For the longest time, the state Capitol has been rocked by scandals.\u00a0 In recent years, those scandals have mushroomed: Both leaders of the Legislature have been convicted of corruption and face time in prison, and close aides and associates of the governor have been charged.<\/p>\n
Not surprisingly, each year Governor Cuomo has touted reforms that are supposed to address the ethical misconduct that has plagued Albany.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the reforms that have been approved, while heralded as historic, have done little to curb corruption.\u00a0 Typically the measures are weak; often riddled with loopholes, and in some cases appear deliberately designed to sound good, but fail.<\/p>\n
In this year\u2019s budget, the governor once again advances a package that he argues will deal with ethical problems in both state and local governments.\u00a0 And while his rhetoric sounds good, a closer look reveals his plans are problematic.<\/p>\n
Broadly speaking, the governor\u2019s plans tackle four<\/em> different areas: ethics, openness, campaign finance and voting rights.<\/p>\n The governor offers a number of measures that could help improve New York\u2019s dismal voter participation record.\u00a0 For decades, New York has ranked at or near the bottom of the nation\u2019s barrel in this area.\u00a0 Despite New York\u2019s professed \u201cprogressivism,\u201d when it comes to voting participation, the state is as bad as the nation gets.<\/p>\n Some of the blame lies with the state\u2019s notoriously rigged political process, which leaves voters with little in the way of choices.\u00a0 But that alone does not explain New York\u2019s record.\u00a0 New York has created significant obstacles to citizens registering to vote and does too little to support elections administration.<\/p>\n In the governor\u2019s budget, he advances some \u201cbest practices,\u201d most notably proposing that the state allow new voters the opportunity to register and vote on election day.\u00a0 This is a common feature in many states with the highest voter participation rates.\u00a0 It makes sense that as election day draws close, would-be voters are most likely to get engaged.\u00a0 New York\u2019s current voter registration deadline, for example, requires registration typically before Presidential debates occur \u2013 or right before<\/em> voters fully engage.<\/p>\n The governor\u2019s campaign financing proposals contain important reforms: a voluntary system of public financing, lower campaign contribution limits, and more disclosures about campaign contributors.\u00a0 New to his package is a plan to ban campaign contributions from those who are seeking or receiving government contracts.<\/p>\n This last proposal is perhaps in reaction to the U.S. Attorney\u2019s prosecution of a vast \u201cpay-to-play\u201d scheme, in which it is alleged top Cuomo Administration officials allegedly rigged government contracts to be steered to those who made campaign contributions to the governor\u2019s reelection campaign.<\/p>\n The Cuomo Administration has been severely criticized for its across-the-board opacity.\u00a0 In terms of openness, the governor is proposing changes to the state\u2019s Freedom of Information Law (FOIL).\u00a0 FOIL is the law that is supposed to allow the public access to government data \u2013 usually collected with taxpayers\u2019 dollars.<\/p>\n However, the governor\u2019s proposal does virtually nothing to enhance public access to the records of government agencies.\u00a0 And government that operates in a secretive and publicly unaccountable manner sets itself up for scandal, among other problems.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s what we\u2019ve seen: scandals at the highest level have been alleged against members of the Administration.<\/p>\n Yet it is in the area of corruption-fighting ethics reforms that the Cuomo plans are most wanting.\u00a0 The governor advances measures to require limits on the outside income of lawmakers, which is a good idea.\u00a0 But the scandals alleged in the executive branch under the governor\u2019s watch had nothing to do with caps on income.<\/p>\n Recognizing the need to address this area, the governor offers the creation of new watchdogs, but they are all accountable to the governor<\/em>.\u00a0 Instead, the governor should have proposed measures to strengthen the powers of existing watchdogs<\/em> outside of his direct control.<\/p>\n In particular, when it comes to monitoring government spending, the state constitution establishes a separately-elected Comptroller to monitor the books.\u00a0 Not someone appointed or accountable to the governor \u2013 who directs the state agencies \u2013 but someone who is supposed to be directly<\/em> accountable to the public<\/em>.\u00a0 Over recent years, the governor and the Legislature have approved measures that\u00a0 cut back the power of the Comptroller to monitor government contracts.\u00a0 \u00a0Instead they should be strengthening them.<\/p>\n When it comes to ethics, it\u2019s long past time for New York to have a truly independent ethics watchdog.\u00a0 Not a watchdog with appointees directly chosen by the governor and the legislative leaders.\u00a0 Not one in which its top staffers are chosen from the staff of the governor.<\/p>\n An entity independent of the political elite that it is supposed to monitor.<\/p>\n Until New York establishes a system of independent ethics and contracting oversight, the nightmare of public corruption scandals will not end. \u00a0Hopefully, the final budget will make that happen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For the longest time, the state Capitol has been rocked by scandals.\u00a0 In recent years, those scandals have mushroomed: Both leaders of the Legislature have been convicted of corruption and face time in prison, and close aides and associates of the governor have been charged. Not surprisingly, each year Governor Cuomo has touted reforms that […]<\/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-1816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1816","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=1816"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1816\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1818,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1816\/revisions\/1818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}