The Empire Page

In 2007 The NYS Commission on Lobbying and NYS Ethics Commission were merged into a new entity -- The NYS Commission on Public Integrity -- a move which was supposed to lead to better oversight and enforcement of lobbying and ethics laws.  Yet, in 2008 the new Commission became the subject of an investigation in connection with "Troopergate" -- a scandal in which Governor Spitzer's office was accused of using NYS Troopers to spy on then Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno.  Today, newspaper editorial boards and others are calling for reforming the reform.  To gain some insight into what should be done we talked to David Grandeau, former Executive Director of the State Commission on Lobbying.

 

Q: A number of newspaper editorial boards are calling for the Legislature to take up ethics reform when and if they return in September. What is wrong with the current Commission on Public Integrity setup?

A: The main problem with PIC [Public Integrity Commission] has always been the integrity of the people running it.  Its Executive Director and General Counsel were found by the IG (NYS Inspector General) to have engaged in inappropriate behaviour during the troopergate investigation and the commission's response is to refuse to investigate itself, a sweeping vote of confidence for the Ex. Dir (who has since resigned under a cloud of corruption), and the subsequent naming of that same general counsel as the interim executive director. 

In short there is no sense of shame but rather an arrogance and a lack of competancy that leads me to the conclusion the simplest solution is the one offered by the Speaker of the Assembly to separate the Lobbying Commission from PIC and return it to its former position as a stand-alone entity unburdened by the history or the people at PIC.

 

Q: Is there any support from the governor's office or Legislature for such a separation?

A: The Assembly passed a bill that would split lobbying off from ethics and restore it to what it was pre Spitzer. [The bill Grandeau refers to is a 9032/s6064.  It was sponsored by Speaker Silver and others in the Assembly and by Daniel Squadron (D-Manhattan/Brooklyn) in the Senate.  The bill would create an executive ethics and compliance commission and a new legislative ethics and compliance commission. It passed in the Assembly on June 22 and was sent to the Senate.]

 

Q: What are the prospects for this bill in the Senate?

A: Go ask whichever senator is holding the Senate hostage today.

 

Q: Is that the only thing that needs to be done in your opinion -- re-separating the two entities?  Wasn't the lack of teeth a weakness of the former Lobby Commission?

A: I don't remember anyone ever saying the Lobby Commission lacked teeth. In fact it was just the opposite. I believe one of the reasons if not the main reason the Spitzer crowd wanted to combine the agencies was to control ethics and avoid having a strong independent integrity agency while they were in power (and now we see why). 

Splitting the agencies is the easiest way to have a change in personnel. However, if a new lobby commission is run by the same type of people that are running the PIC today there will be no measurable difference.  Similiarly, if everyone of the PIC commissioners resigned (as the governor has requested) and if they were replaced by commissioners of the caliber of the former Lobby Commission, the PIC could be effective.   ITS THE PEOPLE NOT THE STRUCTURE.

 

Q: But doesn't the structure count to the extent that the entity must have the necessary authority and resources to do its job and then some kind of sanctions in order to provide a disincentive for people to violate the law?  Hasn't this been a problem in the past in New York?

A: The existing structures have sufficient prosecutorial resources to act as a deterrrent. The people in charge have either been reluctant to be aggressive or have been partisan and corrupt, so little has been accomplished.  People forget the Lobby Commission that I took over in 1995 had 8 employees, but we were creative in the application of the available law and resources so that by 2007 there were 42 employees and we had imposed millions of dollars in fines to the point that government actually abolished the agency as a step towards reform.  Only in New York do we reward the incompetent and unethical and eliminate the agency that actually was accomplishing its mission.

 

Q: Do you have any suggestions for reforming the way the Legislature polices its members?  Given that one or more of them seems to be under investigation or indictment at any time, it appears that they either don't know the law or feel the chances of their being caught are slim.

A: All you can do is try to create an environment where bad behavior is punished, perhaps in excess of the transgression itself.  Self-policing clearly has not worked and shame does not seem to exist anymore to the point where one bad apple can ruin the whole barrel.  I think it would be interesting to have a privately funded entity acting as a watchdog of government without any ties to the system itself . . . Who would want to fund that entity is the million dollar question.   Maybe each of the members could support a member item to create a not for profit whose sole reason for being is to catch and disclose who the bad apples are.

 

Q: If asked to come back to run a re-instated Lobby Commission, what would your answer be?

A: Let's cross that bridge if we ever arrive at it.  I'm not sure anyone really wants the former Lobby Commission to return and do the job it used to do.  If they had, they never would have abolished it in the first place.  Since 41 of its 42 former employees where absorbed into the PIC I think it's pretty obvious what the real objective of abolishing the lobby commission was.