The New York Public Interest Research Group on Monday released its recommendations to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Moreland Commission on public corruption, which is scheduled to deliver its own preliminary report to the governor on Sunday. (It’s unclear when the public will get to read it, but certainly by Monday or Tuesday.)
The NYPIRG report, titled “Blueprint for Reform,” groups its proposals into three categories: campaign finance fixes including the creation of an opt-in public financing system; changes to the enforcement of campaign finance laws topped by the establishment of an independent watchdog body separate from the state Board of Elections; and ethics-enforcement fixes such as a wholesale restructuring of the state Joint Commission on Public Ethics.
The report — submitted to the Moreland panel on Monday — also recommends closing loopholes such as those that currently make life easier for LLCs and the political parties’ “housekeeping” operations.
The public financing system NYPIRG and other groups have been advocating for is based on New York City’s model, in which $1 of small-donor contributions is matched with $6 of taxpayer money, up to a certain dollar amount and after a minimum number of donations have been collected. The idea of taking that system statewide has been opposed by Republicans and their allies, including most recently Unshackle Upstate.
“In New York State, we have a dialing-for-dollars system where candidates for office rely on huge donations from a very small number of people,” said Blair Horner of NYPIRG at a press conference. “That system has to change to a greater reliance on a large number of donors who make small donations.”
NYPIRG’s proposed independent campaign finance enforcement entity would be made up of five individuals, appointed by legislative leaders as well as the governor. The odd number would undo the problems reformers find with the current bipartisan balance on the Board of Elections, which they describe as prone to gridlock — or at least prone to inaction.
“The current system in a disgrace in New York State,” Horner said. “It allows campaign contributions essentially of any size, is not enforced and is riddled with loopholes — it’s a Wild West without Wyatt Earp.”
The report recommends cutting the number of JCOPE commissioners in half, from 14 (the largest entity of its kind in the nation, NYPIRG notes) to seven — the smaller number to be appointed by the four legislative leaders, the state comptroller, the attorney general, and the governor. Cuomo currently has the power to appoint six of JCOPE’s commissioners.
NYPIRG would also like to see the end of the elaborate formula by which a small number of JCOPE commissioners are able to block investigations if the targets are of the same party as the elected officials that appointed them. The report also recommends making the body subject to standard FOIL disclosure requirements.
Courtesy Kyle Hughes of NYSNYS.com, here’s video of the press conference, featuring Horner as well as NYPIRG’s Bill Mahoney:
And here’s the report itself: