Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo,
seeking to prod recalcitrant lawmakers to take action after a rash of
embarrassing corruption scandals in Albany, plans to use his budget
proposal this week to push for approval of new ethics laws and a public
financing system for state political campaigns, administration officials
said.
Mr.
Cuomo, who has sought to position himself as a centrist Democrat and
has collected millions of dollars in campaign cash from real estate
developers and other wealthy donors, has faced persistent calls from the
left wing of his party to be more forceful in demanding an overhaul of
New York’s lax campaign fund-raising laws, a top priority of liberals who hope that sweeping changes in Albany could provide a model for other states.
The
pressure on the governor is growing. This month, New York City
inaugurated a new mayor, Bill de Blasio, who has been a vocal critic of
corporate money influencing politics. And on Thursday, Senator Elizabeth
Warren of Massachusetts, a national hero to liberals, is scheduled to
visit Manhattan to speak about money in politics along with one of Mr.
Cuomo’s in-state rivals, Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman.
As
he prepares to seek re-election this fall, Mr. Cuomo is also aiming to
address concerns from voters. The series of scandals involving
legislators, who have been accused of malfeasance including taking
envelopes stuffed with cash and groping young female staff members, have
threatened to undercut Mr. Cuomo’s claim to have restored order to the
state’s dysfunctional government.
The
proposals in Mr. Cuomo’s budget include measures intended to strengthen
criminal statutes relating to bribery, tighten loophole-ridden campaign
fund-raising laws and require legislators who hold second jobs outside
the Legislature to disclose more about their work, according to the
administration officials. They requested anonymity in discussing the
proposals before the governor releases his spending plan on Tuesday.
One
of the administration officials said on Sunday that Mr. Cuomo “believes
that government is limited by the lack of public trust, and it must be
restored.”
“The governor,” the official said, “is going to use every tool at his disposal to enact top-to-bottom ethics reform.”
Most
of what Mr. Cuomo is proposing in his new budget will not actually cost
money in the next year, aside from about $4 million that would be added
to the budget of the State Board of Elections to pay for the creation
of an independent enforcement office for election-law violations.
But
by including the proposals in his spending plan, Mr. Cuomo is trying
another tactic in his effort to cajole lawmakers into approving them. At
the very least, legislative leaders will be forced to answer questions
about ethics for the duration of budget negotiations, which must be
completed by April 1.
Mr.
Cuomo first proposed many of the ethics and campaign finance proposals
last year, after the arrests of several lawmakers in corruption
scandals. When lawmakers ended their session in June without passing the
measures, he followed through on a threat to appoint an investigatory commission to root out corruption, known as a Moreland Act Commission, which in December released a report calling for changes to the state’s elections, ethics and campaign finance laws.
But
the panel’s work did not prompt a deal with legislative leaders, as Mr.
Cuomo had hoped. In his State of the State address this month, he
repeated his call for new laws, calling his ethics plan “an
acknowledgment of the problem and an acknowledgment that we need to fix
the system.”
“Ethics
reform,” the governor said, “says to the people of this state: ‘Yes, I
saw the news articles, too, and it bothers me and I’m troubled by it,
and we’re going to pass ethics reform because we’re going to change the
system.’ ”
The
most politically contentious proposal that Mr. Cuomo plans to include
in his budget is an overhaul of New York’s campaign fund-raising laws.
Mr.
Cuomo will propose putting in place a public matching system for state
political campaigns modeled after the one used in New York City, where
individual contributions up to $175 are matched at a $6-to-$1 rate with
public funds. Candidates for the State Senate and State Assembly would
be eligible to receive public funds in 2016, and candidates for
governor, attorney general and comptroller in 2018.
Democrats
who have a large majority in the State Assembly support public
financing. But the State Senate is controlled by a coalition of
Republicans and an independent faction of Democrats, and the Republicans
have been vigorously opposed to public financing.
The
leader of the Senate Republicans, Dean G. Skelos of Long Island, has
described public financing as a poor use of taxpayer funds, saying that
voters do not want their hard-earned money going to support the
campaigns of candidates with whom they disagree.
“They’d
rather see that money spent on education, on pre-K, on our
infrastructure or on tax cuts,” Mr. Skelos said in an interview on WNYC
this month.
But
advocates of public campaign financing, undeterred by the Republicans’
opposition, have been lobbying Mr. Cuomo to include it in his spending
plan.
On
Thursday, more than two dozen groups, including the Working Families
Party, Common Cause New York and the powerful health care union 1199
S.E.I.U., sent a letter to Mr. Cuomo saying that the budget process “allows the best opportunity for making campaign finance reform a reality in 2014.”
