Welcome to the Capital Connection, a weekly program questioning New York State leaders
on a variety of issues.
Your host is Dr. Alan Shartock, political scientist and professor emeritus at the University
at Albany.
Distributions for the Capital Connection is made possible with the help of New York
State United Teachers, representing professionals in education and healthcare online at nysut.org.
Is the Capital Connection high?
No, I'm not Alan Shartock, I'm David Gistina, usually the producer of this program, but
sitting in this week graciously for Alan Shartock, who is not with us, but will be back and
return next week.
Joining us this week, State Editor of the Times Union Casey Siler and what a week we're
having Casey.
Welcome to the Capital Connection.
Good to be here.
Thanks for having me on.
I'm so glad to have you here.
Well, you know, folks will know a little inside baseball here.
You and I have been communicating all day today or all this morning.
This is a Tuesday morning recording the program because while we were trying to set up the
schedule, some news came through and that was that the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo,
was going to follow through on his threat to set up this Morlin commission.
And he has done that.
You have just come from the major press conference where a number of the folks are going to be involved
in this were announced.
We've heard about what's coming and I'm wondering at this point, as you see it, whether
lawmakers should be somewhat nervous about what's coming.
Well, the corrupt lawmakers maybe for sure.
And based on the experience of the last couple of months, that might be a big field of fire,
as they say.
Of course, all of this is taking place in the context of the corruption scandals that have,
you know, run through Albany all through this session kind of beginning in March with
the arrests of John Sampson, a former Democratic Senate leader, you know, so many people,
the news that wires have been worn by other lawmakers against lawmakers, Nelson Castro
and Assemblyman from the Bronx resigned.
And apparently he had been sort of in harness to the Bronx DA and the US Attorney's Office
for several years.
So it's really been a remarkable kind of set of months.
And it's really the US Attorney's Office that set this all in motion by these moves,
right?
Right.
Exactly.
It's only been kind of in the lead on this round of corruption scandals.
And really, I think you would say over the last couple of years, the US Attorney's Office,
the feds have taken the lead.
And it made it so that the governor couldn't ignore it.
Well, at the very end of the session, the governor proposed three pieces of legislation tightening
up ethics enforcement, clamping down on corruption, and also kind of changing the campaign finance
rules and the campaign finance system.
Now none of those pieces of legislation were acted upon kind of the great takeaway, or
negative takeaway, I guess you would say at the end of this session, is that two of the
governor's biggest initiatives, the push to clamp down on public corruption and the women's
equality agenda are both, we're both stymied.
The women's equality agenda looks like it might have at least a nine tenths future and
we can get into that later if you want to, but the public corruption agenda never really
went anywhere.
Um, partly because of a failure to agree on the various packages that legislative leaders
set up.
And partly because the governor really insisted upon including public financing of campaigns,
a sort of opt-in system as, as one of his proposals.
Republicans aren't the only ones, but they're sort of the primary predictably so.
Yes, objectors to that because I think many of them see it.
They have said as much that they see it as kind of unilateral disarmament in the money
wars where Republicans have a big kind of cash advantage.
So the failure to act on the legislators part has now driven the governor to appoint
a morland commission, the morland act, which we've heard a lot about over the course of
governor Cuomo's tenure in office is a central law that essentially allows the governor to
in panel to set up a commission to look at pretty much any operation of a state agency
or any kind of expenditure of public resources.
And because so much public money, either as a member item or as an appropriation that
is kind of selected and chopped up by the legislature, ends up going through various state agencies,
it really gives the governor kind of broad power to kind of look wherever he wants to
or assign a panel to.
And since he can't investigate the senator, the assembly, it's an un and run around
that, isn't it in some way?
Yeah, it's a little bit of what I think you would call a bank shot that he can't directly
investigate the operations of the legislature, but he can investigate whatever kind of use
of public resources they might make.
He can also investigate things like, for example, the board of elections.
And in the run up to this announcement, there had been a lot of talk that this was that
this panel was going to be targeted on the operation of the board of elections, which
its enforcement is seen as something of a joke.
We've got violations that are the kind of go on punished for years and years and years
paid for a spot at junior Senator of great notoriety, famously kind of flouted the rulings
of the board of elections for a long, long time before he finally came a cropper due to
federal investigation more than anything else.
But what we have, what we learned today, being Tuesday, is that this panel is going to be
much more broad in its scope that while the operations of the board of elections will
be within its ambit, it can really look at pretty much anything it wants to, anything
touching upon, you know, state government's operations, which means it can look at member
items, it can look at appropriations that somebody might insert into a budget bill, it
can look at the existing penalties for corruption or for electoral law violations.
So we can look at all those things and it has subpoena power, which is significant.
