The Ethics Issue: Cuomo, Paladino vow to clean up Albany

The list of Albany scandals the past four years is lengthy.

Former Comptroller Alan Hevesi, the sole trustee of the state pension fund, pleaded guilty this month to accepting travel and campaign contributions in exchange for investing hundreds of millions of dollars of state pension money with a businessman’s firm. Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned in a prostitution scandal in 2008. In the State Senate, one member was expelled after a domestic violence conviction, while former Majority Leader Joseph Bruno was convicted of two felony federal corruption charges.

“You’ve got to be guilty of out-and-out corruption in order to have any sort of enforcement on behalf of the people,” said Susan Lerner of Common Cause New York. “Laws are written in a deliberately vague way to allow elected and appointed officials to make their own interpretations of them.”

In this setting, it is no surprise that ethics reform in Albany has become a major issue in this year’s gubernatorial campaign. Whether the next governor will be able to do anything about it is an open question, experts say.

“The windows of opportunity open and close . . .” said Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research Group. “But we’ve heard this before. Remember, four years ago there was a guy  who was going come in and make all these changes.”

Here’s how Democrat Andrew Cuomo and Republican Carl Paladino, the major-party candidates for governor, say they’d tackle the ethics issue:

CUOMO: Has a big agenda

Cuomo has made cleaning up Albany a hallmark of his campaign. He has embraced former New York Mayor Ed Koch’s “throw the bums out” NY Uprising project — which is focused on redistricting reform, balancing the state budget and ethics enforcement and oversight — and published a 74-page pamphlet detailing his proposals.

Cuomo’s plan hinges on four key elements: Create an independent commission to take over responsibility for drawing legislative districts; require public disclosure of lawmakers’ sources of outside income and outlaw the “pay-to-play” system, in which individuals and corporations make campaign contributions with hopes of getting government contracts or other political favors; develop a public financing system for campaigns that lowers individual contribution limits from $55,900 for primary and general election campaigns, and enact tougher public corruption laws, including stripping elected officials convicted of crimes of their state pensions.

But while Cuomo has meticulously listed the goals of his reform platform — his pamphlet on the topic is titled “Clean Up Albany: Make it Work” — he hasn’t made it clear how he will prioritize them.

Last week in Merrick, Cuomo declined to say what’s atop his state government reform agenda but said disclosure of outside income and redistricting are priorities.

“I don’t believe you can rank them in terms of importance,” he said in response to a question. “I think many of these components, many of these issues are just components of a plan. There’s not one thing to fix Albany. You need to do a lot of things to fix Albany.”

PALADINO: Demand for openness

Paladino said he would seek to eliminate all pensions for new state legislators, require all legislators to disclose the source of their outside income and outlaw the practice of steering discretionary member-item funds to family members.

Paladino has famously pledged to take “a baseball bat” to state lawmakers to force them to cooperate with his plans to cut state taxes and spending.

“Taxpayers will know what all legislators make and how they earn it in a Paladino administration,” he says in a new policy statement.

He also has promised to appoint a special prosecutor with subpoena power and enlist the State Police to investigate conflicts in state government.

Paladino says the impetus for one of his most controversial accusations — calling Silver a “criminal” during questioning at a Crain’s breakfast in Manhattan — stemmed in part from his frustration that Silver is not required to report what he earns from the big Manhattan personal injury law firm Weitz & Luxenberg, where he is a partner.

Paladino also is proposing eight-year term limits for state lawmakers, which he said would diffuse some of the political power of the Assembly speaker and Senate majority leader. To accomplish this, he proposes a “people’s constitutional convention . . . free of lobbyists and politicians.”

Paladino has also pledged to conduct budget negotiations in full view of the Albany press corps and shut down state government, except for police and public health agencies, if lawmakers do not pass a state budget by the annual April 1 deadline.