensive operation. So part of my job was to manage the consultants in my states. I worked in conjunction with my local lobbyists and provided them with recommended white papers, suggested testimony and research.

I soon learned that the only way to earn more money in the company was to move up the corporate ladder, which had the opposite effect of taking me out of the field of statehouse politics which I enjoyed so much. I was now being placed in a position to manage the people that were having the direct contact with legislators and lobbyists.

I decided that, given my entrepreneurial spirit, maybe I could be a statehouse lobbyist in New Jersey. I was from New Jersey and knew a lot of people there, so a buddy of mine, Pete McDonough, and I started the Princeton Public Affairs Group in February of 1987. Philip Morris and Essex County were our first clients.

Leech: That’s interesting. Essex County obviously is a part of government itself, so why does it need a lobbyist?

Florio: I think people misunderstand why a public entity, or private entity for that matter, needs an advocate. County officials certainly know the state legislators from their area. But interactions with state legislative staff, and monitoring of legislative and agency processes need to be done on a daily basis. For example, the county needs to make sure that an appropriation that it wants for roads is included in a pending piece of legislation. Or it needs to keep track of where a roads project is in the approval process at the Department of Transportation. Somebody needs to keep an eye on all that and continue to push it along. Essex County could certainly assign somebody from the county to do that, but it’s what we do full-time.

Leech: It might cost them more to have a staff person do it.

Florio:It certainly could, but now New Jersey Governor Christie has discouraged the notion of public entities using lobbyists. It’s not a major part of our marketing efforts to have public entities as clients. The paperwork is often voluminous, and there are politics involved in getting hired or rehired. Essex County was one of our first clients because my original partner had just run the campaign of the county executive at the time, so there was an existing relationship.

Leech: Nowadays, I know you have a wide range of clients. But would you characterize your client base in any particular way?

Florio: No. Unlike federal lobbyists where you’ll have a firm that specializes in transportation or budget, at the state level, we tend to be generalists. Some of my partners are subject-matter experts and are known throughout the state for their expertise. Our client mix ranges from nonprofits to some of the largest corporations in the country, and from law enforcement unions to the building trades. If there’s a major legislative battle going on in New Jersey, we like to be in that fight no matter what side. It’s good for business. It shows that we have the people power to help any client make a difference.

Leech: Just a couple of weeks ago you were very busy because the New Jersey budget was just about to be approved—or maybe not. Could you walk me through what happens during a time like that?

Florio: The budget period is an odd time in any state capital. But this is the first time in over twenty-five years that we’ve had a governor of one party and a legislature of another, so it’s made for interesting budget discussions for the last three years.

The economy has been sluggish for the last five or six years, and, they’re not giving away money—and I’d put “giving away” in quotes—like they used to. It was easier pre-2008 to argue for a line item for a nonprofit or for a new program. Due to the economy, it is very difficult now, so prospective clients and existing clients don’t necessarily come running to ask, “Gee, is it possible to get $500,000 for the new Children’s Hospital?” The governor has put out a budget, and this year it’s $31 billion. The legislature is likely to work within that number and just end up moving money between and among line items. Increasingly clients are in the mode of just protecting what they have.

Leech: So how do you go about trying to preserve that?

Florio: The process starts in September or October before the governor makes his budget announcement the following February, because that’s when the executive branch starts to prepare its individual agency budgets. If there is a particular state program or line item that affects one of our clients, then we work with the relevant state agency to get a sense of how the agency feels about the program, and whether the agency had been using all the money in that line item. We want to find out if there are any red flags. If there are issues that the agency has with the program, we try to figure them out, so that the agency can recommend to the treasurer that the program continue at the present funded amount.

Leech: How do you go about doing that? Do you set up meetings with people in the agency, or are you talking to them informally?

Florio:We start with informal conversations. We have some clients who may want to have a meeting, but then there are other clients who prefer that you handle the matter. It’s a very informal process and requires a significant amount of intelligence gathering. If we can get a sense that things are going smoothly and absolutely the agency intends to recommend the same amount as last year, then usually the client will be fine. If we sense that there are issues, then we want to bring the client in and make sure that there’s not a misunderstanding or a reason why the administrators of the program are uncomfortable. In these difficult economic times, maintaining funding can be difficult even if the program is widely supported and running well.

