Uber ranked second among all lobbying clients statewide at $10.3 million, with $9.1 million funneled to Citizens For Affordable Rates. Waymo, which wants to bring driverless robotaxis to New York <\/strong>state and city, ranked ninth at a comparatively small $1.1 million. That difference in spending correlated with each company\u2019s outcome: Hochul and the legislature passed Uber\u2019s desired insurance \u201creforms,\u201d but the governor abandoned her push to bring Waymo to the Empire State early in the legislative process.<\/p>\n The $13.8 million figure that Uber and Citizens for Affordable Rates reported to lobbying regulators doesn\u2019t include the money that Citizens for Affordable Rates\u2019 political committee poured directly into Hochul\u2019s re-election campaign. State Board of Elections filings<\/a> show the committee made $11.97 million in independent expenditures supporting Hochul\u2019s primary bid between January and June \u2014 nearly matching what the group spent on lobbying.<\/p>\n In Albany, the side willing to spend the most, and spend it earliest, tends to keep winning, according to a top state government watchdog.<\/p>\n \u201cUber spent as much as it had to spend in order to win,\u201d said Blair Horner, senior policy advisor at the New York Public Interest Research Group. \u201cBig money talks, and the public is reduced to often just an observer of the battles at the state capital.<\/p>\n According to its filing, Citizens for Affordable Rates allocated nearly all of its lobbying money \u2014 $12.6 million of $12.7 million \u2014 into expenses like marketing and advertising, rather than directly paying lobbyists to pressure lawmakers. Uber\u2019s numbers show a similar split at a much smaller scale: $219,373 in lobbyist compensation against $953,903 in expenses, mostly ad buys placed in outlets like the New York Times, Politico, City & State and local papers around the state, plus digital spending on Meta and LinkedIn. The combined outlay makes it the state\u2019s largest lobbying client in the transportation-sector for the period.<\/p>\n \u201cUber is proud to advocate for policies that lower costs for New Yorkers, protect drivers\u2019 jobs, and improve access to reliable transportation,\u201d said spokesperson Josh Gold. \u201cThis year\u2019s progress on insurance reform was an important step toward addressing New York\u2019s extraordinarily high insurance costs, and we\u2019ll continue working with policymakers and other stakeholders on further reforms.\u201d<\/p>\n The $12.7 million that Citizens for Affordable Rates reported to lobbying regulators doesn\u2019t include the money the group\u2019s political committee poured directly into Hochul\u2019s re-election campaign. State Board of Elections filings<\/a> show the committee made $11.97 million in independent expenditures supporting Hochul between January and June \u2014 nearly matching what it spent on lobbying. A City & State roundup of super PAC activity<\/a> in the primary found Citizens for Affordable Rates was the only outside group of any real size boosting Hochul\u2019s campaign, and that all of its money traced back to Uber.<\/p>\n In comparison, New York State Trial Lawyers Association, which Hochul cast as a ne\u2019er-do-well \u201cspecial interest\u201d in the insurance policy battle, spent just $715,000 paid to three retained lobbying firms over the same six months.<\/p>\n Campaign finance law is designed to prevent bribery, but Uber\u2019s financial support for Hochul can\u2019t be disentangled from her support for its policy goals, another watchdog said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can think of it as legal bribery,\u201d said John Kaehny, executive director of the good government group Reinvent Albany. He pointed out that a business can let its lobbyists make the ask on the same issue it\u2019s separately funding a campaign around \u2014 without ever directly connecting the contribution to the request.<\/p>\n Hochul\u2019s office essentially confirmed the connection in January, when her press office forwarded Streetsblog a set of talking points<\/a> defending her insurance plan \u2014 with an Uber spokesperson still copied on the email thread. It was Hochul\u2019s proposal on paper, but its messaging came from Uber.<\/p>\n \t\t\tRecommended<\/p>\n \t\t What actually changed<\/p>\n Hochul\u2019s January proposal<\/a> had three pieces: narrowing the legal definition of \u201cserious injury,\u201d barring any driver found more than half at fault from recovering damages, and changing the state\u2019s \u201cjoint and several liability\u201d rule.<\/p>\n Two of the three pieces survived the budget. Lawmakers narrowed \u201cserious injury\u201d by eliminating <\/strong>the roughly 90-day disability standard that advocates say hits people with brain injuries or soft-tissue damage hardest, meaning those victims can no longer sue for pain and suffering beyond the $50,000 no-fault minimum. They also adopted the 50-percent fault bar, replacing a sliding scale that had reduced, but never eliminated, a victim\u2019s award.