“What I am trying mightily to do is not allow the scandal mania” to become “all-consuming,” Cuomo said during a local radio appearance. “I don’t want that to eclipse the session, and I don’t want it to derail the session, because we have a lot of good work to do out there.”

Cuomo said passing his entire legislative agenda is still possible before the session ends next month.

Despite the recent slew of public officials arrested — among them two sitting state senators — the Democrat said he’ll push ahead with his priorities.

Those include getting a referendum on the ballot to allow casino gambling upstate, restructuring local governments, codifying federal abortion rights into state law, abolishing LIPA and calling for public financing of campaigns.

Senate Republican Conference Leader Dean Skelos yesterday called public campaign financing a “terrible idea for taxpayers” in an op-ed piece and has said he will stand in the way of the a vote on abortion rights.

Cuomo said the scandals were “emotionally draining for some people” and embarrassing for others.

But he pleaded, “Let’s deal with the reform agenda and deal with the quote, unquote scandals, but let’s also do what we are supposed to do and get the government working.”

But he said the scandals were “irrelevant unless you allow it to become relevant.”

The post Gov’s ‘scandal mania’ alarm appeared first on Fair Elections for New York.

In the last seven years, 32 state elected officials have been have been convicted, censured, or otherwise accused of wrongdoing. The corruption has been particularly concentrated in the Senate. In less than five years, four legislative leaders and 10 senators in total have been convicted or charged with corruption. That’s in a body of just 63 senators!

The scandals have touched Democrats and Republicans, upstate and down. But make no mistake, it is the Senate Republicans who are currently the biggest impediment to systemic reform in Albany.

Dean Skelos is so worried about the ever-more-insistent calls for reform that yesterday he wrote an op-ed that brings together all of opponents’ attacks on public financing, no matter how much they stretch the truth. In between the misleading bluster and hyperbole, he makes three main claims that are easily debunked.

Claim Number 1: Business Opposes Reform

Skelos argues that the state’s “real-world job creators” oppose reform. This is demonstrably false. In fact, business leaders in New York overwhelmingly support comprehensive campaign finance reform that includes small donor public financing.

In the last few months, many of these business leaders have been a vital part of the chorus of voices in favor of campaign finance reform. Of course, none of them were invited to speak at the “public” hearing Republicans held to defend the status quo in Albany last week. But that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. In April, Jerome Kohlberg penned an op-ed in Crain’s New York Business arguing strongly for reform, and in March, the Committee for Economic Development issued a report explaining the benefits of New York City’s public funding program. New York business leaders have organized a bipartisan group demanding comprehensive reform, NY LEAD. Its members include Empire State notables and job creators like Cynthia DiBartolo, chair of the Greater New York Chamber of Commerce, Barry Diller, Dan Neidich, David Rockefeller, Ralph Schlosstein, and many, many more.

These business leaders recognize that comprehensive campaign finance reform will creategreater participation by all New Yorkers, more competition for incumbents, and reduce the influence of special interest money.

Perhaps Dean Skelos recognizes this too?

Claim Number 2: Reform will cost $286 million per year

Despite a carefully reasoned estimate by the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute showing public funding would cost between $26 and $41 million per year, based on campaign data from 2010 and 2012, Skelos incredibly claims that it will cost $286 million next year alone. He offers no explanation as to where he gets this number from. Just last month, his own Republican conference touted an estimate of $222 million every two years, so Skelos must believe the cost has somehow more than doubled in the last few weeks. The Republican conference estimate is based on a set of wildly unrealistic assumptions without any relation to recent history and has been completely debunked.

Claim Number 3: New York City’s reformed campaign finance system has led to more corruption

Skelos tries to distort the record of New York City’s public financing system, saying that “dozens” of candidates have abused the system. In reality, the agency that runs the city system is a highly effective enforcer. The handful of candidates who have tried to game the system have been caught by sharp-eyed staff at the Campaign Finance Board, and denied public funds. In fact, the Campaign Finance Board enforces all of the city’s campaign finance laws, not only the public funding rules. We desperately need this kind of effective enforcement at the state level, where there were more than 100,000 violations of campaign finance laws last year, and state officials did little more than send warning letters.

Far from fueling corruption, public campaign funding has been an essential part of government ethics reform in New York City and Connecticut, both of which enacted public financing after devastating corruption scandals. Since enacting its public financing system, New York City has seen nothing like the cancerous corruption crisis of the 1980s, in which party bosses controlled entire agencies rife with extortion and bribery. And the four years after Connecticut’s reforms were implemented have seen the lowest number of federal corruption convictions on record.

