Why doesn't Smith disclose income? (updated at end)

So was I too cynical in this post from last week about the prospects for reform now that Democrats have taken over the state Senate? I decided to test the waters by asking if the new majority leader, Sen. Malcolm Smith of Queens, would publicly disclose his private-sector income for the year 2007. That's the most recent year available for the financial disclosure forms filed by all legislators, and available from the Legislative Ethics Commission. Available, that is, according to the commission's Web site, "except for the categories of value," meaning we can't know how much the politicians were raking in. So we still don't know how much Joe Bruno, the former Senate majority leader, was making from his home consulting business which has been part of the endless FBI investigation into whether his private interests got too tangled up with public business. Nor do we know how much the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, makes from a Manhattan law firm, or how much the Republican Senate leader, Dean Skelos, makes from his own and another law firm on Long Island. We don't know who their clients were, either. Scott Reif, a spokesman for Skelos, confirmed Thursday that he does not make that information publicly available. Nor does Silver.(I didn't ask the Assembly press office about that, because I do not think it likely if Silver were to change his longstanding practice that I would be the first to know.) Jim Tedisco, the Assembly minority leader, only declared earned income from one non-state source in 2007, an old book he co-authored called "Missing Children" that I doubt is raking in substantial royalties these days.

But what about Smith? While he and the other legislators are not legally obliged to reveal their incomes, there is nothing stopping them from doing so. And it is impossible for people to figure out potential conflicts of interest if they don't know about legislative leaders' private-sector income and clients (it's hard enough even if you do have the information, as the FBI  and U.S. attorney have discovered in three years of investigating Bruno). In fact, it is a large and persistent scandal that such information is not publicly available.

Unlike those of the other three legislative leaders, Smith's 2007 disclosure form was hand-written, making it difficult to read. It appears to say he was vice president of the Great Abstract Title insurance Co., about which I can find nothing online, and is also connected to M3 Security (although the form says the M3 connection is "inactive" and "defunded," whatever that means). Smith's extensive biography on the Senate Web site does not mention either of those companies, but does talk about major deals he was involved in as a real estate developer and "economic development expert" in New York City. I asked Smith's press office today about his private income in 2007 and whether he'd be prepared to disclose it, and for information about those companies he worked for and what he did for them. They said they'd get back to me. I also bumped into Smith himself in a hallway and asked if I could have a word, but he joked, "They'll kill me if I talk to the press without my people," so I let him be.