Leech: So do you call over there or does one of your lobbyists on staff call over there? Are you walking through the building? Are you popping into people’s offices? How does the process work?

Florio: For the informal exchanges, it’s often a matter of just picking up the phone and reaching the appropriate staff person.

Leech: Because you know these people already.

Florio: Most of the time someone in our office is going to know who the decision-maker might be. There are two types of people in state government: there are individuals who have come in with the new administration, and there are government professionals who have been there through multiple administrations. They might be civil service, but they also may be people who’ve demonstrated a value to the agency. In our business we want to know both groups of professionals. Fortunately, we have a group of lobbyists at PPAG who have far-ranging networks throughout state government, which help us navigate to the right staff person. So, we’ll task the person who has the best relationship to check in with the appropriate person in that agency to find out: “What’s going on? Do we need to bring the client in? What’s the deal?” If it requires a meeting, fine, but it’s like geometry—what’s the shortest distance between two points? A straight line. But sometimes you have to be a little bit more strategic.

So there’s not a lot of magic to it. The magic that does exist is the relationship that you’ve developed over time and how you nurture that relationship. It makes a big difference that people in the agencies know that if a client is with me or anybody on our team, that they will get very straight, direct answers to their questions. Administrators who don’t know us do know of our reputation of being reputable brokers of information, and that’s also helpful. A lobbyist’s reputation really matters a lot.

If the program’s having a difficult time or you expect the allotted amount to be reduced, we’ll formally find out when the governor makes his budget announcement. But the legislature can propose to increase or restore funding, and so in March, April, May, and June when the legislature is reviewing the governor’s budget we schedule a multitude of meetings with legislators, especially with those legislators who are on the Senate and Assembly budget-writing committees.

We find out early in June after all of our meetings if the legislature is going to push for the inclusion of additional dollars in the governor’s budget. In New Jersey, when the governor receives the budget back from the legislature, he can use his line-item veto power to “red line” increases. So if the legislature restores funding or increases funding, the governor can cut or reduce the appropriation. However, he cannot restore funds. So, as you might imagine, the politics that get played during this time can be interesting. Two years ago, the governor wreaked havoc with the legislative budget when they tried to restore funds in a major way. The governor made major changes to the legislature’s priorities. It was a little smoother this year. There were more discussions between the legislature and the governor, because nobody wanted to go through that again.

Leech: What is a workday like for you? Can you describe what you would do in an average day?

Florio: The first thing I do is get up and get on my stationary bike—that’s my coffee in the morning. I need that to get ready for the day. In addition, I do some light weight training to keep muscle tone.

Leech: Do you ever ride on road?

Florio: During the week, I ride in place just because you can actually get a pretty good aerobic workout in about forty minutes. If you go on the road, you need more time, and time is precious during the week. During the summer on weekends, I get on the road for some long rides.

Let’s take today. In the morning, I am meeting with you, and then I need to prepare for an eleven o’clock a.m. meeting. We represent a coalition of environmental groups that are hoping to get an amendment to the state constitution on next year’s ballot that would dedicate a certain amount of money to funding open space. They had hoped to get it accomplished this year, but it does not appear that the politics and the economy will allow for that to happen. This morning, we’re going to meet with senior officials in the governor’s office. Last year, because the state revenue picture was not good, we all agreed that we would wait, and so we’re beginning discussions now. Remember, I said September or October. It’s not even August yet, and we’re actually beginning to go back to people to remind them of the importance of looking ahead to next year. So we would hope to get it on next year’s ballot.

Leech: What steps need to be done to get an issue put on the ballot? How will your office be involved?

Florio: We believe this issue will be a nonpartisan issue. The legislature and the governor are very supportive of open space. With the shoreline that we have and because we’re the most densely populated state, people are sensitive to space and water. The issue really then is how can we fund it, and we’re looking for a permanent dedication of money. It’s a big step, because economies go up and down, and any dedication of funds takes the money off the table for future generations. But again, open space is a major issue here in the state and we know that the governor and the legislative leaders have both expressed interest. The question, then, is timing. After we meet with the governor’s office, we’ll go and meet again with legislative staff. We would need to get legislation passed by early September of next year authorizing the constitutional amendment to be placed on the ballot.