I mean, moreland panels always have subpoena power, but the governor has kind of taken the
extra step here by allowing the attorney general by essentially, excuse me, handing that
power to the attorney general in allowing the attorney general really requiring the
attorney general, according to the executive order, to turn all these members of the
moreland panel into deputy attorneys general, which is really, it's, it's a bit of a super
powered moreland commission.
I think you, you can probably say we're still, of course, trying to figure out the ramifications
of what this means.
And I'm sure lawmakers will have certain feelings or their counsel's office will have certain
feelings about what this means.
The question was asked in the press conference today.
Is this mean that lawmakers could be subpoenaed if they refuse to respond to an invitation
that they could be compelled to come and give testimony that, for example, legislative
documents could be, could be subpoenaed as well.
The moreland panel has the power to do that.
And the governor and the attorney general said, oh, yeah, absolutely.
That's as they put it a matter of settled law.
Once again, lawmakers might feel differently.
There are a few lawyers in the legislature.
Lots of them and very well, well recompensed as well.
What the governor's office says is that previous court decisions have held that local officials,
that political parties have all been forced to respond to subpoenas issued by by moreland
panels.
And so it's, it's going to be a fascinating drama to watch.
What the governor has said is that this panel is supposed to have a preliminary report
done by the end of this year.
And it's final report complete by the end of 2014, which you being a smart guy, I know
you know is an election year.
Yes.
It's worth noting that the legislature can do things.
The governor can do things.
All the moreland commission will be able to do is issue a report and make recommendations
to the legislature.
In other words, they can't change the laws.
They can't stiffen penalties at the board of elections.
They have no kind of legislative power whatsoever.
Their findings have been used in the past by governors to apply pressure on lawmakers
to, uh, to change the system.
But in terms of, of actual power, their powers are investigative.
They're in no way legislative.
No, we got to get into naming the folks who are the main people on this panel because
I think the folks out there will want to know these names.
And one of them that is part of this is also the Albany DA David stores sitting, sitting
there next to attorney general Schneidermann.
Yeah, it was, it was quite remarkable to see in the red room and there was a remote broadcast
of I think about a dozen other members who were down in New York City.
But today in the red room, you had the governor sitting right there.
You had attorney general Schneidermann.
Not the best of friends.
No, no, they have.
I think it's probably fair to call it a collegial, but sometimes chilly relationship between
the two of them.
Of course, the governor was attorney general before.
Yes, exactly.
And you know, that's kind of as it should be.
They are separately elected constitutional officers with their own roles and directly
next to a G Schneidermann to his right.
I think it was you had district attorney David sores of Albany County, who of course
because his jurisdiction includes the capital and the capital complex, he has direct jurisdiction
over what goes on in state government.
And he made news on this program.
When Alan asked him about this very issue, should you have the power as the district attorney
and all, when you do investigate the legislature and he made some rumblings about it and it
seems like on some level, the governor has responded to that.
Well, yeah, I think the governor, it would have been, I think, very difficult for the governor
to freeze him out in this effort, considering that there are lots of other district attorneys
who are part of this panel.
The panel is about, is about two dozen people.
I would say district attorneys make up maybe about a third, maybe a little bit more than
that.
And William Fitzpatrick is one of these lead guys, right?
I'm on a dog accounting.
He is one of the three co-chairs.
He is a Republican.
He turned out for the unveiling of sort of the last and most important pieces of the governor's
legislative, you know, his stymied legislative agenda and famously said in that press conference
that he had been in Washington, DC during the Watergate scandal and he quoted, I think it
was John Dean, informing President Nixon that there was, quote, a cancer on the presidency.
And what Fitzpatrick said in that press conference was that the corruption scandals of the past
couple of months have put a cancer on the state legislature.
And today he said in explaining what the moreland panel was going to do, he quoted deep throat
and said, we're going to follow the money.
And that, of course, is a, that's going to be a big trail.
There's something else he said, too.
He said he had been hearing that people were shocked and surprised that this was all happening
and he sort of said, why would you be so shocked and surprised after all this opportunity?
You know, these people being paraded, many in handcuffs, going to jail and then, you
know, this package of reforms has put out there.
You don't do anything with it.
And the governor threatens you and now he delivers, why are you shocked?
Yeah, exactly how anybody could be shocked with the idea that you need to do more.
It's quite beyond me.
One thing that's worth noting, we were talking about kind of the, the subpoena powers and
the fact that the governor has pulled in the AG in this kind of prominent way.
This represents a real turnaround for governor Cuomo who after he became governor, when he
was asked about whether the AG should be handed a kind of greater role in public corruption.
He said, oh, you know, there are constitutional reasons why we can't do that.
And he was asked about it by our own Jimmy Veele kind from the Times Union in the press conference.
And what the governor said was, I thought, very telling.
He said the problem has gotten worse.
In other words, he is reading of the law has become perhaps slightly more expansive because
he thinks that that is the, that he needs a bigger tool to deal with this kind of.
