Some of the big news in state politics last week was the sentencing of former state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos.  Skelos, like the former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, was convicted of corruption.  Skelos was sentenced for five years in prison for his activities in shaking down businesses for often no-show jobs for his son.  A couple of weeks earlier, Silver received 12 years for his corrupt schemes that enriched him by millions of dollars.

Both cases had their differences, but both had a consistent theme – both men secretly and nakedly used the power of their public positions to enrich themselves or their family.

The swirling controversies around current or former members of the Cuomo Administration also appear to have the same common thread; in those cases, a former official and a current lobbyist with long ties to the governor, allegedly gamed the system to enrich themselves.

These scandals and controversies are not the only examples of this type of corruption, nor is New York the only government to have experienced them.  But the scale of the size of New York government, with its $150 billion annual budget, the fact that it operates at the highest levels in incredible secrecy, the number of global companies based in the state, and the lack of independent state-based enforcement, all raise the risk of corruption.

At the heart of the problem – that public officials use their positions to enrich themselves personally – is the perception that state government watchdog agencies are not independently and aggressively monitoring ethics laws.

In other controversies – most notably the allegations swirling around the New York City Mayor as well as elements of the reports about actions of former and current members of the Cuomo Administration – there is a second type of misbehavior, using governmental largesse to benefit campaign contributors and other well-connected interest groups.  This transactional means of operating is known as “pay to play.”

These complaints have consistently been raised about deal-making in New York, and other parts of the country.  As in the case of personal enrichment by public officials, there is a belief that participating in a “pay-to-play” political culture is necessary and, in fact, required, of those seeking governmental favors.  Albany’s secrecy fosters such a culture.

Recent polls have found that virtually all New Yorkers are fed up with what they have seen from their state’s government.  Yet, there is an increasing sense that Albany will wrap up its legislative session next month and have achieved little, or nothing, to respond to the outcomes of recent investigations.  With just 15 scheduled legislative session days left, that’s looking increasingly likely.

Whether that turns out to be the case will be determined by what the governor does.  In Albany’s legislative partisan split – Republicans control the Senate and Democrats control the Assembly – it is the governor who must force a debate and a consensus on legislative action.  It is the governor, after all, who commands the largest bully pulpit, it is the governor that is the most powerful political figure, and it is the governor who prides himself on getting things done.  Chief executives after all are where the buck stops, whether it’s a mayor, governor or president.

In this year’s budget, New Yorkers saw that power and its skillful deployment in Governor Cuomo’s efforts to raise the minimum wage and to enact paid family leave.  In both cases, there was considerable opposition – both within Albany and by outside business groups.  Yet, the governor kept at it and organized public support into legislative victories.

Unlike the fights over the minimum wage and paid family leave, when it comes to ethics the governor would have a huge advantage – near unanimous public support for reforms.  But the governor has done little to focus public attention on the solutions that are needed.  Thus, the groundwork has not been laid to galvanize public support on key solutions.

And those real solutions must be based on opening up state government, reducing the temptations to allow public officials to enrich themselves, curbing Albany’s pay-to-play political culture, and – most importantly – overhauling ethics enforcement agencies to ensure independence and competence.  New Yorkers cannot assume that Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney who has done most of the work to bring corrupt public officials to justice, will be around forever.

At the end of the legislative session, whether real reforms are approved or not will rest almost entirely on what Governor Cuomo chooses to do.  And while voters should hold their legislators accountable for Albany’s failures, they should expect that this governor does what he was elected to do – solve problems.  And Albany has a big problem right now, we’ll soon see if the governor is up to solving it.

As New York’s ethics problems continue to dominate headlines, other important issues are getting short shrift.   Just one such issue is the quality of drinking water supplies – particularly those found in New York’s schools.

Last week, concerns raised by parents in New Rochelle were reported – some test results in their school district found levels of lead that are too high.  None of the tests came close to those found in places like Flint, Michigan, but there is no safe level of lead exposure for children.  And this was water found in schools.

The district had dozens of faucets and fountains sampled and found some with high lead levels, after flushing water systems, lead levels dropped off.  But parents are still concerned.

