Ethics Reform Reaction Roundup

Governor Spitzer will have a stronger role in enforcing rules on lobbyists and other ethics-related issues than any recent chief executive in Albany under an agreement announced yesterday. But even as the governor was celebrating, the speaker of the Assembly, Sheldon Silver, in an interview with The New York Sun, defended his relationship with a law firm specializing in tort cases. Mr. Silver said his clients were individuals, such as an injured pedestrian from Connecticut, and insisted that none of them has business before the state.

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But one sensitive issue untouched by the laws is financial disclosure requirements of lawmakers. Under the new laws, lawmakers are still permitted to shield from public view the value of their outside sources of income and details of their work, such as the names of clients and associates.

Pressure on lawmakers to open their books has been building since Mr. Bruno announced late last year that he was a subject of a federal probe involving his private consulting firm, which he operates out of his home. Mr. Silver's own critics have urged him to release the names of his clients to assure the public there's no conflict of interest between his work for the law firm and his job as speaker.

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In recent months, the low-key Lower East Side politician has been fighting an uphill public relations battle to defend the honor of the Legislature, where more lawmakers have faced investigations than have lost re-election in the past three years. Most members of the Legislature are "hard-working" public servants who understand their responsibilities, Mr. Silver said.

He offered a sobering assessment of his power to stop his colleagues from misbehaving. "There is nothing we can legislate that is going to prevent people who are inclined to do illegal acts to do illegal acts."

More on the flip...

"It's a first step, but I don't think it does it by any means," said Assemblyman James Tedisco (R-Schenectady).

Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi said, "This is a great opening salvo and represents real reform, but still more needs to be done."

Critics attacked the package for being negotiated behind closed doors. They also pointed out it does nothing about making public the lawmakers' outside earnings.

Blair Horner, of the New York Public Interest Research Group, said he would have liked the new deal to require lobbyists and lawmakers to divulge any business relationships they may have with each other.

Good-government groups responded favorably Wednesday to a series of reform measures announced by Gov. Eliot Spitzer and legislative leaders, but the groups said more needs to be done.

"We need comprehensive reform that includes ethics, campaign finance, budget and legislative rules measures, not just bits and pieces of each," said Sen. Liz Krueger, D-Manhattan, who has pushed reform for years. "This is a good start - but only a start."

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"We believe the creation of a new state agency should not have been done behind closed doors," said Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research Group. He said he feared it might weaken the Lobbying Commission, which he said has been an effective watchdog.

Quite a change from the old ways, indeed, as the very legislative leaders who should have enacted such reforms years ago were crowing on Wednesday. So pardon us, then, for having to note both the lack of public participation in this process intended to make government more transparent and the shortcomings of what the Legislature is expected to formally approve next week.

The changes, welcome as they are, seem to have been agreed to the way so many things in Albany traditionally are -- behind closed doors. That's hardly the way to start what's supposed to be a new way of doing business.

And the purview of the new Commission on Public Integrity shouldn't stop where it does now. The Legislature itself should be under the jurisdiction of the same agency as the executive branch and the lobbying industry.

True, the deal Mr. Spitzer and the leaders of the Legislature have struck constitutes quite an improvement over a Legislative Ethics Committee either too impotent, too inept or too unwilling to stop anyone from doing anything. Five independent members, free of connections to either lawmakers or lobbyists, will be among the members of the new Legislative Ethics Commission. But expanding the reach and power of the new ethics agency would have been a better way to go.

It's hard to hear these legislative leaders hail the dawning of a new era without thinking that they went a little easier on themselves than they did on everyone else.

Yet just as daunting a trick would be to imagine state government taking these steps to fix itself in even the very recent past. Much is radically different in just the first month of the Spitzer administration, so much so that it's constructive to stay focused on what still needs to be done to fix state government.

That would of course mean campaign finance reform, including making public funds available for legislative candidates, and taking the power to draw legislative districts out of the hands of the very politicians who'll be running for re-election in them.

Self-congratulation is one thing. But for anyone in Albany to think that the reform agenda is now a completed one would be a scandal of its own.