And you need all the players involved in order to get real reform.
Yes, exactly.
Here's the really interesting thing about this.
The governor has $22 million in his war chest and his campaign war chest.
Dean Skellows, the Republican leader in the Senate, and responding to this that he hopes
that the governor hadn't already written the report.
And the governor, there he was also asked about whether, you know, he's open to this scrutiny.
And he said, yes.
Yes, absolutely.
What else could he say?
You know, yeah, the governor has a very big war chest.
And the governor basically says, bring it on to quote another elected official, you know,
my fundraising, my campaign organization can stand up to this kind of scrutiny, you know,
can yours.
It's a real challenge, isn't it?
I mean, there's always the potential for someone to be hoisted on their own patar.
Sure.
And the Republicans certainly aren't going to let up on this if they see golden them,
their hills to question one of his donors or something.
Right.
Especially because as noted, we're coming into, we're coming into a campaign season without
a doubt.
But the governor has said, and he was responding to Dean Skellows, the Republican Senate
leaders comments that he hoped this wouldn't be a witch hunt.
Yes.
And what the governor said is, yeah, will you call something a witch hunt when there are
no witches there?
He said almost in a almost in a breaking news kind of way, I've got news for you.
There weren't any witches in in old Salem.
And for anybody to claim that there isn't public corruption that there aren't elected officials
out there with skeletons in their closet is ridiculous.
We're talking with the state editor of the Albany Times Union.
And that is Casey Siler and Casey.
We've been talking about this more than that commission.
There's someone else on this list, a name that might have been the preferred choice for
attorney general by governor Cuomo.
And that's Kathleen Rice.
Yeah.
Kathleen Rice, district attorney from out on Long Island is also one of the three co-chairs
of the panel.
She has a very good relationship with the governor.
Many people saw her as his kind of favored candidate in 2010 for attorney general.
Of course, Eric Schneiderman pulled it out in a very tough primary race.
And the governor has turned to her for lots of tasks like this before, but I think this
is probably the biggest one.
Jay Cope, the joint commission on public integrity.
Yes, ethics.
Yes, excuse me.
The joint commission on public ethics.
Otherwise, it would be Jacopie.
Yeah, Jacopie.
Yes.
And of course, we've all heard that it's Jay joke.
Is it no teeth?
Is it really going to do anything?
Where do they factor in in all this?
Well, the interesting thing is that this is being rolled out only days or maybe even hours
as far as we know before Jay Cope unveils its online gallery of disclosure statements from
state lawmakers and a wide range of other public officials.
These are the much more granular detailed public disclosure records that for example,
will require lawmakers who are attorneys to disclose who their clients are.
They will have to disclose in a much more detailed way investments, business investments
by family members.
That kind of thing.
Those are all the ranges.
Is it a range of money?
It's still ranges, but the ranges are no longer as laughable as they used to be instead
of.
Yeah, give us an example.
You know, it used to be a making this up, but it used to be for example, like 50,000
to 100,000 or like more than $100,000 or something like that.
So now it's 100,000 versus 20 million.
Yeah, now it's much more granular and I think that the largest gap is, I'm not even
sure, but I think they go up an increments of 25,000, and then kind of, that's more
detailed.
We have a better sense closer to the market.
You're not going to know the exact dollar figure, but you will know in a much more detailed
way, the specific range of dollars that public officials are making from their various
still ridiculous as they can't do math and give us the exact amount or anything.
It would be a little bit nicer to know.
I think their argument there is that we'll, cheese if I'm off by a decimal point.
Am I going to be hauled and hauled before the Moorland Commission perhaps?
But yeah, it does seem, it seems ridiculous to that.
I mean, we have to do that for our taxes.
They have to do it for their taxes as well.
Why can't, why can't it be a detailed disclosure?
But what we're going to have is more information that we, then we had before about for example,
the legal career of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver who is of council at Whites in Luxembourg,
a prominent Manhattan personal injury firm.
We're going to know more about the clients of Dean Scalis, the aforementioned Senate
Republican leader who is also an attorney.
So it's going to be very interesting.
Presumably as good reporters as we hope we are, we can follow those dots in some level
to perhaps even attach it to legislation.
Well yeah, as reporters, but also as citizens, you know, I think anybody out there who's
listening, I would encourage, I would encourage all the kids out there on Radio Land to go
to the Jacob site this week.
Once again, we're talking on Tuesday, but as far as I know, Jacob planned to put it out
if not today within the next couple of days that all of a sudden this kind of gallery of
disclosure forms will be unveiled.
So you can go and find out exactly where your lawmaker is getting the money that they
don't get from you through their legislative salary.
And if you want to follow the money, it's going to be a much more detailed map to do that
than we've had before.
Hasn't the argument always been Casey Siler that some have made this argument that if
the legislators were full time and didn't have law firms and other businesses to which
they can send business to because of their role as legislators that we might have less
of this?
