The expanding investigations into the actions of former Governor Cuomo and his top staff continue to dominate the news.\u00a0 Just when we thought we knew all there was to know, last week\u2019s release of the sworn depositions of the governor and his top staff gave new insights into how the former Administration handled harassment complaints and how the governor and his top aides acted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those insights are not pretty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A report by the Albany Times Union<\/em> illustrated just how the former Administration viewed oversight by the state\u2019s Inspector General. According to the deposition of Linda Lacewell, previously a top lawyer to the former governor and then head of the state\u2019s Department of Financial Services, the New York State Inspector General cannot investigate complaints against the governor or his top aide. That\u2019s a breathtaking position for a top government lawyer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n First, some background. What is New York\u2019s Inspector General? <\/p>\n\n\n\n Under New York State law, the Inspector General is empowered to receive and investigate \u201ccomplaints concerning allegations of corruption, fraud, criminal activity, conflicts of interest or abuse in any entity under the Inspector General’s jurisdiction.\u201d In short, the IG is supposed to investigate things like harassment of staff or misuse of public resources for personal<\/p>\n\n\n\n gain \u2013 just the types of allegations leveled against the former governor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Inspectors General are common across the nation. At the federal level, they have similar responsibilities. As you may recall, they did their jobs so well that former President Trump fired some for being too honest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n States and municipalities have IGs too. New York has more than one \u2013 there is one for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the state\u2019s Medicaid program, for example. Yet, New York\u2019s law creates a wrinkle. New York State\u2019s Inspector General is chosen<\/em> by the governor and reports<\/em> to the governor\u2019s highest-ranking aide \u2013 known as the Secretary to the Governor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since the IG is chosen by and effectively reports to the governor, according to Lacewell, that person has a conflict of interest and therefore cannot investigate the governor. That legal logic may contribute to the failure of the IG\u2019s office to compel the former governor to testify about how he learned of a secret conversation by the members of the state\u2019s top ethics watchdog, the Joint Commission on Public Ethics. While Lacewell\u2019s opinion may not be legally binding, as a practical matter that\u2019s the way it plays out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And given their relationship, Lacewell\u2019s thinking mattered a lot to the governor. In the criminal trial of another former top Cuomo aide who was subsequently convicted of corruption and sent to prison, Lacewell was described as the \u201cMinister of Defense\u201d \u2013 charged with protecting the former governor from scrutiny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Again, Lacewell\u2019s opinion is just that, opinion. The IG under former Governor Paterson was incredibly active, leading scores of investigations including allegations against Paterson and his aides. That inconvenient fact was not part of the apparent worldview of the Cuomo team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the revelations highlight a problem in state law: The Inspector General is simply not independent of the governor and his or her aides. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A review of \u201cbest practices\u201d nationwide shows that New York\u2019s law falls far short of what the public should expect. Such \u201cbest practices\u201d call for IGs to be structurally independent of the entity they are responsible for monitoring, strict standards for who can be selected (no former top aides to the governor for example), and guaranteed funding to ensure that the agency is financially secure enough to do its job without fear of budgetary repercussions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, that rule should apply to all state-funded watchdog agencies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Government officials are public servants<\/em>. They are not royalty or dictators. They take an oath to serve the public<\/em>. In order for the public to have confidence that tax dollars are being used appropriately and that public servants are behaving ethically and professionally, there must be independent<\/em> oversight of all<\/em> public servants \u2013 even the governor, and for that matter, even the President. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Accountability is key to maintaining public trust in democracy. State ethics agencies and inspectors general are central to maintaining that accountability. The public expects that government officials are accountable for efficient, cost- effective government operations and to prevent, detect, identify, expose and eliminate fraud, waste, corruption, illegal acts and abuse. You won\u2019t trust the outcome when the umpire is beholden to the home team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The depositions released last week show that New York has strayed too far from these basic principles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s now up to Governor Hochul and the state Legislature to establish \u201cbest practices\u201d for ethics enforcement. The most obvious first step is to ensure that IGs are not directly accountable to the governor or his or her top aides. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The expanding investigations into the actions of former Governor Cuomo and his top staff continue to dominate the news.\u00a0 Just when we thought we knew all there was to know, last week\u2019s release of the sworn depositions of the governor and his top staff gave new insights into how the former Administration handled harassment complaints […]<\/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-2654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2654","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=2654"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2655,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2654\/revisions\/2655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}