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Actions for Change
September 19, 2006

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Candidates for governor are campaigning across the state promising to reform New York government. Whoever gets elected will have the power to deliver on those promises. New York’s governor has constitutional powers that greatly exceed those enjoyed by the executives in other states. If the new governor chooses to tackle needed changes and to fight for reforms, New Yorkers soon could see real action on important issues.

However, in order for the new governor to have a real chance to change Albany, he will need to create momentum – momentum based on the enactment of real reforms.

Immediate changes are unlikely in the normal legislative process.  Either house could offer resistance – sometimes the resistance will occur due to ideological differences, other times resistance will come from tactics designed to extract concessions.  Therefore, it's important that the new governor use his vast executive powers to make immediate changes – changes that will jolt Albany out of its lethargy.

New York's Executive Branch is extremely powerful – arguably the most powerful in the nation.  If the new governor uses that power to immediately implement important reforms, he will whet the public’s appetite for more changes and make it extremely difficult for the legislative branch to stop other initiatives.

My colleagues at the New York Public Interest Research Group have offered a package of reforms that – if embraced by the new governor – could create that momentum. Those proposals – most of which can be unilaterally accomplished by the new governor – are included in a report entitled, Actions for Change. The report is available on the Internet at www.nypirg.org.

The first Actions for Change deal with governmental openness. The cornerstone of a representative democracy is the ability of the public to choose its representatives. In order for a democracy to work best, it is important that voters are educated on the options facing government policymakers. Without easy access to governmental information, the public cannot be adequately educated on those issues and therefore cannot knowledgeably vote for candidates or grant informed consent to policy decisions of its representatives.

The report recommends measures such as a gubernatorial executive order to require state agencies to follow the “spirit” – not just the letter – of New York’s Freedom of Information Law and urges the creation of a “C-SPAN” to allow the televised access to coverage of governmental events.

Openness is important in ensuring real change in New York, but it is not enough. Mechanisms must be put in place to ensure that state government can be held to account for its actions.

Central to ensuring accountability is the establishment of new independent entities that will act as impartial watchdogs. These entities would be responsible to the public, not the political parties or political leadership of the state. In the same way Governor Theodore Roosevelt championed the civil service system, as a way to reduce cronyism in government, so should the new governor champion measures to reduce political interference and bolster oversight. Actions for Change offers recommendations such as urging the new governor to ensure that the head of the state’s budget office be free of political interference and calling for the creation of a new fiscal watchdog to monitor the quality and cost of health care.

Ultimately, it is the job of government to offer solutions to serious problems facing society. Of course, no government can solve every problem, but the public rightly expects government to tackle the most important ones – if not to solve them, at least to try to minimize the size of the problem.

Those proposals contained in Actions for Change focus on the areas of governmental reform, environmental preservation, consumer protection and higher education. 

To review the 50 recommendations, access them on the Internet at www.nypirg.org. And if you get the chance to discuss issues with candidates for state office, ask them what are their strategies for reforming New York.

That’s all for now. I’ll be keeping an eye on the Capitol and will talk to you again next week.

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