Another week, another conviction of a high-ranking elected official.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard to know if this is the tipping point for change.\u00a0 New Yorkers can only hope so.<\/p>\n
Last week, former Senate Majority Leader Skelos was convicted of corruption, essentially for using his public office for private gain. He now joins the former Assembly Speaker as they contemplate time in the slammer.<\/p>\n
And they both join an incredible number of elected officials who have disgraced their public office.\u00a0 Both parties and both the legislative and executive branches have been caught acting illegal or unethically \u2013 totaling a stunning 41 elected officials over the past 15 years.<\/p>\n
New Yorkers should hope that these latest convictions should force Albany to clean up its act.\u00a0 While the dust is settling, the first indications are not great.<\/p>\n
Governor Cuomo issued a statement arguing that it is up to the legislature to respond to the ethics crisis gripping the state Capitol.\u00a0 To his credit, the governor stated that he would be offering additional reforms, but did not specify all of what he thought should be done.<\/p>\n
The legislative leaders said that they too supported reforms, but offered no specifics.<\/p>\n
Poll after poll shows that New Yorkers overwhelmingly want reforms.\u00a0 Unfortunately, there is some evidence that Albany still hasn\u2019t gotten the message.<\/p>\n
One thing was clear from the court proceedings against both the former Speaker and the former Majority Leader: the secrecy surrounding governmental decisions raises the corruption possibilities and New York should be doing more to open up government to public scrutiny.<\/p>\n
Yet, last week, the opposite seems to have occurred.<\/p>\n
The governor vetoed two bills designed to make state agencies accountable for violating the state\u2019s Freedom of Information Law.\u00a0 One bill would have required that state agencies not drag their feet on disclosing information to the public; another raised the likelihood of penalties if the agencies wrongfully denied the public access to public information.<\/p>\n
Both proposals were advanced by the state agency responsible for ensuring government openness \u2013 the Committee on Open Government.\u00a0 Both proposals were part of the agency\u2019s annual analysis examining what should be done to improve governmental accountability.<\/p>\n
Both bills passed the legislature with overwhelming bipartisan support.\u00a0 But both were vetoed by the governor.<\/p>\n
Why?\u00a0 The governor argued that there were technical defects in the bills.\u00a0 The governor followed up with an executive order requiring that state agencies respond more quickly to FOIL requests.
\nUnfortunately, the governor\u2019s executive order does nothing to ensure openness by local governments (also covered by FOIL) and does nothing to punish state agencies that ignore the FOIL.<\/p>\n
As of now, it seems more like Albany muscle memory is taking over \u2013 keep things secret.\u00a0 And that is exactly the wrong lesson that the governor and state leaders should have learned from the recent convictions.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s hoping that the governor and other state leaders will embrace reforms, not figure out new ways to deflect public scrutiny. Openness, public accountability, new independent enforcement, high ethical standards should be the new standards. \u00a0Not finger pointing, kicking the can, and public relations head fakes.<\/p>\n
New Yorkers deserve better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Another week, another conviction of a high-ranking elected official.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard to know if this is the tipping point for change.\u00a0 New Yorkers can only hope so. Last week, former Senate Majority Leader Skelos was convicted of corruption, essentially for using his public office for private gain. He now joins the former Assembly Speaker as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1574"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1575,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1574\/revisions\/1575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}