They join parents in places like Ithaca and Binghamton who have also found elevated lead levels in schools’ drinking water supplies.

Over the last decade we’ve learned that the testing routines did not detect true risk from lead, that there are sources of lead that we’re missing in our tests and that testing was too infrequent. It’s hard to see how the status quo in lead testing for water is adequately serving the public.  Albany must act.

Lead is a persistent and bio-accumulative toxic metal that is a threat to public health. When consumed, even low levels of lead can have a harmful impact on almost every system and organ in the human body. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has set the maximum contaminant level target for lead in drinking water at zero, as any level of lead exposure can be detrimental to human health. There is no safe level of lead exposure for children.

This highly toxic substance is a particular threat to children whose bodies absorb more lead than adults. Even low levels of lead exposure in children have been linked to, among other symptoms: damage of the nervous system; learning disabilities; behavior problems; and in extreme cases ingestion of lead by young children has been linked to seizures, coma and death.

Amendments to the federal Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) banned the use of lead plumbing and solder in the installation and repair of any service lines used to provide water for human consumption. However, service lines in schools built before the 1986 lead ban may still contain lead fixtures and lead solder, allowing the toxic metal to leach into water supplies as infrastructure corrodes over time.

While federal and state laws mandate testing of municipal water supplies for contamination, there are no mandatory guidelines in place requiring the testing of schools’ tap water. Currently, the EPA has no requirement mandating that school districts drawing from municipal water systems test their water at the tap at all, only making strong recommendations that individual school districts do so. As of right now, any lead testing at schools connected to municipal water supplies is voluntary, therefore it is unclear exactly how many New York State schoolchildren are unknowingly being poisoned.

The New York State Department of Health warns that “primary prevention” – taking deliberate measures to prevent exposure to lead before it occurs – is the only effective way to protect children and families from lead poisoning. While measures have been taken to protect children’s drinking water at the source, the threat of lead contamination from infrastructure decay looms heavily over schools.

Lead poisoning is preventable, and the only way to keep children safe is to reduce any risk of exposure. By not regularly testing schools’ water at the tap, New York puts the health, safety, and future of children in danger. New York State has a moral obligation to keep its children safe and its schools’ drinking water lead-free.

While the media is focused on the growing controversies that threaten to overwhelm the Cuomo Administration, there are important issues that lawmakers must address.  Mandating aggressive action on lead – as well as other toxic substances – in schools’ drinking water is important issue that must be addressed this session, before the next school year begins.

Another week, another series of ethics controversies in New York.  The week began with the leak of a confidential report by the state’s elections enforcer that alleged that New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio had engaged in an illegal effort to circumvent campaign contribution limits in his 2014 push to bolster the re-election prospects of some sitting state Senate Democrats, who presumably would be more favorable to the democrat mayor’s city agenda in Albany.

The week ended with media reports of subpoenas being issued by the U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara into the possibility of unethical actions by members of the Cuomo Administration in advancing the governor’s “Buffalo Billion” program.

Some background first on the controversies swirling around the Mayor.  According to the leaked document, the Mayor’s team hit up some New York City campaign contributors to urge that they donate large sums to local political party committees in areas in which incumbent state Senate Democrats were facing tough re-election bids.

Under New York State election law, political party committees are set up to allow the parties to raise enormous contributions – in some cases well over $100,000 – and then transfers those sums to the candidates of their choice.  This is routinely done with a wink and a nod.  Effectively, New York law allows the state’s donor class to legally circumvent already sky-high contribution limits, which often allow donations that double or triple the amount permitted under federal law.

What made the de Blasio team’s behavior different according to the leaked document is that these donations were allegedly specifically raised and directed with the party committee acting as nothing more than a pass through.

Of course, to most of us that is a distinction without much of a difference and really underscores just how disgraceful the state’s campaign finance system is – if you make those donations and wink about where the money will go, it’s ok; if you are explicit, it’s illegal.

The criminal referrals have been made to the Manhattan District Attorney and the U.S. Attorney’s office and subpoenas have been issued.  Ultimately, they will decide whether crimes were committed.

