Meet the new boss, same as the old boss (updated)

The State of Politics Blog has a couple of clips of Janet DiFiore, chairwoman of the new Joint Commission on Public Ethics, during and after its first meeting, in which she fails to make any plausible case for why JCOPE is doing all its significant business in secret. She does echo all those politicians who natter about "transparency" while actually doing their business out of public view. DiFiore could have said she is following the example of the man who appointed her, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, all of whose political successes this year were the result of three-men-in-a-room secret negotiations, to be rubber-stamped later by legislators. Those successes included a new ethics law which created JCOPE -- a law which did represent an improvement over the squalid staus quo, but, like most significant legislation in Albany, did not have the advantage of prior public examination and debate because it was cooked up in secret.

DiFiore is a prosecutor by trade, thus coming from a sphere where grand juries meet in secret so as not to compromise their investigations and smear their subjects. I presume similar considerations are the rationale for the exclusion of JCOPE from the state Open Meetings Law, although Bob Freeman, longtime executive director of the state Committee on Open Government, thinks JCOPE can and should operate under that law.

DiFiore and her fellow lawyers and political insiders (or toadies) on JCOPE obviously disagree with Freeman, voting to go into executive session for no adequate publicly provided reason. The same day in New York City, a state senator was pleading guilty to federal corruption charges. It's hard not to read that JCOPE vote, its first significant action, as an endorsement of Albany corruption as usual.

Update: Says David Grandeau: "There was Barry Ginsberg sitting next to the new chair just like the old days. And Barry is explaining why JCOPE doesn’t have to abide by Open Meetings Law just like the old days. Some of the commissioners seemed hesitant to go along with the private executive session but they did.
"This is Ginsberg’s approach: JCOPE doesn’t have to abide by Open Meetings Law. Nor does it have to abide by the Freedom of Information Laws.
"Those laws apply to every other government body, but not the state ethics panel.
"Tell me again why that is? Tell me how that inspires confidence in government? Tell me how it sets a standard for others to live up to? Tell me how it represents good government?"

Comments

[Brian]

The body charged with regulating transparency and corruption is not subject to the Open Meetings Law. This is what passes for "ethics reform" in NYS.