The Independent View: NY BOE Enforcement Office

In 2014, Gov. Cuomo added a new enforcement office in the Board of Elections (BOE), but some say it has not delivered. Little has been heard from the BOE's enforcement unit headed by Cuomo appointee Risa Sugarman. Cuomo and the Legislature installed Sugarman as the head of an office charged with finding violations of campaign finance law and bringing cases against violators.

Good government groups and election board members alike say that so far Sugarman's appointment has only caused a regression in the board's enforcement actions.

"The independent enforcement counsell is taking a very different approach to enforcement and has given much less focus to the routine enforcement work that was done before the independent office was created," Democratic Board Chair Douglas Kellerman said.

Kellerman says that Sugarman has failed to collect fines from those who were found delinquent before she took office in 2014 and has not issued notices to campaign committees that had not filed since the July filing deadline last year. As of January 2015, Sugarman had also not begun assembling a report on the biggest violators of campaign contribution limits the board has traditionally issued. Sugarman confirmed publically in board meetings with Kellerman that she had not sent the notices.

At a board meeting in January Sugarman argued she had found a number of bad addresses for previous filings. She also said she was waiting for hearing officers to be hired. Hearing officers were the Legislature's contribution to the enforcement unit and are seen by good government groups as an uncesscary hoop to jump through because cases against violators must also be presented in State Supreme Court. Other commissioners pushed Sugarman to act because such a large backlog had been created.

"I guess my overall concern is that there were certainly lots of problems with the old enforcement unit," Kellerman said to Sugarman at the January meeting, "but there were lots of things that were getting done with the old enforcement unit that I'm concerned have now gone by the wayside with the transition and I hate to see us have a step backwards as opposed to forward on this. The over-contribution report was one of those things."

BOE staffers and chairs have expressed frustration that Sugarman doesn't update them on her activities. She has stressed her independence and ability to work on investigations with complete secrecy but some BOE members think the office is directionless and is looking to land big cases at the cost of basic enforcement.

Advocates share a lot of those concerns. "It seems they are missing basic procedure, missing basic compliance that the board used to do such as filing reports and audits," said Fauss of Citizens Union. "It is unfortunate that the board is not in a better position. It is a shame that we don't even see enforcement of basic compliance."

Assembly Member Kavanagh said that he believes Sugarman's office has already accomplished a great deal: "We never had someone looking at filings beyond whether they were on time or not. Without that it is hard to see how real enforcement happens. Now we actually have someone scrutinizing them and I think that will have a great impact."

Asked whether Cuomo plans to continue to push for campaign finance reform during the rest of session Lever said: "Yes, the Governor has been and remains committed to campaign finance reform."

But today, the only one doing campaign finance enforcement in New York is United States District Attorney, Preet Bharara.

Bharara explained that he sees significant problems with New York law that are contributing to all of the state's political ethics issues. He outlined the need for more regulation of lawmakers' ability to earn outside income in addition to their government salaries and the need for stricter disclosure rules and rules enforcement.

"After thinking about this for a long time, especially in recent months," he said, there is a "really serious problem" with "the influence of outside money and the way in which people can be associated with outside firms in a way that makes it very difficult to figure out what they're getting for that pay when they're otherwise legislators and supposed to be answering only to the people of their district and their state."

He went on to say there "should be a no-tolerance policy" regarding violations of disclosure requirements related to outside income and conflicts of interest.

"It is a very difficult thing for prosecutors like us and in other parts of the state to figure out what's illicit money and what's not illicit money," Bharara said. "And on top of that, when you have a disclosure problem where people are not disclosing in a way that they should, I think that's a real problem that should worry everyone."