According to a great article I found surfing the web for Green Party news, the New York State Green Party has “criticized (New York) Governor Cuomo today for his flawed efforts to reduce public corruption in New York State”. Also, check out Democracy Chronicles’ Green Party page. Cuomo’s election reforms have been hailed by some in the democracy activist community but according to the NY Greens, the effort falls far short of achieving true victory against money in elections. According to the article, “the Green Party had criticized the various campaign finance reforms advanced by Assembly Speaker Silver and Democrat Party leaders as being too limited, and filled with too many loopholes to have much impact in reducing the influence of special interests at the State Capitol”.
NY State is plagued by corruption in government and it is clear there are many reforms that are needed on top of Cuomo’s effort. The NY Green Party offered some of its own suggestions in the article:
One key target should be state legislators such as Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Leaders Dean Skelos and Jeff Klein, who benefit as partners in law firms with clients who seek business from the state government. It was recently revealed that Silver collects more than $350,000 from his law firm.
Another practice that needs to be exposed and ended is individuals having government contracts and subsidies who make campaign contributions. This so-called “pay to play” approach to campaign fundraising has been particularly abused by State Comptrollers, such as Carl McCall in his 2002 gubernatorial race.
Much of the article criticizes Governor Cuomo over the “Moreland Commission”, a project that the Governor’s office describes as follows:
On November 13, 2012, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo established a commission under the Moreland Act to, among other things, investigate the response, preparation, and management of New York’s power utility companies with respect to several major storms impacting the State, including Hurricanes Sandy and Irene, and Tropical Storm Lee. The Moreland Commission is tasked with investigating New York’s power utilities’ preparation and response to the major storms that have devastated communities in the State of New York over the past two years, including Hurricane Sandy, Hurricane Irene, and Tropical Storm Lee.
The Commission is undertaking a thorough review of all actions made by the utilities before and after these emergencies, and will make specific recommendations to Governor Cuomo for reforming and modernizing the oversight, regulation and management of New York’s power delivery services.
One success that Cuomo’s reform push has had is in ethics reform:
The Public Integrity Reform Act of 2011 contains the most comprehensive ethics enhancements in modern history and will usher in a dramatic change in the way our government does business. Among many improvements, it requires state officials to disclose outside clients and customers to whom they provided services or acted to refer or solicit for their firms. It requires detailed disclosure of official’s income and assets. It creates a public “Project Sunlight” database of all individuals and firms that represent clients before state agencies in any matter, requires that all lobbyists and clients of lobbyists disclose all business relationships with public officials and broadens the definition of lobbying to increase oversight of lobbying behavior.
The bill creates a new Joint Commission on Public Ethics with investigative oversight over both the executive and legislative branches and lobbyists. Investigative findings will be made public so the people can judge whether the punishment fits the crime. The new commission will provide mandatory ethics training for executive and legislative branch employees, and lobbyists. The law also provides for pension forfeiture for public officials convicted of a felony related to their office.
After years of stalled reform efforts, the Legislature passed the Governor’s ethics package with overwhelming bipartisan support. By cleaning up Albany, Governor Cuomo is beginning a new era of transparency and accountability to repair the broken relationship between State government and the people it serves.
Democracy Chronicles Money in Elections page has complete coverage of this issue and also see our Election Reform page as well.
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