In his op-ed, Skelos also repeats the ridiculous argument that Malcolm Smith was trying to get public campaign funds when he allegedly attempted to bribe his way onto the Republican ballot line for mayor of New York City. While no one except Smith knows exactly what the senator was thinking, he would have been eligible for public funds as a Democratic candidate, so it makes no sense that public campaign funding was the impetus for bribing Republicans.

***

At a closed-door meeting with his conference last week, Skelos discouraged senators from continuing to accept campaign donations from gambling interests, reportedly saying, “People are watching very closely.” If Skelos thinks it’s enough to try to hide the influence of special interest money for a little while during the current media focus on scandal, he is badly mistaken. New Yorkers demand comprehensive reform, and they are indeed watching very closely to see who supports reform and who works to protect the corrupting system.

Some incumbents and special interests like Albany just the way it is, a place where giving big money to legislators gets big results in terms of access, influence, and sweetheart deals. Comprehensive campaign finance reform, including public financing, will create a system where regular New Yorkers can meaningfully compete with the influence of big money. It willmake elections more competitive by allowing quality candidates without relationships to big donors to run, giving voters more choice. Right now, special interests and shady characters willing to pay to play speak louder than everyone else. Reform will lift all our voices so that we’re not drowned out by the richest donors. Of course there are people in Albany who oppose reform, because they’ve made the current system work for them. We need fundamental change to make the system work for the rest of us.

The post Debunking Dean Skelos’s Excuses for Protecting Corruption appeared first on Fair Elections for New York.

The “Fair Elections Bill” that has already been passed by the Assembly and is being considered by the state Senate will move the state in the right direction. It is modeled on what is already being done in New York City and will put a reasonable cap on the amount of contribution by big special interest groups and encourage involvement by a diverse cross section of people who have not had a voice up until now. This bill is a great starting point on the road to good government and should be supported by all who want more transparency in our convoluted and deeply flawed system.

ROBERT LOUIS BENVENUTI

BRIGHTON

The post Letter: Bring fair elections to New York state appeared first on Fair Elections for New York.

Does Mr. Samuels even read the newspapers he submits his opinion pieces to? Had he taken the time to do so he might find it more difficult to ignore the Democratic scandals right in front of his face. Even a partisan like him must know the Senate Democratic Conference is a conference in crisis right now, with no fewer than four members under arrest, indictment or investigation.

Mr. Samuels portrays himself as an activist and a reformer, but the truth is he’s neither. He is a political operative who has a cozy relationship with far too many of the same Senate Democrats who were recently busted.

Mr. Samuels once served as the finance chairman for the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, the fundraising arm of their political committee. With friends like that in the conference of corruption, it’s surprising that Samuels hasn’t been questioned by federal authorities or approached by the FBI about wearing a wire.

And the New York City public finance system that he and other misguided advocates cite as a solution to recent scandals? It’s widely known for encouraging candidates to game the system and waste taxpayer money.

Mr. Samuels’ job as chairman of the New Roosevelt Initiative must have Teddy, Franklin and Eleanor rolling in their graves.

Kelly Cummings

Communicaions

director, state Senate

Republicans

Albany

The post Letter: Political operative hardly a reformer appeared first on Fair Elections for New York.

The Independent Democratic Conference, part of a coalition with Republicans that comprises the Senate majority, sponsored a hearing in Erie County Hall on Monday aimed at building support for a top-to-bottom overhaul of political campaign financing in New York State.

If the group, headed by Sen. Jeffrey D. Klein of the Bronx, gets it way, new rules that drastically restrict contributions and impose new directives on how campaigns are financed – while also introducing the concept of public financing – could reduce the role of big money in state campaigns.

“This is a window of opportunity,” Klein said, comparing it to the January passage of new gun-control measures following the mass shooting in a Connecticut elementary school where 20 first-graders and six educators were killed.

“We passed the most comprehensive gun law in the nation because of the terrible tragedy in Sandy Hook,” he added.

Klein hosted the hearing with Sens. Diane J. Savino of Staten Island and David J. Valesky of Oneida County following a meeting with editors and reporters of The Buffalo News. The bill they have introduced in the Senate resembles others that are under consideration in the Assembly and that have been proposed by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, though the independent Democrats contend that their version goes further.

