Editorial: Ethics panel must be stronger

The law establishing the Joint Commission on Public Ethics wasn't the strongest to begin with. Then it took months for the new state ethics panel to get off the ground. Now Senate Minority Leader John Sampson (D-Brooklyn) has named to the panel a classic political wheeler-dealer, the Manhattan lawyer Ravi Batra.

All in all it's an inauspicious beginning for a sorely-needed organization that's supposed to police Albany corruption -- complete with the spectacle of Sampson insisting that Batra "will help bring integrity back to the halls of our Capitol."

But Sampson himself figured prominently in a blistering report last year from the state Inspector General's office. After investigating the awarding of a now voided slot-machine contract to Aqueduct Entertainment Group, the IG's office concluded that Sampson improperly gave AEG confidential information on rival bidders and insisted AEG include a developer friend in its plans.

Batra, meanwhile, who has given Sampson campaign donations, is controversial in part because former Brooklyn assemblyman and power broker Clarence Norman Jr. worked for his law firm and named him to a panel screening Democratic nominees for state judgeships. Norman later was convicted of misusing campaign funds.

Other members of the 14-person panel are also veteran political insiders. Even conceding that it's a thankless job, the new improved ethics watchdog doesn't seem to have a stronger bite than the toothless one it replaced.