Leech: If you succeed and it gets on the ballot, would you also be involved in the campaign to pass it?

Florio: Hopefully, yes, and that’ll be the fun phase of developing the messaging to the public as to why they should be supportive.

Leech: You are pretty involved in politics or have been pretty involved in politics in addition to your role here as a lobbyist. You have been on lots of boards and commissions. You were chairman of the Somerset Republican Committee for a long time. How do the official politics and the advocate policy sides work together?

Florio: Although I realized that elected politics was really not my interest, both lobbying and being a party official allow me to play a role in political affairs. As I said earlier, I grew up in Somerville, and after I returned to New Jersey from living in New York City, I saw the county party chairmanship as way for me to be helpful to my home base party but still not have the demands that are required of elected officials. I helped raise the money and select candidates, without having to be a candidate myself. I became chairman in ’92, right when Christie Whitman was looking to run for governor—and she was from Somerset County. I felt the pressure as a new party leader to make sure that Somerset County performed well in terms of votes for her.

Having the governor be from our county certainly raised the profile of the Somerset County GOP and gave me a chance to meet people that I might not have otherwise met.

Leech: Was there a perception that your firm therefore had an inside track to the administration?

Florio:I don’t mean to sound naïve, but it took me a while to understand the relationship. I didn’t plan it that way. I ran for county chairman because I wanted to do it and help lead an organization. But it became clear to me over time that there was a perception that enhanced the reputation of the firm. We had and still have many key Republicans and Democrats at PPAG, but my dual role as a founder of the firm and a Republican associated with the Whitman administration was certainly a plus.

I was always careful not to mix the two. I think, quite frankly, that although there were certainly pluses to the connection, there were also burdens. It became difficult to work publicly against any of Whitman’s initiatives, and we tried to avoid those kinds of public clashes. That’s why I made an early determination that the firm would not represent any clients that had anything before county government in Somerset County. I didn’t want anybody questioning my motives or interests. I wanted county and municipal office holders to rely on me for political advice and counsel. I wanted them to feel like my advice to them was always in their best interest and the best interest of the party and not some hidden personal interest. It really served me well. It was something I wanted to do right at the outset of my chairmanship, and it helped tremendously.

Leech: So you didn’t have that conflict of interest?

Florio: Exactly. We do a lot of county and local work for various clients around the state. It’s very common for firms like ours. I just stayed out of Somerset County. It was the best decision I ever made.

Leech: We were talking about your day.

Florio: I only gave you half the day.

Leech: Yes, we are only up to your eleven a.m. meeting. What happens after that?

Florio: The Norwegian ambassador to the UN is here for a brief meeting on energy.

Leech: And why are you meeting with the ambassador?

Florio: We represent NRG, which is one of the largest energy consortiums in the country. They’re headquartered here in New Jersey, just up the road in Princeton. We are having some preliminary discussions about Norway becoming a business partner with NRG. Then, I’m going to hop in my car and do a one o’clock p.m. conference call with several preschool providers. These companies provide services to school districts. There’s an issue of funding that they want to discuss.

Then, I’ll head to a meeting at the Sports and Exhibition Authority near Giants Stadium at two p.m. That meeting is with a client that provides interactive services for horse racing that makes sure that when people wager, the bet goes through. The Sports Authority helps oversee and manage the horse-racing facilities.

Leech: What sorts of things would a client like that need help with?

Florio: They want to talk about maintaining and expanding their services that they presently provide to the Authority. We anticipate that sports betting is coming to New Jersey. Last year, we worked on the successful referendum to allow for sports betting. We also helped pass the legislation to implement the question that was placed on the ballot. So the client wants to discuss what the world might look like in New Jersey should sports betting become a reality. We also want to discuss the number of off-track wagering sites for horse racing. Only two have been built. I think we’re authorized for twelve. The client has some ideas on how the state can realize the full potential of off-track wagering.

