It's an ominous sign that two self-identified ethics mavens in the Senate, Dan Squadron and Liz Krueger, failed to include on their list of desirable reforms (beyond those in the bill vetoed this week by Gov. Paterson) an independent ethics commission with power over the Legislature, and requirements that legislators including lawyers list publicly their private incomes and clients. Paterson did include both of those in his sweeping ethics proposal, along with more controversial and debatable features such as term limits and public financing of campaigns. In a familiar Albany dilemma, the state of current law regarding legislators' finances is so disgracefully lax, such an invitation to corruption, that the bill Paterson vetoed as woefully inadequate nevertheless would be a real improvement over existing law. Under current law, legislators, including the most powerful ones, can and do keep secret all information about their private incomes and clients. The bill vetoed by the Democratic governor would make some minimal information public. Those provisions were in the Assembly bill which passed last summer, which Senate Democratic leaders said was inadequate. But the final bill passed by both houses contained nothing stronger or better in those crucial areas of disclosure and oversight -- and the silence of Squadron and Krueger is a signal that Senate Democrats (with the honorable exception of Ruben Diaz) are determined not to rock the boat.
Gov. Paterson's letter proposing five-way negotiations to come up with a strengthened bill is eminently reasonable. The governor specifically cites the need to create "an independent ethics agency, so that its members are not beholden to those they must investigate and adjudicate. Second, we need to ensure disclosure of outside income, to reduce any appearance of impropriety and so that the public can get the information it deserves about its elected representatives." He's absolutely right.
To his credit, Senate Minority Leader Dean Skelos wrote back to Paterson today promising cooperation in negotiations, and has indicated the GOP will block a veto override. Skelos, who like Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Democratic leader John Sampson is a lawyer who does not now disclose his income or clients, could get ahead of the story by doing so.
Silver and Sampson have both explicitly opposed requiring lawyers to reveal their clients, and their bill would only disclose legislators' incomes within broad ranges. This week, the New York City Bar Association undermined their feeble case, for which there is no longer any excuse. It would be nice if New Yorkers of some stature and political ambition, such as Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, found the courage to point that out.
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