Major provisions include:

• Limiting contribution limits to $2,600 per person.

• Prohibiting corporate contributions.

• Ending party housekeeping accounts, which have no contribution limits.

• Reducing transfers from state party committees to $2,600.

• Restricting donations from individuals who have business before the state.

• Ending the ability of party leaders to grant minor-party lines without grass-roots support, while retaining the concept of “fusion” voting.

“This is the most comprehensive plan out there,” Klein said.

The proposal would introduce a public campaign financing system similar to what has guided New York City elections for years, in which qualifying candidates would be eligible to receive public matching funds. Under the Independent Democratic Conference’s plan, candidates opting not to participate in the public financing system would be required to participate in an overhauled campaign finance system.

“How do we really take money out of politics unless we level the field?” Klein asked.

Savino said that one of the highlights of the bill is a limit of $168,000 for legislative campaigns for those who accept public financing. That provides for a level playing field, she said, while reducing the constant pressure faced by legislators to raise campaign money.

“It puts some consistency in all campaigns,” she said, “while at the same time, they reach a point where they stop raising money and actually talk to voters.”

Other ramifications of accepting the money would be a prohibition against “negative campaigning,” which Savino said would eliminate automated phone calls that “voters hate so much.” Such decisions would be enforced by a campaign finance board that would also have new powers to impose fines on violators.

Still, Republican legislators, especially, are raising vocal objections to the plan. Sen. Mark J. Grisanti, R-Buffalo, who was slated to be targeted by one advocacy group in a Monday demonstration, has raised a number of questions. He believes that such a new system would end up costing as much as $220 million and that those candidates accepting public funds could use them for noncampaign-related expenses.

“I fully support campaign finance reform that includes more robust disclosure requirements, stricter penalties for violators and caps on contribution,” he said Monday. “But spending over $220 million or more on taxpayer-funded elections is not the answer. That money could be better spent elsewhere like cutting taxes or increasing funding to education and economic development.”

But Valesky and the independent Democrats, who could represent an important voting bloc in determining the legislation’s future, say that such a new system would be financed by voluntary checkoffs on income tax returns and unclaimed funds collected by the state comptroller, so the money would not be diverted from other state obligations.

Valesky also pointed to a ban on corporate money and the $2,600 limit on contributions, which would drastically reduce the influence of big donors.

“No one has proposed anything close to this,” he said.

The independent Democrats also said that other safeguards are built into the legislation, requiring serious candidates to meet thresholds of viability. They acknowledged, however, that the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision of 2010 will still allow for significant expenditures by independent groups.

Klein said he is “confident” of enactment of some kind of campaign finance reform before the legislative session ends in June.

The post Independent Democrats push campaign finance reform in wake of scandals appeared first on Fair Elections for New York.

While bills to reform campaign financing and enhance penalties for public corruption have been at the forefront of discussion in recent weeks, Cuomo said there are key pieces of legislation that still need attention before lawmakers go home June 20.

Among them are Cuomo’s women’s rights agenda, a plan for siting Las Vegas-style casinos in upstate New York and the creation of a board that would restructure local governments’ finances.

The state Legislature has dealt with a remarkable series of scandals in recent weeks, including the arrest of five lawmakers so far this year. There have been 30 lawmakers who have grappled with ethical and legal troubles since 2000.

“What I’m trying mightily to do is not allow the scandal mania — because you know how the press is with scandals, and that becomes all-consuming — I don’t want that to eclipse the session. And I don’t want it to derail the session,” Cuomo said on “The Capitol Pressroom,” a public radio program in Albany. “Because we have a lot of good work to do out there for New Yorkers who just want their government to function.”

Cuomo has supported a plan to publicly finance campaigns, but he said Monday there were other important pieces to a reform agenda, particularly strengthening disclosure laws around campaign contributions and expenditures. The governor also wants to create new criminal charges and harsher penalties to crack down on lawmakers who use their offices for personal gain.

Senate Republicans strongly oppose public financing, and Cuomo did not close the door to a package without that component.

“This is a complicated system, and we’re trying to close down the loopholes all throughout the system,” Cuomo said.

The Democratic governor said he hopeful that the Legislature will pass his 10-point women’s rights agenda, which includes strengthening New York’s abortion laws. Republicans have opposed the abortion piece of the package.

“I want 10 out of 10. I think we can get 10 out of 10,” Cuomo told reporters later Monday.

