Cuomo Pulls Plug on Corruption Commission; Watchdog Groups *HOWL*.
The cover-up of the cover-ups of various cover-ups? Commission members complained that Cuomo's office wouldn't leave them alone. Apparently they stepped on toes. Will the governor tell us what's actually going on? Or do we have to wait 'til he runs for president?
This sort of thing may not play in Peoria.
From today's NYT:
>>>ALBANY — It was a quiet and sudden end to what had started as a high-profile battle against Statehouse corruption.With little fanfare and no advance notice, and at the tail end of a 44-minute teleconference with reporters explaining the state’s new budget deal, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Saturday that he intended to dismantle the Commission to Investigate Public Corruption. The commission was formed last July, stocked with “the best minds in law enforcement” and given a broad mandate to restore public trust in government.
Mr. Cuomo said the reforms he wanted would be accomplished by new laws that he had persuaded legislative leaders to support as part of the budget accord, including tougher laws on bribery and corruption, and improved enforcement of election law. That, he said, would eliminate the need for the panel, known as the Moreland Commission.
“That’s what this package is,” the governor said.
But government watchdogs, and some lawmakers, disagree.
Some speculated that the governor and the Legislature had struck a deal to move beyond the issue of corruption, an unwelcome distraction in an election year.
“The fact that ethics reform was on the table as a bargaining chip suggests to me that we have much more work to do,” Senator Brad Hoylman, a Manhattan Democrat, said on Monday, calling himself “disheartened” by the outcome. “It’s a terrible irony that the Moreland Commission is being defunded as part of a larger discussion and negotiation.”
But it seemed clear on Monday, as the Legislature moved to enact the budget, that the more significant political reforms that had been on the table were now off.
The new ethics laws, incorporated into the budget legislation, left intact a loophole allowing for unlimited donations to so-called housekeeping accounts for political parties. They did not lower limits for individual political donations, which are generous compared with those in other states.>>>
the rest:http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/01/nyregion/cuomos-push-to-end-moreland-commission-draws-backlash.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0
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