NY Gets a Board of Election’s Chief Enforcement Counsel

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has nominated former prosecutor Risa Sugarman as the state Board of Election’s chief enforcement counsel, a position created as part of the ethics negotiations that attended the March agreement on the state budget.

Sugarman currently serves as a deputy commissioner for the Department of Taxation and Finance, running its criminal investigations division.  She worked for two years as a deputy commissioner at the Division of Criminal Justice Services, where she headed up the Office of Sex Offender Management.

She worked with Cuomo during his four years as attorney general, running the AG’s regional offices before taking over that office’s Sex Offender Management Bureau.  Among her special assignments, she took part in the investigation of former Sen. Pedro Espada Jr.  She worked for two decades, 1977 to 1997, in the Bronx district attorney’s office.

The creation of the independent enforcement unit was recommended by Cuomo a year ago, a proposal that was repeated in the December report by his Moreland Commission on public corruption.  That panel’s hearings cast the Board of Elections as woefully ineffective at its enforcement duties.

The deal to create the position was one of the ethics concessions worked out by Cuomo and legislative leaders in the state budget package.  In exchange, the governor agreed to shut the panel down.

Sugarman’s nomination requires approval of the Assembly and Senate.  If she gets the job, she’ll serve as a fifth vote on the board for any matter touching on enforcement.

“Despite the enforcement counsel’s limited powers, she may very well prove to be an effective one,” said Bill Mahoney of the New York Public Interest Research Group, a longtime critic of the board’s enforcement efforts.  “But it’s an amazing coincidence that out of 19.5 million New Yorkers, the most qualified individuals always seem to have experience working for Gov. Cuomo.”

After dark yesterday, state legislators concluded their annual half-year session. They approved a new enforcement counsel for the Board of Elections.










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Michael H. Drucker
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