Last week, a Siena Research Institute poll reported that 90 percent of New Yorkers thought that government corruption is a serious problem.\u00a0 When 90 percent of New Yorkers agree on anything, it\u2019s amazing.\u00a0 So you\u2019d expect that elected officials would get the message and respond.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, there is evidence that they simply don\u2019t care enough.<\/p>\n
Albany\u2019s failure to enact ethics reforms was highlighted last week with the release of the first campaign finance reports of 2015.\u00a0 The report showed New York\u2019s campaign finance system is essentially a \u201cWild West\u201d \u2013 with no sheriff.<\/p>\n
The campaign reports showed that big bucks continued to flow to Albany\u2019s leadership. Governor Cuomo reported collecting over $5 million in campaign dollars, with 3 \u00bd years to go before his possible reelection.\u00a0 Attorney General Schneiderman reported raising $2.3 million.\u00a0 The new Speaker, Carl Heastie, started the year with only $30,000 in his campaign warchest.\u00a0 By mid-year, the new Speaker had collected over $300,000 in campaign contributions.\u00a0 The new Senate Majority Leader, John Flanagan, was equally successful in collecting campaign bucks, raising nearly $280,000 in the first half of the year.<\/p>\n
But the loopholes in the campaign finance system were striking.\u00a0 According to Capital New York, a network of limited liability companies tied to Orange County developers funneled the governor $250,000 in 2015, more than any other source. These donations were made less than a week after the governor vetoed a bill that leaders of a Hasidic village tied to the developers described as restricting its development.<\/p>\n
In addition, the donations highlighted the problems with the much-maligned way it treats contributions from limited liability companies.\u00a0 A series of nine checks from vaguely-titled LLCs entered Cuomo\u2019s campaign account.\u00a0 Eight of these checks had Brooklyn, NY addresses listed in Cuomo\u2019s campaign disclosures. \u00a0According to Capital NY, however, those LLCs\u2019corporate addresses were listed in the town of Monroe, NY \u2013 a town which contains the Hasidic village.<\/p>\n
The campaign filings also disclosed the legal, but still lousy, ways that campaign contributions can be used.\u00a0 Of the $5 million raised by the governor, $100,000 was paid to a law firm which is representing the governor\u2019s office in a federal probe into how the governor killed off the Moreland Commission Investigating Public Integrity.<\/p>\n