In the “Buffalo Billion” case, it is less clear what has happened.  Media reports have identified a long-time Cuomo aide, who recently left the Administration, as the individual who may have accepted illegal outside income as part of his involvement in advancing the interests of a Buffalo business to get a lucrative government contract; a business which just happens to be a big Cuomo campaign contributor.

Again, there is no way to know how this will play out and whether any crimes were committed.  But as in the case of the Mayor, there is a lot of smoke, we’ll see if there is any fire.

All of this occurs as state lawmakers return to Albany to begin their seven-week dash to the end of the 2016 legislative session.  The governor has stated that ethics reforms are his top priority, but has done little more than say so.

As lawmakers return, they must tackle ethics reforms that:

1. Limit outside income.  The crimes committed by the soon-to-be-sentenced former Assembly Speaker and former Senate Majority Leader were all about using their powerful public positions to enrich themselves personally.  Placing Congressional-style limits on outside income will help reduce that temptation in the future.

2. Basic campaign finance reforms. The company at the heart of each of the scandals that resulted in the legislative leaders’ convictions was a real estate firm that had used dozens of limited liability companies to funnel campaign cash into the political process – as a way to boost their influence over state political-making.  LLCs should be treated like other businesses and have their controlling identities disclosed.

   A second issue is that one that has engulfed the Mayor – the law that allows huge contributions to political party committees and then gives them the option of transferring unlimited amounts to their candidates.  The state needs new, much lower limits on donations to the parties as well as restrictions on how much they can spend on candidates.

3. Overhaul ethics enforcement. The state’s ethics watchdog continues to be relegated to the sidelines.  In the controversy surrounding the Cuomo Administration, the public would be well-served by an independent ethics watchdog, not one with ties to both the governor and legislative leadership.

Albany’s ethics “dirty laundry basket” keeps getting bigger.  New York’s ethics failures are a big problem.  The public sends representatives to Albany in order to solve problems.  If they can’t – or won’t – it will be time to replace them.

Last week, the world’s leaders gathered on Earth Day to formally agree to the climate change deal hammered out last December.  While there are still lots of questions about how effective the global agreement will be in limiting the damage from planetary warming, one message is clear; the world has got to move away from relying on fossil fuels – coal, oil and gas – to generate energy.

That international policy conclusion strongly bolsters New York State’s decision to ban hydraulic fracturing.  Last year, the Cuomo Administration took the unprecedented step of banning the use of horizontal hydraulic fracturing – aka fracking – due to the potential environmental and public health damage that could result from the practice.  At that time, New York State was the first state with significant natural gas reserves to ban fracking.

Since then, there has been a growing body of evidence that fracking does pose environmental and public health risks.  And what has become clearer still is that the world needs to keep fossil fuels in the ground – not burn them so the resulting gases rise into the lower atmosphere and become a heat-trapping blanket.

According to the world’s experts, human activity in the form of burning fossil fuels is the leading contributor to the warming of the planet.

But the decision to ban fracking not only had an environmental benefit, but it appears to have had a fiscal one as well.

Top of Form

Oil and gas prices have hit rock bottom and the job impacts are growing.  The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that employment in oil and gas extraction and support activities in the nation has shrunk by nearly one-fifth over the past year.

Jobs in the oil and gas extraction business has been reduced by 15,700 nationally while related employment in the mining sector has lost close to 100,000 jobs since January 2015.

The reduction in jobs has impacted states differently.  States with less diversified economies have felt the impact of job losses most significantly.

Thanks to price declines, North Dakota’s extraction tax revenue fell from than $3.5 billion in 2014 to $2 billion in 2015, despite oil production remaining largely flat throughout 2015.  The North Dakota governor has ordered state agencies to slash their budgets by 4 percent to close a $1 billion budget shortfall.

Alaska is now facing a $3.8 billion budget deficit, or two-thirds of its budget.  As a result, its governor is proposing to, among other things, implement an income tax, cutting government spending, and raising other taxes.

Louisiana has announced across-the-board program cuts to deal with its estimated $900 million gap in the current fiscal year. Next year’s shortfall is expected to be more than $2 billion.

