The Independent View: NY Legislature Possible Ethics Reform

The New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) and other Government reform groups including Common Cause NY, Citizens Union, League of Women Voters NYS, and Reinvent Albany held simultaneous news conferences in Albany and New York City to call on lawmakers to act to prevent corruption in State Government. They released a list of five reforms they want to see enacted immediately.

Good government leaders and reform-minded Legislators say that the Legislature needs to take action to focus on preventing crimes instead of worrying about how to punish Legislators once they have already been committed.

Here are five things lawmakers can do over the next few weeks to help limit corruption in New York:

1. Ban or Limit Outside Income
Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s 2016 budget proposal included a bill that would restrict lawmakers outside income to 15 percent of their Legislative salaries, which are currently $79,500 per year, mirroring the Congressional model. Former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was convicted of receiving payments from a law firm for which the only service he provided was referring sufferers of a deadly form of cancer. Silver steered State funding to a doctor who in turn provided Silver’s law firm with the name of Mesothelioma patients. The arrangement earned Silver over $3 million in referral fees.
A number of other legislators work or have worked as Counsel to law firms that may have business pending before the State, others have worked as lobbyists or consultants. Backers of Cuomo’s plan and ones like it say that Legislators’ first loyalty should be to the people of New York and not to an outside employer.

However, Legislators complain that their annual salary is not adequate. A pay commission is currently considering raises for the Legislature and the Executive branch. The Assembly has advanced its own bill to limit Legislators’ outside income to almost $70,000 annually, a number that represents about 90 percent of current Legislative salaries. Senate Republicans have balked at the idea of limiting outside income. Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan, who left his outside practice when he replaced Former Majority Leader Skelos last year, has said he opposes a ban or strict limits. Republican Senator John DeFrancisco has argued that a ban would dissuade well-qualified people from public service. “I think you’re eliminating a lot of good people in government,” DeFrancisco told State of Politics in January. “If anyone really thinks creating a professional politician is going to root out corruption, where that politician is required every two years to win an election, I don’t think that’s a road to any less corruption.”

2. Create Stronger Budget Oversight and Transparency
In a new report, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli criticizes this year’s budget for relying on lump sum appropriations. Silver was able to tap into hundreds of thousands of dollars of those sums to provide support for the doctor who provided him with referrals. The funds are not subject to public scrutiny.

Good government groups want such lump sums either banned or included in a newly created database to track exactly who requests the cash, who ends up spending it, and how it is spent. A Citizens Union report recently revealed that the 2016-2017 budget contains $2.4 billion in lump-sum spending.

3. Confront Pay-to-Play
Entities with business before the State are also some of the biggest campaign contributors. Good Government groups say it creates at the very least an appearance of an inherent conflict of interest wherein those who give the most end up with favorable Legislation, State contracts, and business subsidies. New York City currently places very strict limits on campaign donations from anyone with business before the City as part of its public-matching program, which the State does not have.

In another part of his scheme, Silver encouraged real estate groups with business before the State to use a law firm he was connected to in exchange for kickbacks from the firm. Real estate interests are some of the biggest donors in the State and have been allowed to negotiate policy by Gov. Cuomo and the Legislature.

4. Close the LLC Loophole
Real estate and other groups have been able to game the State’s already lax Campaign Finance limits by using a loophole that allows the creation of mysterious Limited Liability Corporations with the express purpose of donating to favored politicians. We have the highest limits in the country of any state that has any and even those limits get circumvented.

Leonard Litwin, who had previously been the largest campaign donor in the State, described to prosecutors how he and his corporation, Glenwood Management Inc., used the system to get around contribution limits. Richard Runes, a lobbyist overseeing Glenwood’s Government relations, detailed the process during Silver’s trial, saying: “I would take the checks, and I would attach my business card to the check with a paper clip, put it in a 1200 Union Turnpike envelope, and deliver it to whichever campaign committee it was going to,” referring to Glenwood’s address.

5. Ethics Watchdog Independence
The Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE), tasked with policing lobbying and ethics in the State, is renowned for its opaqueness and lack of major action. The body is made up of Legislative and Gubernatorial appointees, and the three Chairs it has had in its short existence have all served as aides to Gov. Cuomo, one of them even returned to Cuomo’s direct employment after leaving the body.

The Commission has routinely been crippled by infighting, with Legislative appointees calling for less influence from the Governor’s office, and JCOPE largely conducts its business in secret. The appointees of both Silver and Skelos have lingered on after their bosses were convicted of public corruption.

We need to have a much better enforcement mechanism. The fact that JCOPE has been relegated to the sidelines shows the need for better enforcement. We shouldn't have to rely on the Federal government to police the State. We don't want a group that is solely a creature of the Governor and Legislature. JCOPE needs to be an open entity. It’s a public ethics watchdog, we should know as much we can know about it within reason.