Ethics Reform

Now more than ever, people need elected officials who they can trust to be reliable, transparent, and ethical. Unfortunately, this does not happen in New York as we live in a state with some of the weakest ethics laws. In recent memory alone, the former Speaker of the State Assembly, former Senate Majority Leader, and former Senate Minority Leader have all been convicted of felonies. Should I be elected to represent you in Albany, I pledge to support legislation that will bring much-needed ethics reform while being radically transparent in all my dealings. Let’s clean up New York State with a new generation of leadership in Albany.

The first thing we must do is cap outside income for State Legislators at 15% of their salary. Currently legislators can work second jobs where they earn six figure salaries. These jobs create a conflict of interest when their firms deal with the State and also mean our legislators are not spending enough time focusing on their constituents. By capping outside income we can make legislators work full-time and to prevent them from using their position for personal enrichment. Once we cap outside income, we should raise pay for legislators to attract people from all around the State to serve in our Legislature. Additionally, I also support term limits of 4 terms (8 years) for both the State Senate and State Assembly. By introducing term limits, Assembly Members will have less time in office to develop shady financially beneficial commitments to lobbyists and other special interest groups, which would fight the threat of lobbyists being a primary influence on legislation. At the same time, lobbyists would be less incentivized to donate heavily to Assembly Members, as their “investments” would only be for the short-term.

I also support the replacement of JCOPE (Joint Commission on Public Ethics) with a truly independent ethics body. Currently, the Governor has far too much influence over JCOPE, creating anything but an independent ethics watchdog. Right now, two of the Governor’s appointees to the 14-member JCOPE can veto an investigation or a finding of violation, as can three of the appointees of the legislative leaders. This previous fall, it was reported that a JCOPE member leaked sensitive information about the panel’s closed-door meetings to the Governor in what was an extremely credible and deeply troubling example of the Commission’s real lack of independence. I support the creation of the Commission on State Government Integrity as a replacement to the JCOPE. This Commission would replace JCOPE with a truly independent investigative body to root out ills in state government. For instance, it would would operate by majority vote, have full authority to sanction officers or employee of public authorities, and categorize sexual harassment as ethical misconduct.

One issue that does not receive enough focus is lobbying reform. Governor Cuomo proposed many lobbying reforms ahead of the 2020 Executive Budget, but almost none of them were passed. We must work to usher in full-scale lobbying reform as hundreds of millions are spent on lobbying each year in New York State and lobbying dictates much of the legislative agenda. Lobbying reforms should include the institution of a lobbying code of conduct, increased disclosure laws, and strengthening of revolving door requirements. New York should also spearhead the creation of a publicly funded lobbying analog of policy research consultants for legislators. Under this system, legislators would have access to the resources that lobbyists normally provide and could direct them to issues as they pleased. Under a comprehensive reform of our lobbying system, policy interests supported by grassroots groups would not be drowned out by issues supported by large corporate interests.

In addition to supporting these reforms, I will be doing everything in my power to personally become the most transparent member of the State Assembly. Additionally, I will send out weekly emails that constituents can opt-into when the Assembly is in session so they can know what legislative issues I am working on. To compliment these emails, I’ll also have monthly conference calls open to the public where people can ask questions regarding legislative and constituent issues. If elected to the State Assembly, nobody will be more available to their constituents than I am.