Oklahoma is contending with a $1.3 billion budget gap, nearly 20 percent of last year’s spending. As a result, state agencies are faced with cuts totaling 7 percent in annual state allocations. Public schools, for example, will have $110 million cut from their budget for the fiscal year ending June 30.

Of course a state like New York – with its enormous budget and complex economy – would likely have weathered this fracking economic collapse better than these smaller states.  But had New York gone forward in 2014, it would have joined the market just as it was collapsing.  And as everyone knows, you want to get into economic endeavors when they are taking off, not when the bubble is about to burst.

In retrospect, the Cuomo Administration’s fracking ban has turned out to have benefitted the state in important ways: it stopped drilling, which would have had to have had a serious environmental cost – just like any industrial-scale mineral extraction process; it kept the state’s finances from taking a significant fiscal hit and … it kept a fossil fuel in the ground.  And in the ground is where fossil fuels must stay if the world has any chance of minimizing the damages caused by climate change.

For the first time in years, New York State’s Presidential primary is important in determining who will be the nominees from both the Republican and Democratic parties.  No one knew how this primary season would play out.  A year ago, the Democrats looked like they were lining up behind Hillary Clinton – now many voters are “feeling the Bern” as Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders makes a spirited run.  On the Republican side, no one predicted the rise of Donald Trump as the leading candidate.

But both parties are having highly contested primaries and New York voters can play an important role.  Well, at least some of them can.

New York State has very restrictive political party enrollment rules.  For all elections, New Yorkers have to be enrolled at least 25 days before an election in order to vote.  That deadline is among the longest in the nation.  In order to vote in the upcoming November general election, voters will have to have been enrolled by early October.

The same rule applies to the Presidential primary.  If a New Yorker has never been registered to vote, they could have done so by March 25^th.  Any new voter who registered after that day cannot vote in the Presidential primary.

But for those who wished to vote in the April Presidential primary, and who were already registered to vote, they needed to have been registered in the political party of their choice before October 9, 2015.

That’s right, for New Yorkers who wished to change their party enrollment because they were inspired by the visions offered by the Republican (in addition to Trump, there are candidates Ted Cruz and John Kasich – Ben Carson remained on New York’s ballot as well) or Democratic candidates they would have had to make that decision nearly six months ago.

Of course, virtually no New Yorker knew of any of these rules and there are likely to be many angry New Yorkers at the polls during this week’s Presidential primary.  In fact, many may be confused since they have been watching the ongoing presidential battle, where people in some states simply show up for caucuses to vote.  In states with early voting, residents have weeks to vote, and in some states voters can cast ballots in any party’s primary.

But not in New York.  As a result, there have been media reports that some counties know that and are trying to short-circuit the problem.

On Long Island, for example, it has been reported that Suffolk County’s elections commissioners have sent warning letters to nearly 7,000 voters who switched parties after the deadline.  The board’s letter notes that “New York is one of 11 states with ‘closed’ primaries in which residents who are registered in a party can vote in that party’s primary.

According to the newspaper Newsday, the letter sent to these voters stated, “Since you submitted your change of enrollment . . . after the legal deadline, your change of party . . . will become effective seven days after the general election day 2016.” That means their first presidential primary vote will have to wait until 2020.

And to add to the confusion, in some areas of the state there will be special elections to fill vacated legislative seats.  For example, the legislative positions held by disgraced former Assembly Speaker Silver and Senate Majority Leader Skelos are up for consideration.  For those elections, all voters can vote – and had to have been registered by March 25, but still could not have switched parties after October 9^th.

If a New Yorker wants to know of their status, the state Board of Elections does have a website where he or she can check, go to voterlookup.elections.state.ny.us/votersearch.aspx.  Or the voter can contact their county Board of Elections.

Keeping track of all of these deadlines can make a voter’s head spin.  But those are the rules in New York.

Those rules must change.

Leaders like Governor Cuomo have the opportunity and responsibility to do a better job pressing for reforms, like Same Day Registration and Automatic Registration, and ending disenfranchising statutes—like New York’s inane rules for changing party enrollment. That process can have some voters waiting 22 months after changing their party to vote in a Presidential primary election.