<\/p>\n Only joint-and-several liability didn\u2019t survive the legislature, with Hochul dropping her push in final negotiations. In exchange, insurers agreed to stop automatic 5-percent premium hikes without regulator approval and to drop ZIP code and education level as rate factors.<\/p>\n \u201cThe only thing that the governor considers when making decisions is what is best for New Yorkers,\u201d Hochul spokesperson Sean Butler said in a statement. \u201cGov. Hochul heard from residents of every region of this state about the affordability crisis only made worse by skyrocketing auto insurance costs and she took action, securing historic reforms that root out waste and abuse, crack down on law-breaking drivers, and will put money back in families\u2019 pockets. New Yorkers asked for relief and the governor delivered for them.\u201d<\/p>\n Lobbying was only half of it<\/strong><\/p>\n Roughly $7.8 million of Citizens for Affordable Rates\u2019 campaign spending went to television ads<\/a>, about $2.9 million to digital ads and roughly $362,000 to phone and email outreach \u2014 all urging support for or praising Hochul\u2019s insurance plan. Print ads accounted for about $614,000, with $43,500 on polling and around $272,000 more on consulting, production and other costs.<\/p>\n The campaign extended beyond those reported advertising buys. Citizens for Affordable Rates\u2019 TV spots featured actors giving \u201ctestimonials\u201d about their insurance woes \u2014 at least five of the six people in one widely shared ad turned out to have professional acting credits, not personal insurance bills. The group and Uber also bought sponsored content in Politico\u2019s New York Playbook, amNY and City & State\u2019s morning newsletter, parked a mobile billboard truck outside the Capitol warning that \u201cstaged crashes cost us all,\u201d and Uber separately emailed its riders and drivers directly, warning that fares could rise if the insurance system wasn\u2019t fixed and urging them to contact their state lawmakers.<\/p>\n The effort unfolded on two fronts: lobbying Albany while simultaneously financing a public advocacy campaign through Citizens for Affordable Rates, with sponsored content helping bridge the two. It\u2019s a strategy tobacco, oil and pharmaceutical companies<\/a> have used for decades: an industry group with a reassuring name does the messaging work that would draw more scrutiny if it came directly from the company itself. Streetsblog reported in April that lawmakers had received a wave of form emails supporting Hochul\u2019s plan that were signed by people who hadn\u2019t sent them \u2014 including some who were dead.<\/p>\n The trial lawyers\u2019 campaign contributions were modest by comparison. During the same six-month period, they gave $207,750 to candidates statewide \u2014 a fraction of what Uber and Citizens for Affordable Rates spent backing Hochul\u2019s insurance proposal alone.<\/p>\n What Waymo actually won \u2014 and lost<\/strong><\/p>\n Waymo wanted something else entirely: to persuade New York to allow robotaxis. Hochul\u2019s original proposal, folded into her January budget, would have let municipalities outside New York City \u2014 like Buffalo and Albany \u2014 opt in to driverless, fully autonomous ride-hail pilots.<\/p>\n But the plan never made it to the final stages. Hochul withdrew it in February, before budget negotiations were even underway, citing a lack of legislative support. That leaves New York\u2019s existing rules in place: autonomous vehicle testing only with a human safety driver, hands on the wheel, with no legal path to run a commercial driverless service anywhere in the state. Waymo\u2019s own New York City testing permit, issued under the Adams administration, has since expired.<\/p>\n The problem wasn\u2019t just disparate interests like organized labor and gaming outspending Waymo<\/a> \u2014 it included Uber\u2019s own side of the business. The Independent Drivers Guild<\/a>, an advocacy group backed by Uber, publicly cheered the reversal and vowed to fight robotaxi expansion, framing driverless cars as a threat to its members\u2019 jobs. Assembly Member Karines Reyes, who sponsored legislation<\/a> to ban robotaxis outright in February, said opposition had been building inside and outside the legislature, even though lawmakers hadn\u2019t formally conferenced on Hochul\u2019s specific proposal.<\/p>\n
\n \t![\"Hochul\u2019s](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/hochul-driving-an-uber-car-with-states.jpg\")
\n \t\t<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Screenshot-2026-08-06-150906.png\")
A breakdown of lobbying from the state Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Screenshot-2026-08-06-150533.png\")
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