A legislative session that featured the arrest of both of the top leaders of the legislature on corruption charges, saw no new ethics improvements included in the end of session agreements on a host of measures. One reform group is calling on the governor and legislature to meet in a special session to address the state’s on going scandals.
Despite the arrests and upcoming trials of the two former legislative leaders, who had to quit their posts in mid-session when the scandals overtook them, the final days of the 2015 legislative session did not address any ethics reforms.
Blair Horner, with the New York Public Interest Research Group, says even for a legislature that has traditionally resisted change, that’s surprising.
“It’s sort of shocking that there wasn’t at least even a pretend effort to do some meaningful ethics reforms,” said Horner. “They adopted a head in the sand approach instead.”
Gov. Andrew Cuomo, in an event in recent days to highlight end of session achievements, acknowledged the disruption that stemmed from the arrests, but did not mention any new ethics changes as future goals.
“It could have been a little miniseries,” said Cuomo who acknowledged that the legislative leaders had changed, but did not explain why.
“It was a roller coaster of a session,” the governor said.
Cuomo, when asked directly about ethics reforms, says he and lawmakers already did that in the state budget. Measures were approved in early April to require more disclosure of lawmaker’s outside income from law clients. Horner calls that “window-dressing."
The legislature and governor even took a step backward from the agreement, when they failed to follow through on a deal to take steps to deny pensions to elected officials convicted of felonies. That measure stalled in the State Assembly, which angered the Assembly Republican Leader Brian Kolb.
“It was publicized that they had an agreement, and all of a sudden they’re not living up to an agreement. I think that’s unconscionable,” Kolb said.
A spokesman for the Assembly Democrats has said that technically, the legislature has until the end of 2016 to come to agreement on the pension forfeiture measure. The change requires amending the state’s constitution. That needs the approval of two consecutively elected state legislatures. The current term does not run out until December of next year.
NYPIRG and other reform groups say larger, more systematic issues need to be addressed, like closing a loophole that permits donors to skirt contribution limits by bundling money in limited liability corporations, or LLC’s. A bill to close the loophole passed the Assembly, and was approved in a Senate committee.
Senate Democratic Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, whose party is in the minority, argued at the time that the measure would help the legislature’s scandal scarred reputation.
“We have an opportunity to forge a new path, to restore public trust,” said Stewart-Cousins earlier in the session, asking Republicans to join the Democrats in supporting the bill.
The legislation eventually stalled in another Senate committee.
Just after the session ended, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie acted on his own to reform the way expense reimbursements are paid to Assemblymembers. Some Assemblymembers have been accused, and one was convicted of abusing the system, which provides a fixed stipend of $172 a day for hotel and meal expenses. Heastie, who had previously required proof that a lawmaker was actually in Albany on the days that they claimed expenses, now says legislators will need special permission if they come to the Capitol more than 30 days during the off session. They will be paid expenses for just 20 of those days.
NYPIRG is calling on the governor to convene a special session of the legislature to address ethics reform. The governor has not yet said whether he intends to do that.
Horner says Cuomo, by not acting, risks being seen as part of the problem.
“The governor, who had championed reform when he came in in his first term, has become increasingly the champion of the status quo in the second,” Horner said.
There’s another factor that may be hampering any further ethics reform, and that’s the ongoing investigations by U.S Attorney Preet Bharara, who has said he’s not finished yet.
