Is it possible that there might be a “perfect storm” which will break Albany’s ethics reform logjam?  New Yorkers should hope so.

Here is some evidence of the growing pressure:

In November, in separate trials, both the former Assembly Speaker and the former Senate Majority Leader face court dates for alleged corruption.  The ongoing legal proceedings should continue to keep Albany’s ethics under the spotlight and may well build up even more pressure for Governor Cuomo to convene a special session devoted to ethics.

In addition, for almost three months the state’s ethics watchdog, the Joint Commission on Public Ethics, has been without an executive director.  Having a rudderless ethics watchdog while two of the state’s leading political figures are on trial for corruption will be, at best, lousy optics. And to make it worse, until recently the agency hadn’t posted a job opening announcement for the position.  But last week, they did.  Now the search is on.

A formidable candidate has thrown his hat into the ring:  the former head of the state’s now-defunct lobbying regulator, David Grandeau.  Grandeau was a feared and respected head of the lobbying commission and was dumped as part of the ethics reform package approved in 2007.  Apparently, Grandeau had accumulated far too many enemies, including then-Governor Eliot Spitzer.

But Grandeau has said he will apply for the job,and that should set the standard by which any candidate is judged.  Unless the JCOPE commissioners choose him as the new replacement, they will have a hard time justifying any other choice.  But having Grandeau in the pool should hold JCOPE’s feet to the fire in hiring a new executive director, with the easiest option of just choosing him.

Related to that development, last week a panel reviewing the state’s ethics enforcement held its first, and probably only, public hearing.  The governor and the legislature were supposed to have chosen this commission in 2014 and the group should have reported on their findings by the end of last year.

Despite this legal requirement, in 2014 the governor and the legislative leaders blew off their responsibility, but were forced to act when that glaring failure came to light right after the arrests of the then-Assembly Speaker and Senate Majority Leader.

The members of the commission were chosen last Spring and are supposed to wrap up their work this November.  As part of the law that set up the state’s current ethics regime, a review panel was required to “review and evaluate the activities and performance” of the state’s ethics watchdogs and make “any administrative and legislative recommendations on strengthening the administration and enforcement of the ethics law.”

Reviewing the state’s ethics law changes is important, and that importance is not an academic one.  Over the past years, New York has been plagued by an unending series of investigation, controversies, and scandals concerning state public officials.  Yet, the state’s leading ethics watchdogs have been largely on the sidelines.  And while there may be explanations for this apparent inactivity, the public deserves to know why.  And if the ethics watchdogs have been paralyzed by weaknesses in state law, or lack of resources, or political paralysis, the public deserves to know that too.

The public’s deepening cynicism and growing anger has been well-documented.  In a recent poll, 90 percent of New Yorkers think corruption is a serious problem in state government and that it has gotten worse over the past few years.

It also appears that New York’s ethics laws are weak when compared to the nation.  While it is always difficult to compare states, New York performs badly in such comparisons.  In a recent comparison of state ethics laws, New York’s ethics enforcement received a grade of “F.”

When reformers first called on Governor Cuomo to call a special session devoted to ethics, he said no.  Now, however, there have been media reports that the governor and legislative leaders are considering a special session devoted to phasing-in $15 minimum wage in exchange for a possible tax cut aimed at businesses.

If that special session happens, New Yorkers should demand action on ethics.  If that happens, Albany’s logjam could be broken.

Recently, a National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine report identified a huge problem in health care:  the failures of health care providers to quickly and accurately identify a patient’s diagnosis.  The report estimated that most patients will experience at least one wrong or delayed diagnosis over their lifetime.

In many cases that delay can have no serious consequence, in others the consequence can be deadly.  For example, a delay in identifying a cancer can tip the scales from being easily treatable to catastrophic.

Diagnostic errors make up the leading type of malpractice lawsuits and are almost twice as likely as other claims to have resulted in a patient’s death.

The report, “Improving Diagnosis in Health Care,” is the latest in a series issued by the Institute of Medicine that has examined medicine’s failures in protecting patients.  A report done fifteen years ago, “To Err is Human,” found that tens of thousands of patients are killed each year due to negligent health care.

