Another week, another series of ethics controversies in New York.\u00a0 The week began with the leak of a confidential report by the state\u2019s 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\u2019s city agenda in Albany.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s \u201cBuffalo Billion\u201d program.<\/p>\n
Some background first on the controversies swirling around the Mayor.\u00a0 According to the leaked document, the Mayor\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Under New York State election law, political party committees are set up to allow the parties to raise enormous contributions \u2013 in some cases well over $100,000 \u2013 and then transfers those sums to the candidates of their choice.\u00a0 This is routinely done with a wink and a nod.\u00a0 Effectively, New York law allows the state\u2019s donor class to legally circumvent already sky-high contribution limits, which often allow donations that double or triple the amount permitted under federal law.<\/p>\n
What made the de Blasio team\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Of course, to most of us that is a distinction without much of a difference and really underscores just how disgraceful the state\u2019s campaign finance system is \u2013 if you make those donations and wink about where the money will go, it\u2019s ok; if you are explicit, it\u2019s illegal.<\/p>\n
The criminal referrals have been made to the Manhattan District Attorney and the U.S. Attorney\u2019s office and subpoenas have been issued.\u00a0 Ultimately, they will decide whether crimes were committed.<\/p>\n
In the \u201cBuffalo Billion\u201d case, it is less clear what has happened.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
Again, there is no way to know how this will play out and whether any crimes were committed.\u00a0 But as in the case of the Mayor, there is a lot of smoke, we\u2019ll see if there is any fire.<\/p>\n
All of this occurs as state lawmakers return to Albany to begin their seven-week dash to the end of the 2016 legislative session.\u00a0 The governor has stated that ethics reforms are his top priority, but has done little more than say so.<\/p>\n
As lawmakers return, they must tackle ethics reforms that:<\/p>\n
A second issue is that one that has engulfed the Mayor \u2013 the law that allows huge contributions to political party committees and then gives them the option of transferring unlimited amounts to their candidates.\u00a0 The state needs new, much lower limits on donations to the parties as well as restrictions on how much they can spend on candidates.\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Albany\u2019s ethics \u201cdirty laundry basket\u201d keeps getting bigger.\u00a0 New York\u2019s ethics failures are a big problem.\u00a0 The public sends representatives to Albany in order to solve problems.\u00a0 If they can\u2019t \u2013 or won\u2019t \u2013 it will be time to replace them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Another week, another series of ethics controversies in New York.\u00a0 The week began with the leak of a confidential report by the state\u2019s 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 […]<\/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-1666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1666","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=1666"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1668,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1666\/revisions\/1668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}