A consistent theme in Albany\u2019s unceasing parade of ethics scandals has been the abuse of power: Lawmakers using their public position to enrich themselves personally.\u00a0 As U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara put it while commenting on his successful prosecutions of the former Assembly Speaker and former Senate Majority Leader, \u201cBoth of those cases, by the way, were awful and sad stories. No one says that those two men never did anything good for their state, but they threw it all away by forgetting that their jobs we\u2019re not meant to be vehicles for massive personal profit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not surprisingly, addressing this problem is central to the ethics reform debate.\u00a0 But the \u201ctalking points\u201d of opponents are already emerging.\u00a0 Essentially, some lawmakers are arguing that it is good for lawmakers to have outside jobs in order to better inform policy choices.<\/p>\n
This is a classic straw man argument.<\/p>\n
No one is arguing that individuals with expertise should be prohibited from holding office.\u00a0 That would be absurd.\u00a0 However, reformers are arguing that while holding power, lawmakers should be focusing on their public job, not their private ones.<\/p>\n
Governor Cuomo is a lawyer.\u00a0 Imagine how long the line would be if he was allowed to set up a private practice.\u00a0 The line would be long and filled with wealthy powerful interests, looking for legal \u201chelp.\u201d<\/p>\n
Attorney General Schneiderman is also a lawyer.\u00a0 He regulates much of the real estate industry.\u00a0 Guess who would show up if he were allowed to open a private law practice?<\/p>\n
Neither of these men is allowed to do so.\u00a0 The most obvious reason is that they run sprawling governmental enterprises and it takes time to do it right.\u00a0 But another important reason is to remove a clear conflict of interest.<\/p>\n
State lawmakers argue that they are part-time, that their staff sizes are relatively small.\u00a0 Thus, they should be allowed to moonlight.\u00a0 But the temptation to use their public power to enrich themselves is still there.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Attorney found that the former Speaker used his legislative perch to enrich himself to the tune of a cool $4 million.\u00a0 Sadly, his is not the only case.\u00a0 Former Assemblymember Seminerio was convicted on influence-peddling charges related to his operation of a private consulting business that used his legislative position to generate income.<\/p>\n
In 2004, former Senator Guy Velella pled guilty to bribery charges for taking money to secure bridge painting contracts as part of his outside legal work.<\/p>\n
Why allow that temptation?<\/p>\n
The Congress has already acted.\u00a0 In the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, the Congress drastically restricted outside income for its members.\u00a0 As the Congressional panel responsible for drafting the new rules stated, \u201csubstantial outside income creates at least the appearance of impropriety and thereby undermines public confidence in the integrity of government officials.\u201d<\/p>\n
The same logic applies to Albany today.<\/p>\n
Lawmakers with outside jobs must have to put them aside while they serve as public servants.\u00a0 It\u2019s not a radical idea \u2013 statewide elected officials and the Congress live with similar rules.\u00a0 And if you are a firefighter, a police officer or a teacher, you have to put those jobs aside in order to be a lawmaker.\u00a0 Why should the small percentage of legislators who are lawyers and other professionals get a sweeter deal?<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, only silence has been heard on the \u201cdebate\u201d over ethics.\u00a0 That is likely to mean that a small number of well-compensated legislators plying their profession on the side have jammed up the debate.\u00a0 Only the governor can break that logjam.<\/p>\n
And the governor can only succeed if he takes the fight out of the dark rooms of the Capitol and has it in full public view.\u00a0 Nearly 90 percent of New Yorkers agree that Albany\u2019s ethics is a problem.\u00a0 If the ethics debate is open, the public has the chance to weigh in.<\/p>\n
Over the next few weeks, New Yorkers will see if the governor has the interest and the power to break that logjam.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A consistent theme in Albany\u2019s unceasing parade of ethics scandals has been the abuse of power: Lawmakers using their public position to enrich themselves personally.\u00a0 As U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara put it while commenting on his successful prosecutions of the former Assembly Speaker and former Senate Majority Leader, \u201cBoth of those cases, by the way, […]<\/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-1638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1638","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=1638"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1639,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1638\/revisions\/1639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}