Another complicated issue, he said, is casinos. Whether to allow casinos in New York is a question that could go before voters in November, and while he said he’d like to move forward as soon as possible, there are concerns about adequate turnout in 2013 because it’s a local election year

“There’s no doubt there is a political liability to going forward this year, because the only big election is in New York City for the mayoralty, and you don’t have big elections in upstate New York, and this is a vote that might be conducive for the turnout upstate,” Cuomo said. “But my point is, we need to get the economy going in upstate New York. It is critically important; it has been for decades… And I don’t want to wait another year.”

Legislative leaders held a brief, closed-door meeting with Cuomo at the Capitol on Monday. They said discussions were continuing on the rest of the legislative agenda.

He also discussed his plans to help local governments that are facing bankruptcy. He said he wants to develop long-term solutions rather than to funnel money to localities that will only need more in future years.

“I don’t want any more band-aids over bullet wounds, and I’m not going to write a check just on the hope that tomorrow is going to be better,” Cuomo said. “Because tomorrow’s not going to be better if there is a fundamental problem, an imbalance, with these local governments.”

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, said at an event Monday that his conference’s priorities for the end of session include public financing, decriminalization of small amounts of marijuana and a bill to allow undocumented immigrants access to state tuition assistance.

“I would hope that we stay focused on the kind of legislation we’re talking about,” Silver said.

The post Cuomo: Scandals shouldn’t ‘derail’ NY legislative session appeared first on Fair Elections for New York.

NYPIRG released a report describing the violations found — 103,805 to be exact — between January 2011 and January 2013.

While Bill Mahoney, the research coordinator for NYPIRG, noted that many of the violations are relatively minor, he said the sheer volume of violations found show there is not enough being done to prevent corruption within the current campaign finance system.

“There are probably many more problems that don’t get caught because the filing system is such a mess,” Mahoney said at a press event announcing the report.

Mahoney discussed at the event how many of the violations occurred, citing donations given over the legal limit, failure to report addresses of donors, missing dates and the reporting of information such as expenditures.

“What this report vividly shows is what we have been saying for decades now; the Board of Elections is an agency that is controlled by two parties. It is not given any funding and right now it has no investigators. We brought this to [everyone's] attention, we testified at the budget hearings about the need to fund more staff at the BOE to do campaign finance enforcement and it never gets done,” Barbara Bartoletti, the legislative director for the League of Women Voters of New York state, said at a press conference to unveil the report.

The report found that 278 corporations gave more than $5,000 — the legal limit of annual donations — in 2012. Mahoney noted five companies in particular that gave between three and 12 times more than the annual limit in campaign donations such as Koch Industries, Inc. which gave $50,000 in donations in October 2012.

Though it may seem like a small issue to not properly disclose the address of donors, Mahoney notes there are a lot of “Bill Mahoneys” in New York state and if an address is not disclosed, the same Bill Mahoney can donate multiple times without being caught because it would not be clear which of the Mahoneys are actually donating money.

“You won’t be able to tell which Bill Mahoney is trying to insert influence on the politician and you won’t be able to connect the dots,” Mahoney said.

NYPIRG also implicated Sen. Greg Ball, R-Patterson, in the report, calling him one of the top violators. Mahoney said NYPIRG found 995 examples of campaign finance violations by Ball. Most of these violations dealt with completely missing, or impartial addresses listed in campaign donations. Mahoney said Ball is an example of those who create an atmosphere where “people get comfortable violating the law because they see that it is okay to not obey the parts of the law that say you need to include the address of your payees.”

“This creates a whole system of chaos where nobody really knows what is happening or how money is being spent. It is impossible for auditors, if they even existed, to figure out what is going on with candidate’s campaign funds,” Mahoney said. While the BOE has made some moves to address violations, such as their claim in their 2011 report that they mailed 9,848 letters to treasurers alerting them to overdue filings, they only imposed fines to 792 of them, according to NYPIRG.

Bartoletti notes that when Gov. Eliot Spitzer was in office, he put $1.5 million into BOE funding, but it was never used for the purpose it was given, “to staff up the enforcement unit of the state BOE,” Bartoletti said.

“This report alone should embarrass the state Legislature,” Bartoletti said. “It should say to them, ‘It is time to do something about campaign finance reform,’ particularly in the area of public financing with strong enforcement so that the people that give their public financing can be assured the money is going to be accounted for.”

Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued a statement in response to NYPIRG’s findings almost immediately after their press announcement, saying the findings show once again that New York state cannot wait any longer to pass reforms within the election system.

“The buildup of over 100,000 campaign finance violations over the last two years is unacceptable and a clear sign that the current self-policing system at the Board of Elections does not work,” Cuomo said in the statement.

The post NYPIRG: 100,000 campaign violations in 2 years appeared first on Fair Elections for New York.

Both will need to pay better attention and demand better results.

For Cuomo, who began last month on a cross-state tour intended to tout a third straight on-time state budget and reinforce his “era of dysfunction is over” narrative, the continuing allegations, charges and investigations against state lawmakers have become an embarrassment.

Last week alone, state Sen. John Sampson of Brooklyn was hit with a nine-count indictment on embezzlement charges; former state Sen. Shirley Huntley was sentenced to a year and a day in prison for stealing $87,000 from a charity she oversaw; and it was disclosed that Huntley, like a former Assemblyman who resigned last month, wore a wire and secretly recorded colleagues while cooperating with federal investigators. Six additional state senators are among those facing the ongoing federal corruption probe.

The headlines follow charges last month against former Senate Majority LeaderMalcolm Smith and Assemblyman Eric Stevenson. Like Cuomo, all are Democrats. And this isn’t just an unfortunate flare-up or a case of a few bad apples. More than 30 elected officials, in both parties, have been charged or left office under an ethical cloud in the past seven years.

What’s to be done?

Simply put, the pay-to-play culture must be jettisoned. Cuomo should not only bore full-speed ahead on his previously proposed ethics reforms, but finally push hard for campaign reform.

If he’s serious about not wasting the opportunity Albany’s ongoing corruption crisis has presented, Cuomo will rally leaders in the Assembly and the Senate’s Independent Democratic Conference to pressure the holdouts against reforms such as public financing of campaigns: Senate Republicans.

That’s where western New York voters come in. With this region’s Senate representation largely Republican, voters must demand action from the Rochester-area contingent.

New Yorkers clearly get it. In a poll released last week on behalf of New York Friends of Democracy, 97 percent of respondents said state leaders must address “reducing the influence of money in politics and ending corruption.”

Cuomo, a former attorney general, is in a unique position to reform the ethical climate in Albany. By pressuring their representatives, voters can help reform the political climate.

The post Albany cleanup overdue appeared first on Fair Elections for New York.

If legislators find that idea disturbing, they could change the culture of Albany in a very basic way by enacting public financing of campaigns and making their own elections competitive. Far too many lawmakers are re-elected without competition, with their campaigns financed by special-interest groups. The recent arrests of two state senators, John Sampson and Malcolm Smith, and the sentencing of former State Senator Shirley Huntley on corruption charges should be reason enough to increase electoral choice. Public matching funds for small contributions would encourage more candidates to run.

The Senate Republicans have been outspoken in opposing public financing. They held what was supposed to be a public hearing last week that was mostly missing the public. The invitation-only hearing by the Senate Committee on Elections not only violated the state’s Open Meetings Law; it violated any sense of balance. It was clearly designed to spew criticism of public financing.

Critics of public financing routinely charge that the cost to taxpayers is too high and that such a system invites corruption. But New York City’s public finance system has worked because the city’s Campaign Finance Board has been a diligent watchdog, in glaring contrast to the feeble Board of Elections, which oversees state races.

The Assembly last week approved a workable bill that includes a state public financing system, first applying to the comptroller’s race next year and then legislative races in 2016. But Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and his Democratic majority cannot celebrate after this one vote. They will need to force Governor Cuomo and State Senate leaders to agree on a sound public financing law.

The post Alarm Bells in Albany appeared first on Fair Elections for New York.

How is that possible? It is possible because they don’t live in our world. They live in Albany World.

Take, for instance, the case of the state Senate public hearing Tuesday on public financing of election campaigns.

Senate Republicans scheduled the public hearing for a relatively small room not normally used for such occasions.

Senators, staff members, invited speakers, and journalists filed into the room for the public hearing.

So, what was missing?

Yes, that’s right, the public was missing. The public was missing because the public was barred from entering.

In Albany World, you see, it’s entirely logical to bar the public from a public hearing.

Those barred included both protesters and good government groups that have long demonstrated an interest in campaign finance.

Having barred the public, Senate officials then noted that attendance had reached room capacity.

The post EDITORIAL: Albany has its own set of rules appeared first on Fair Elections for New York.