The New York Times reports that federal investigators are probing outside income paid to the Speaker of the New York State Assembly, among other lawmakers. A reform group says the article is one more reason that Governor Cuomo and the legislature should adopt long overdue ethical changes.
Susan Lerner, with Common Cause, says legislators are finding that if they don’t change their policies, they are increasingly in the crosshairs of federal prosecutors. And she says her group hopes to convince them to reform.
“We are always attempting to get our lawmakers to help themselves do better,” Lerner said.
According to the Times, a federal grand jury has subpoenaed records to try to document just how Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver earns what he says is $650,000 a year from the Manhattan firm Weitz and Luxenberg and possibly other law firms . The paper reports that investigators also discovered that the Speaker had subtly changed his financial disclosure forms, to reflect that he may be getting some of his income from the other, unnamed law firms. Perry Weitz, one of the firm’s founders, is on the board of directors of the Trial Lawyers, a major lobbying force in Albany.
The story says other lawmakers are targets as well, including retiring Senators Greg Ball and George Maziarz. Ball used campaign funds to take trips to Cancun, Acapulco and Texas. Maziarz’s account shows payments to Pier 1 and other shops, and several checks were written out to cash with no explanation of how they were spent.
None of the alleged behaviors are likely to be determined to be illegal though. Lerner, with Common Cause, says that’s because of the weaknesses in the state’s ethics laws concerning campaign funds and outside income disclosure.
“It confirms how badly we need reform,” Lerner said.
Governor Cuomo appointed a Moreland Commission on ethics that had begun looking into lawmakers’ outside income and use of campaign funds. But Cuomo closed down the commission last March, as part of a budget deal, amid accusations that his staff meddled with and tried to stop investigations of Cuomo contributors. U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara continues to probe those charges. Lerner calls the shuttering of the commission a “disappointing lost chance”.
The newspaper reports that Cuomo, who once campaigned against the use of LLC’s or Limited Liability Corporations, as a convenient loophole to get around campaign donation limits, himself received 20% of his $47 million dollars in donations from LLCs.
Lerner says the public has been demoralized by all of the reports of corruption. She says the record low voter turn out in the recent election is partly a response to that. But she says voters’ non participation sends the wrong message to state lawmakers.
“Indifferent is a vote for the current corrupt system,” she said.
The legislature is still considering a special session this month to raise lawmakers’ pay. Legislative leaders have expressed interest in one kind of reform. They’d like to change what’s known as the per diem system, where lawmakers are paid a set rate for each day they are at the state Capitol. Abuse of the per diem system has led to indictments of some lawmakers.