Yeah, that argument has been made.
The argument has also been made that they shouldn't be in Albany nearly as much as they
are now.
Now we've got a six month session.
There are other people who say, she's can't we move to a unit camera legislature.
Can't we move to a legislature that only meets every two years instead of every year
for six months?
So you can go either way.
And if you look nationwide, you can see examples that work and examples that don't work of
both cases.
One thing I know is that if you made it a full time legislature, I think you would immediately
eliminate a lot of people who would say, you know, even you amped up the salary beyond
what it is now, which is already very, very good for a part time job.
If you increased it, you still would miss out on a wide range of people who would say,
look, I can't set aside my career for two years to just pursue public service.
You know, it's not like it's not like being a governor.
It's not like being a senator.
It's not like being a congressman or something like that.
Yeah, but if you work for a nonprofit, it's part of the mission.
Right.
And you don't get paid a lot of money because you believe in the mission.
It did.
You believe in the mission as a public citizen.
I think the governor who mentioned not only the governor, but he's a governor who mentioned
not for profits as as the potential targets of the Moorland Commission would say there
are lots of not for profits out there that do the do fairly well for themselves.
Not here at W.A.
Of course.
Yes.
But I know as many of us tend to get somewhat cynical after all these years about how
these things work.
So for example, as a Moorland Act Commission, they come up with the reports and they come
up with a number of recommendations to change the law.
Will the law be changed?
Will this and this Alan says this all the time?
Little bribery, which is sort of getting what you can get legally in paid a play.
Yeah.
Will that be affected?
Can you see that actually being affected in the end?
Uh, once again, it depends on where the where the Moorland Commission finds the money
leading to, how deftly they can kind of make that case.
It depends on the quality of the messaging that will come from the Moorland panel and
the eventual messaging that will come from the people who are recipients of that report,
meaning good government groups, sympathetic lawmakers, the governor's office, of course.
And how much I think these recommendations become part of the public policy debate statewide
in the 2014 elections?
And how litigious can this get?
Oh, it can get very litigated.
I mean, they could have a number of losses.
Sure.
And the first time a sitting lawmaker is probably from either party is hit with an invitation
to come appear before the Moorland Commission turns it down and then that turns into a subpoena.
I think it's quite likely that you'll see this end up in court.
And of course, if it goes all the way up to the court of appeals, you have appointees
on the court of appeals from the governor.
You've got Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, who is a childhood friend, I believe.
Of Assembly Speaker, Sheldon Silver.
So you've got all kinds of lines of influence and interest there.
And we'll have to be, you know, when they, like, in elections, when they have, it's timely
and you have to get it counted, you know, the votes counted in a situation like this.
Is it going to be bogged down for years in litigation or will there be a sort of a necessity
for a judge to rule on something like this?
Oh, I think there's going to be a necessity for a, for a judge to rule.
And of course, the governor has said that he wants the final report by the end of,
he wants the preliminary report by the end of this year, final report by the end of
2014.
There's nothing at all from him saying, geez, this has been so bogged down in, in a litigation
that we've got to push it, well, give him another six months, I'll give him another
year, you know, if, of course, that's presuming that governor Cuomo is real like the next year,
which looks at this point like a very good shot, but anything can change in this, in this
crazy world of ours.
Well, of course, we're down to a minute.
It went so fast, but very quickly there is unfinished business, a major piece, which
is the Women's Equality Act.
It's gotten bogged down with nine points in the Senate, the whole ten points in the assembly
went through.
And the Republicans don't seem to really want to move on.
And even though they've been pushed, what do you think is going to happen with this?
I think eventually the, the, the, that there will be give on the part of the assembly
Democrats before the end of the year to come back and pass the nine bills that the Senate
passed.
Minus the abortion, minus the abortion plank because it was clear from the procedural vote
in the Senate that there are not yet 32 votes for choice in the state Senate.
That will be a major, you know, campaign rallying cry for Democrats next year, but I think
that eventually, uh, speaker silver and the assembly Democrats have to come back and
pass those and settle for nine tenths of a loaf.
They will, however, make Republicans squeal over the course of the next weeks and months,
especially as you get, for example, this case in Texas of this, these bills being passed
that greatly restrict abortion every time an action like that takes place.
You're going to see a press release from the assembly Democrats saying we voted for choice.
The Senate Republicans did not.
And where your buddies, we're, where your friends, they will, they will be saying to
them, the screen, but eventually I think they will come back and pass the nine bills.
Governor believes that too.
We've been talking with Albany Times Union state editor Casey Siler.
You can always go to times union dot com to see that paper.
It's always a pleasure to have you in here.
Casey, you are right at the edge of all of it.
And I can't thank you enough for taking the time out today.
Talk to my pleasure.
Always great to come by.
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