Ethics Complaint Filed Over Bloomberg-Lauder Pact

Two civic groups said on Thursday that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg had violated the city’s ethics laws when he pledged to put Ronald S. Lauder on a charter revision commission to ensure that the billionaire cosmetics heir supports the mayor’s bid for a third term. The groups, the New York Public Interest Research Group and Common Cause, made the charge in a complaint filed with the city’s Conflict of Interest Board.

Mr. Lauder, who underwrote the campaign to create the city’s two-term limit for elected officials in 1993, had posed a serious threat to Mr. Bloomberg’s plans for a third term. Mr. Lauder had vowed to oppose Mr. Bloomberg’s plan to revise the law permanently, to a three-term limit, until Wednesday, when Mr. Bloomberg promised to appoint him to a charter revision commission that could return the law to its original state.

The civic groups contend that deal violates a provision of the City Charter, which says the mayor cannot “use or attempt to use his or her position as a public servant to obtain any financial gain, contract, license, privilege or other private or personal advantage, direct or indirect, for the public servant.”

In their complaint, the groups said that “we believe that Mayor Bloomberg has used his position in a prohibited manner to obtain personal advantage in a quid pro quo deal with Ronald Lauder.” Mr. Lauder’s support, they said, represents a “a great gain, given Mr. Lauder’s track record of spending millions to defend the current two-term limit.”

Michael H. Drucker
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