The meeting at the Authority will likely last from two o’clock p.m. to three-thirty p.m. I have a six p.m. meeting tonight at the Adult Day Center of Somerset County, which is one of the boards that I serve on. I hope to catch up on phone calls between the time I leave the Authority and the six p.m. meeting.

Leech: How did you happen to get involved with adult day care?

Florio:Politics can ring hollow at times. You have some clients that treat you as a commodity. You have political friends, and then you have real friends, and so I was looking for some other meaning. I inquired of a woman who ran the human services division in Somerset County, “Is there a nonprofit for battered women and or a children’s nonprofit?” And she said to me, “Dale, everybody who’s looking to be a volunteer always thinks of kids and women. Nobody really thinks of senior citizens. If you really want to have an impact and be helpful, why don’t you go and join the board of the Adult Day Center of Somerset County.” She was absolutely right.

Leech: Do you have other things after this? Or are we at the end of the day? When do you usually go home?

Florio: This will be the first time in a while that I’ll probably get home by seven-thirty p.m. Last Monday, it was eleven p.m. and last night I arrived home at ten p.m.

Leech: Wow. So one of my questions was whether lobbying at the state level is conducive to family life. Is the answer no?

Florio: I actually think it’s much easier at the state level than it is at the federal level. One thing that is different in New Jersey compared with a lot of other states is that legislators go home at the end of the day. They don’t stay overnight which helps reduce the number of evening activities in Trenton, although there are political fundraisers throughout the week, usually around the state in the home districts of legislators. In a lot of state capitals, the legislators sleep over because it’s too far to go home.

The state also has a very strict laws requiring disclosure of meals with legislators and gifts for legislators. Years ago, when I first started, you could go out to dinner with legislators on Mondays and Thursdays, when they were in session. You would spend time and discuss what happened that day. Now you are required to report these activities, so it’s really reduced the social side of the business, which is unfortunate. I think the interaction between and among legislators and public affairs consultants is a good thing. The public has deemed it improper and has demonized these kinds of activities.

Leech: Because the legislators don’t want that record?

Florio: Yes, legislators feel intimidated by the reporting process. Quite frankly, I don’t blame them. But in terms of family life, again, I think it’s a little bit easier for my generation to say, “Hey, I’ve got to go to my kid’s Little League game.” I think it was harder for my parents to do that, but I think it’s easier now, which is good. It makes you a better person. It rounds you out. I have always worked hard to find the time to make sure family life doesn’t suffer. I have great spouse who has made up for those times where I just couldn’t be there. Believe me, I’ve put in a lot of time and I’ve worked hard, but I made sure that I was coaching the boys and going to my daughter’s gymnastics meets.

Leech: What do you end up spending the most time doing in your job?

Florio:Fifty percent of the time it’s managing client expectations. Then there is the administrative side of running a business, which is my responsibility as managing partner, and which can take a good bit of time—a good twenty-five percent. The remaining twenty-five percent involves actually interacting with the public, and county, and state officials. The time spent meeting with the official is minuscule compared to the time spent with the client, getting them to organize themselves properly. For instance, for this meeting at eleven a.m., we first had a conference call with the client to review the talking points and their expectations for the meeting.

Leech: How do you deal with the popular opinion about lobbyists? The public mostly doesn’t understand what lobbyists do. And, to the extent that they think about what lobbyists do, they think that it’s bad.

Florio: I’ve gotten beyond that. I don’t feel like I’ve ever been excluded from the neighborhood party because of what I do. I speak to high school groups and college classes a fair amount, and we talk about lobbying, so that they understand that it’s more than just who you know. Lobbying has evolved into a much more sophisticated profession than it once was. But whenever a lobbyist gets in trouble, there’s always going to be the perception that lobbying is unnecessary. If you look at our marketing materials you’ll notice that we refer to ourselves as public affairs professionals as opposed to lobbyists.

But scandals are always going to surface. There are always going to be bad actors in any profession. Every four years, when all the presidential candidates spend so much money on running for office, it reinforces that idea about what’s wrong with politics. But it’s the American system, so I’ve become desensitized to it.

