Governor, Assembly Speaker Announce Two-Way Agreement on Ethics Reforms

Earlier today, Gov. Cuomo and Speaker Heastie announced that they have reached an agreement on “groundbreaking” ethics reforms. The Senate is not a party to the agreement, and the sense is that this two-way agreement was announced in order to pressure the Senate into agreeing to ethics reform.

Gov. Cuomo said that the proposal is an “unprecedented” effort to rein in Albany corruption.

The agreement covers the five topics that Gov. Cuomo said would be linked to his approval of the state budget:

  • New outside income disclosure requirements, under which public officials would be required to disclose all outside earned income they receive, from whom they receive it, the actual services they performed in exchange for the income, and whether there is any connection to state business (it will include exemptions for divorce, child custody cases matters, and other sensitive matters);
  • Approval of a constitutional amendment to apply the state’s pension forfeiture law to all public officials who are convicted of public corruption, including those who entered the retirement system before enactment of the pension forfeiture law in 2011 (to whom the law currently does not apply);
  • Reform of the legislative per diem system to put in place new verification requirements; use of IRS regulations for reimbursements; and creation of a web site that shows legislators reimbursement and travel information;
  • Strengthening the ban on the personal use of campaign funds by including a specific list of prohibited uses of such funds (lawmakers could still pay for legal defense); and
  • Greater disclosure relating to independent political expenditures.

According to the announcement, the Governor and Assembly have agreed to expand the coverage of the Lobbying Act to more local governments. Currently, lobbyist registration and reporting is required only if the local government that is the target of the lobbying activity has a population over 50,000. Under their agreement, the law would be expanded to apply to local governments with a population over 5,000.

Read news coverage of the announcement from Capital NY, Gannett, State of Politics, and the Buffalo News.