Sadly, too little has been done to respond to these reports.  The most recent report argues that in the case of improving diagnoses, improvements are difficult to make.  The report stated that there is no good way to monitor diagnostic errors, or of how often they lead to serious consequences.

The report does make recommendations – urging better teamwork and communication between health providers.  The report also urges that patients look out for themselves.  The lead author writes, “patients are central to the solution.”

Yet, most patients do little to look out for their own interests.  They rely on the judgment of their providers – the doctors, nurses and other health care professionals – to treat them.  Patients, and the general public, are at best dimly aware of the dangers of inadequate or negligent care.  A few of those harmed seek compensation in court, but the vast majority of those who suffer from poor quality care assume it is the result of bad luck, not bad care.

The Institute of Medicine has done tremendous work in highlighted the silent dangers resulting from poor quality health care.  It is the government’s responsibility to respond.  After all, it is the government which licenses health care professionals and which pays for most of the bills through public programs such as Medicare.  Unfortunately, too little has been done.

In fact, in last year’s budget the governor proposed to eliminate one of the state’s programs to make it easier for the public to review the backgrounds of their doctors.  That website, nydoctorprofile.com, was spared as a result of support in the legislature.

But instead of merely maintaining an inadequate status quo, state government should be aggressively boosting its efforts to protect patients.  Here are four steps that the governor should include in his upcoming budget plan:

1. Improve the doctorprofile website. The state’s website (nydoctorprofile.com) allows the public to easily examine a doctor’s background.  The website has not been improved since it first went online 15 years ago.  The state should modernize the website and require that a notice be posted in all health facilities to notify patients of its existence.
2. Overhaul the state’s program for tracking medical mistakes. The state requires that hospitals report medical mistakes to the Health Department.  But the program is viewed as a failure and does little to strengthen the state’s oversight of the quality of care delivered in hospitals.  The state should beef up its mandatory reporting system and sanction those hospitals which fail to do so.
3. Strengthen the state’s program for sanctioning poor quality providers. Health care providers are licensed to practice by the state, but the state has been criticized as doing too little to actively monitor those working in New York.
4. Require periodic recertification of doctors to ensure that they are maintaining their medical skills.

Those steps would begin to move New York in the right direction – toward protecting patients.

Last week, advocates across the nation celebrated “National Voter Registration Day.”  In New York, there was little to celebrate.

According to the U.S. Elections Project, in the 2014 election only the state of Indiana had a lower voter turnout than New York.  That’s right; New York was 49^th in the nation in voter participation.  Unfortunately, New York’s miserable performance is not an aberration; New York has consistently ranked as one of the nation’s worst states for voter participation.

There a many reasons for this sad ranking:  More competitive races tend to lead to higher voter turnout.  The gubernatorial election wasn’t ever tight, and even with the Republican challenger winning most of the counties in the state, Governor Cuomo beat him handily in the overall vote total.  According to the New York State Board of Elections, about 3.8 million people voted in that election. The Board considers nearly 11 million people eligible to vote.  Thus, only about 30 percent of registered voters cast their ballots for the race to determine the most powerful elected official in the state.

Non-competitive elections can smother voter turnout, but there are also barriers to getting registered to vote.

New York State had a “voting eligible population” of about 13.5 million in 2014.  The state Board of Elections reports that nearly 11 million New Yorkers are considered registered to vote.  That means that roughly 2.5 million eligible citizens were not registered to vote.

What are the barriers to voting in New York?

One big obstacle is the registration process itself.  Like much of the rest of the country, New York requires voters to register to vote.  In most of the rest of the democratic world, there’s no separate step called registration. It happens automatically. Thus, registering citizens to vote is the responsibility of the government.  The voter just has to show up.

In the United States, the responsibility is on the citizen to get registered.

New York has taken some steps to make it easier to register.  For example, an eligible voter can go the Board of Elections website (elections.ny.gov) and download a PDF version of the registration form, fill it out and send it in.  While a step forward, in the modern age an online system – in which a voter can register electronically – makes more sense.