Mr.
Cuomo has advocated campaign finance reform while using the current
laws to his advantage. He has been wildly successful raising money under
the current system, and has simultaneously benefited from fund-raising
loopholes and proposed closing them. On Wednesday, he reported having $33 million on hand for his re-election campaign.
In
a radio interview on Friday, Mr. Cuomo defended his prolific
fund-raising and said passing new fund-raising laws would be one of his
top priorities this year.
“Let’s
reduce the amount of money in politics so this unseemly appearance is
remedied — whether or not the unseemly appearance actually makes a
difference in a person’s behavior,” Mr. Cuomo said on “The Capitol
Pressroom,” a public radio show.
“I’m confident about my behavior,” the governor added. “Am I going to vouch for everyone’s behavior? No.”
Long Island Business News
Suffolk,
Nassau
OTB probe ethics conflict
by David Winzelberg
Published: November 24th, 2013
At least one employee of Nassau County Off-Track Betting is questioning whether the head of his employee union, a member-elect of the Suffolk County Legislature, should have a say in Suffolk OTB business.
Teamsters Local
707 President
Kevin McCaffery, whose union represents about 200 Nassau OTB
workers,
was elected earlier this month to serve as a Suffolk
legislator
representing the 14th District. In a letter last week, Nassau
OTB
cashier Jackson Leeds alerted the Suffolk County Ethics Board
to
McCaffery’s possible conflict of interest.
“As a Suffolk County legislator, his duties are to the people
of
Suffolk County,” Leeds wrote. “He cannot simultaneously
represent the
interests of employees of Nassau OTB, a Nassau County public
benefit
corporation.”
McCaffery told LIBN he doesn’t think the two counties’ OTBs
are in
competition with each other and he doesn’t see his role as
union leader
for Nassau OTB workers as a conflict with issues surrounding
Suffolk
OTB.
“If anything, I have the background of dealing with Nassau
OTB, which
gives me more insight on the subject than any other legislator
out
there,” McCaffery said.
When asked if the legislator-elect’s union job appeared to be
a
conflict of interest, Nassau OTB chief Joseph Cairo said, “If
you
really want to stretch it. But I don’t see anything that’s
apparent to
me.”
Cairo added that he’ll instruct the Nassau agency’s counsel to
review
the situation.
Leeds, a 10-year veteran of Nassau OTB, complained that both
union
officials and county OTB management have been too focused on
the 1,000
video lottery terminals planned for each county’s OTB and
they’re not
paying enough attention to current operations.
“They never worked behind a window,” Leeds told LIBN. “They’re
out of
touch with the bettors of Nassau County.”
Internet wagering and dwindling handles – the overall money
being
wagered – have prompted a consolidation in Nassau OTB’s
operations in
recent years; there were 15 betting offices in Nassau in 2003,
and now
there are eight. Suffolk OTB, which has seven branch offices,
filed for
bankruptcy last year.
These days, according to some analysts, OTB offices exist
largely for
political patronage – another reason, according to Leeds, that
the
Nassau union chief shouldn’t mix one business with the other.
“Union leaders should not be politicians,” he said. “OTBs are
run by
politicians. Being political and doing public good aren’t
always
incompatible, but they often are.”
This isn’t the first time a Long Island legislator’s OTB ties
have
become an issue.
In May 2000, Gregory Peterson, then-president of the Nassau
OTB, sued
to prevent Nassau County Leg. Roger Corbin from voting on
appointments
to the Nassau OTB’s board of directors. Because Corbin was
employed as
a branch manager for New York City OTB and a member of
Teamsters Local
858, which then represented all employees of Nassau OTB,
Peterson
alleged Corbin’s legislative role posed a conflict of
interest.
A New York Supreme Court judge issued an injunction preventing
Corbin
from voting on OTB appointments, but Corbin appealed and the
lower
court’s decision was reversed. The Nassau County Board of
Ethics also
chimed in, determining by a 3-2 vote that voting on OTB
appointments
didn’t create a conflict because Corbin didn’t influence
policy or
engage in labor negotiations.
With McCaffery, some observers say it’s best to proceed with
caution.
Anthony Figliola, vice president of Uniondale-based government
relations firm Empire
Government
Strategies, said the legislator-elect may want to recuse
himself
from any votes concerning Suffolk OTB until the Suffolk County
Ethics
Board offers an opinion.
“OTB is a political football,” Figliola said. “It’s better to
stay out
of it, especially if you want to get things done in the
Legislature.”
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