Leech: What qualities do you think a lobbyist needs, and what do you look for when you’re hiring a new associate here?

Florio: We have a good reputation for brainpower here. I think it’s easy for a lobbyist to get by on relationships. Our people have subject-matter substance. I’m looking for people who really have an interest in the public policy side of politics. Obviously, you have to have a personality. You can’t be somebody who has trouble interacting with people. First and foremost, you need to be smart. Second, you need to be socially engaging—not necessarily a glad-hander, but be able to operate in a social setting. Then I look for the two other basics: writing and verbal skills.

I’ll give you a good example. We have a young associate here who was an intern for us two or three years ago. The individual met me in a class where I spoke, and asked to intern with us. We accepted the student as an intern. The intern asked to come back in the fall as an unpaid intern, so we agreed. We do not compensate the interns during the school year, but we do pay them during the summer.

One of the projects that the intern worked on involved preparing a table on cigarette taxes for a client. The intern came into the office one day and said, “Dale, I spoke to the director of the New Jersey Division of Taxation”—I didn’t tell the person to call the director of taxation—“and I told him that I thought the information they gave me was wrong.”

So I said, “What did he say?”

And the student said, “He told me I was right that they had made a mistake. So I showed them what they did wrong and they fixed it, and here’s the information.”

I was impressed. First of all, I didn’t tell the intern to call the director of taxation, but the individual somehow got him on the phone. Our intern found a flaw in the way they were calculating their taxes from quarter to quarter, and needless to say, that person is with us today.

Leech: That’s a great story. So you’re looking for some initiative, too.

Florio: Yes, a little initiative can go a long way. Sometimes you find a diamond in the rough and you need to hire that person even if you were not looking to add to staff.

Leech: What advice do you have for people who are interested in a career in public affairs?

Florio: I did it differently than most people, because I worked in corporate America. I did have a brief stint working for Walt Kavanaugh, the state legislator I mentioned earlier. But most people get their experience in government or on a campaign, and I think that’s the preferable way to do it because it gives you a chance to meet the government decision-makers of tomorrow. I was lucky. As it turned out, my original partner was somebody who had been working for the legislature, and I had the corporate contacts to help us generate clients.

But again, I don’t care what your major is—verbal skills and writing skills will always be important. We don’t write as many letters as we once did, but we’re certainly doing e-mails and memos that you attach to e-mails. Communication skills are critical, because clients want information. I tell young people to write and take public speaking classes. Most people are nervous about speaking in public. Colleges now, and certainly high schools, are encouraging more and more public speaking, and they require students to do more of it, which I think is good. I used to say, “You are as good as your Rolodex.” Of course, today young people look at you and say, “What’s a Rolodex?”

Leech: Now it’s your list of contacts.

Florio: Now I pick up my cell phone and wave it and say, “You’re as good as your contact list.”

Leech: Thank you very much for taking the time to speak with me.

Florio: I envy you on your project. I keep saying that I’m going to write a book when I head out the door. We’re celebrating our twenty-fifth anniversary as a firm this year, and we’ve booked a weekend at a historic hotel on the beach in Cape May, New Jersey. Everybody will take off on Friday and bring their significant other and their kids if they want. We have somebody here who is making a movie about our twenty-five years. We pulled out old newspaper clips, and we were looking at the many legislative battles that we engaged in and saying, “Wow, we did that.”

Leech: You’ve been involved in a lot of issues over those twenty-five years.

Florio: One story we found was from the Bergen Record newspaper back in the mid-nineties, before all the pay-to-play laws that restricted gifts from lobbyists. We had a client that was sponsoring an event at the Super Bowl and wanted me to see whether maybe some legislators wanted to go. I was just starting out, and I remember giving out one of my business cards, and across the top of it I wrote, “Do you want to go to the Super Bowl?”

I don’t know what happened, but the Bergen Record did a five-part series on lobbying in the state. A picture of my business card with the Super Bowl message ended up illustrating one of the installments in the series. So I learned how to be more discreet. That is one of the stories that I had forgotten all about until they were going through our archive of clips for our twenty-fifth anniversary.