New York has moved toward a full online voter registration system.  It began allowing people with driver’s licenses to register to vote online through the Department of Motor Vehicles in 2012.  The governor’s office said last week that more than 195,000 people had registered to vote that way — 53,000 of them for the first time.

While that’s good, it doesn’t make a big dent in the effort to register the millions of New Yorkers not yet registered who wish to do so.  And for those who are not drivers, the DMV program is of little help.

An obvious next step would be to expand that program found in the DMV to all other state agencies.  Those other agencies have databases of people they serve and collect a wealth of information – information that’s relevant to register to vote.  Yet when it’s time to register, it’s back with paper and pen to fill out a hard copy form or a PDF version found online.  The governor can expand the DMV program to all agencies through his budget plan.

In addition, in New York State, voters are typically required to register 25 days before an election – well before most voters tune into the election debates.  The state should allow New Yorkers to register and vote on Election Day.  Each year, just as interest in elections and candidates begins to peak, potential voters find that the deadline for registering to vote has already passed.  Such a system would dramatically increase voting rates.  Voter participation rates in “same-day” states are traditionally among the highest in the country.

New York should allow for full online voter registration, automatic registration of eligible citizens, pre-registration of 16- and 17-year-olds, party changes later in the election cycle, “same-day” registration, and automatic transfers of registrations for New Yorkers who move within the state.

In taking those steps, New York can start to move from national laggard in voter participation, to national leader.

After a brief hiatus, Albany’s ethics areonce again in the media.  Last week, two Assemblymembers were sentenced to prison for their ethics crimes and Governor Cuomo’s “Buffalo Billion” economic development program was reported to be under scrutiny by federal prosecutors.

First, the convictions.  Former Assemblyman Boyland was sentenced last week to 14 years in federal prison.  The Boyland case was incredible.  The former Assemblyman had earlier been prosecuted for accepting bribes, but was found not guilty.  Within two weeks of his exoneration, undercover federal agents recorded how Boyland accepted $7,000 while he gave them a tour of his district. “Everything we’ve seen here I’m in control of,” Mr. Boyland said in the tapes.

According to prosecutors, the relationship with the agents continued.  Later, Boyland suggested that the agents buy a derelict hospital in New Jersey for $8 million. He then told them that they should apply for grants to use public money for its renovation and resell it for $15 million to a nonprofit he said he controlled. He said he would arrange the deal in exchange for a bribe of $250,000.

Boyland was also convicted of lying about tens of thousands of dollars in expenses to the government, including travel payments, claiming falsely he was at work in Albany. While collecting those reimbursements for being in Albany, he was in fact enjoying personal trips in locations like North Carolina, Virginia and Istanbul. He even filed expenses for the meetings with the undercover agents.

The case of former Assemblyman Scarborough followed that pattern.  Last week, Scarborough was sentenced to 13 months in prison after he admitted submitting at least $40,000 in false expense vouchers for days he did not actually travel to Albany.  Prosecutors found that  of Scarborough’s 198 expense vouchers they reviewed, 174 were found to contain false information. The vouchers included claims for some overnight stays in Albany when the lawmaker was actually in Georgia and at home in Queens.

While those sentences closed the books on those two cases, the most intriguing ethics story resulted from media reports that the “Buffalo Billion” program – an economic development effort advanced by Governor Cuomo – was under scrutiny by federal prosecutors.  Reportedly, the investigation is focused on the multimillion-dollar contracts awarded to build facilities for high-tech businesses.

The “Buffalo Billion” program has been criticized for the secrecy in which it operates, and recent media reports have disclosed that a large campaign contributor to the governor was awarded a lucrative contract under circumstances that have raised concerns.

Of course, there is no way to know what the U.S. Attorney is doing, or whether he will identify any suspicious behavior.  But it was reported that the U.S. Attorney was conducting “a comprehensive look at the bidding process,” and that his office is “looking at communications between contractors and state officials.”

If those media reports are true, it means a significant change in the activities of the U.S. Attorney’s office and its examination of the governor.  It would be the first evidence that the U.S. Attorney has broadened his investigation beyond his current review of the actions of the Administration in shutting down the Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption.  Reportedly, the U.S. Attorney is looking into whether laws were broken when the governor pulled the plug on the Moreland Commission as part of a deal to close down the budget negotiations in 2014.

While we can’t be sure what will happen next, Albany seems to be plagued with unrelenting controversies and scandals.  Inexplicably, so far the governor and the state’s political leadership seem to have decided to ignore the scandals.  90 percent of New Yorkers think Albany’s ethics are a problem.  Federal prosecutors seem to be continuing the hunt.  All incumbent state legislators face the voters in one year.

Ignoring the mounting political threat seems like a huge political mistake.  New Yorkers should demand action, not a head-in-the-sand approach.  And if they don’t get it, lawmakers will face an angry electorate.

Recently the Obama Administration took a step to try to deal with one of the nation’s most intractable problems: how to reduce the recidivism rate of those released from prisons.  There are approximately 1.5 million people in state or federal prisons.  Those prisoners are serving time because they have been convicted of a serious crime.  But the question is – what happens when their time is up and they are released back into our communities?

The statistics are grim:  Despite prisons being called “correctional facilities,” they do a dismal job in turning lives around.  According to the U.S. Department of Justice, nationwide about two-thirds of released state prisoners were re-arrested within three years and three-quarters within five.  Prison is a revolving door.

And it’s a revolving door that impacts certain communities worse than others.  According to the Cuomo Administration, nearly half of New York inmate population is African American, nearly one quarter is Hispanic, and nearly one quarter is white.

The revolving door too often sends recently-discharged inmates into communities in which they will commit a future crime.  As a result, neighborhoods are less safe and people’s lives are too often ruined.  The currently high recidivism rate helps no one, so what should be done?

The Obama Administration recently unveiled a pilot program that will allow Pell Grants (the federal college subsidy program for the poor) to be issued to a small number of colleges to offer college courses to eligible inmates.  While prisoners can sometimes get access to educational courses now, they are ineligible for the federal Pell Grant program as well as the New York State Tuition Assistance Program (TAP).  Since the vast majority of inmates are low income, they usually cannot afford college courses while in prison.

Why offer college classes to prisoners?  The connection between higher education and reduced recidivism has been well established.  In one study, individuals who earned an Associate’s degree were 62 percent less likely to return to prison than those who did not.

A study conducted by the University of California at Los Angeles found that “[a] $1 million investment in incarceration will prevent about 350 crimes, while that same investment in education will prevent more than 600 crimes. Correctional education is almost twice as cost effective as incarceration.”

The Cuomo Administration has cited benefits to educating prisoners as well.  The Administration has found that formerly-incarcerated people who did not take classes while in prison were almost four times more likely to be re-arrested than those who did.

Thus, the Obama Administration’s plan.  The reason that it is a pilot program is that under a twenty year old law, the Congress prohibited Pell Grants for prisoners.  The President’s pilot program is allowed, according to the Administration, because of a provision in the Higher Education Act that allows the Education Department to study the effectiveness of a student-aid program without approval from Congress.

Similar efforts have been tried (unsuccessfully) in New York State.  Earlier this year, the Cuomo Administration urged passage of an initiative to give incarcerated individuals the opportunity to earn a college degree through funding college classes in prisons across New York.  That plan failed

Not surprisingly, there has been opposition to these types of reforms.  Some in Congress argue that the Administration is operating outside of the law.  Others – both at the national and statewide levels – argue that it is not right for prisoners to get financial aid, when the cost of going to college is skyrocketing which has led to a trillion dollar college debt.

And they do have a point.  In New York State, while the governor offered his own plan to help incarcerated individuals take college classes, his Administration has been advancing plans to annually hike tuition – thus driving up the cost of going to college for all.

But the debate is not really about how to keep college affordable, it’s about how our society treats those behind bars.  It is obvious that the current approach has not worked.  Punishment alone will not reduce the nation’s recidivism rate.