Testimony Of Susan Lerner

Executive Director, Common Cause/NY

At NY Senate Public Ethics Forum
May 4, 2011

Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to address you today. It has been
two years since the New York State Senate has heard any public testimony
regarding ethics reform. Common Cause/NY commends the Senate Democrats for
addressing this important topic in this innovative and interactive way. I’m looking
forward to answering questions that come in via Twitter. Since the New York State
Senate Standing Committee on Ethics last held a public hearing to address
proposals to reform the state’s ethics laws on May 29, 2009, New York’s
Legislature has continued to experience additional ethics scandals. We continue to
believe that a series of ethics scandals calls for a clear and direct reaction from
elected leaders that constitute more than comments to reporters. We are alarmed
that there have been so few opportunities for the open exchange of views between
the members of the public, including but not limited to advocacy groups like
Common Cause/NY, with members of the Legislature regarding the incontrovertible
need for sweeping ethics reform in New York State.

There have been persistent reports in the press of on-going meetings and
negotiations regarding ethics reform conducted by the proverbial “Three Men in A
Room” – the Governor, the Speaker and the Senate Majority Leader. Ethics reform
is a delicate and complex subject. The devil is truly in the details. A meaningful
opportunity for public input into any ethics proposal is essential for public support.
That will take time and money, but both will be well spent.
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I am Susan Lerner, Executive Director of Common Cause/New York. Common
Cause/New York is a nonpartisan citizens’ lobby and a leading force in the battle
for honest and accountable government. Common Cause fights to strengthen
public participation and faith in our institutions of self-government and to ensure
that government and political processes serve the general interest, and not simply
the special interests. For more than 30 years, we have worked at both the state
and municipal level to bring about honest, open and accountable government. We
have been a long-standing advocate for innovative campaign finance and ethics
laws in New York

There have been various approaches to ethics oversight. We believe that one of
the major failings of previous statutory schemes has been to divide ethics
oversight among various different bodies: executive oversight separated from
legislative oversight, lobbying oversight separated from ethics, and campaign
finance handled - if at all – by yet another body. These divisions do not make any
sense to the average New Yorker. They understand that the scandals and
indictments of elected and appointed officials and of staff come from a common
source, and regard the problems of corruption, undue influence of special interests

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and campaign contributors as all intertwined. Investigations that are hobbled by
artificial barriers help contribute to the great cynicism that New Yorkers feel about
their government and its inability to conduct the people’s business in a transparent
and accountable way.

At the end of the day, that is what government ethics are all about: maintaining
the people’s faith in their government and their elected officials, so that New
Yorkers can see and feel confident that the people’s business is being conducted in
an appropriate and efficient way, for the good of all New Yorkers and not just a
select few. Today, because of lax oversight and seemingly endless corruption
scandals and indictments, New Yorkers do not have such confidence. This
situation breeds an unhealthy indifference and actual hostility towards elected
officials and government, which makes the need for reform startlingly clear.

My testimony will concentrate on the features of any ethics overhaul that we

believe are essential for meaningful and comprehensive reform.

Need for Truly Independent Ethics Oversight

Common Cause/NY has long advocated for a truly independent ethics oversight
body that would have jurisdiction over both the executive and the legislature on
matters relating to ethics, lobbying and campaign finance reform. For simplicity
sake, I will refer to a newly formed ethics oversight body as the “Commission” in
this testimony. Previously, we and our coalition partners, Citizens Union, League
of Women Voters, and NYPIRG, have suggested an appropriate mechanism for
choosing such a body: all affected parties – the Governor, the Comptroller, the
Attorney General and leaders of the Legislature - would all directly appoint
members of a 9 person Commission, with no one entity or official appointing a
majority. Certainly, the fact that the Assembly Speaker and Senate Majority Leader
have failed since 2007 to jointly appoint a ninth member of the Legislative Ethics
Commission strongly militates for direct appointment.

Please note that we strongly recommend that the ethics oversight body be
comprised of an odd number of members. We recommend representation of both
political parties and prohibiting party officials, lobbyists and former elected officials
from serving on a newly formed independent ethics oversight body. To insure a
proper staff-Commission power sharing and balance, we believe that a specific
term for the executive director is important. We believe that all of these factors are
important to insure the independence of the body, which we believe is the
essential element for truly effective oversight capable of restoring the public’s
trust.

We believe that combining all oversight in one body has distinct advantages,
allowing staff and the Commission to build up substantial expertise and to conduct
the sorts of wide-ranging investigations that real-world assertions of corruption and
misconduct require. In our experience, having one entity that is responsible for
oversight over all government officials promotes uniformity of enforcement,
simplifying both the oversight and advisory functions. Nor is there any
contradiction between the educative and advisory function of such a body, on the
one hand, and enforcement responsibility on the other. Various agencies and
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officials successfully combine the need to provide advice and education with
enforcement power. The experience of states such as California and Connecticut,
which have one entity that oversees conflicts of interest, lobbying and campaign
finance issues for all public officials, shows that such a system works well.

Common Cause/NY believes that any ethics overhaul should include a procedure
whereby the functioning of the ethics enforcement body is regularly reviewed and
that the law provides the entity charged with oversight with a procedure for
recommending necessary or desirable changes to the ethics law. Certainly, it is
appropriate for the Legislature to review the Commission’s annual report to it and
to consider the statutory changes recommended by the Commission. However, we
do not support direct legislative oversight, which would interfere with the
Commission’s independence.

Common Cause is quite familiar with the congressional ethics oversight system,
having participated in discussions that led to the passage of the current system.
That system was adopted because of widespread corruption scandals involving
members of Congress, their staffs and lobbyists, coming during a period in which
the internal ethics committee provided no enforcement or oversight at all. The
current Congressional system is not one which we can recommend to serve as a
model for replication. The Congressional system sets up an entity for oversight
which lacks independence, has limited investigative powers and no enforcement
authority of its own.

Strong Disclosures Are Mandatory for Any Meaningful Reform

We have on various occasions complained of the ineffectiveness of the current law

governing financial disclosures by elected officials. The current law is inadequate,
mandating disclosures that do not provide enough information for the public to feel
secure that it understands the influences that their individual elected
representatives bring with them in deciding public policy.

Numerous other jurisdictions, including New York City and the federal government,
have statutes and rules which require more detailed and informative financial
disclosures from elected and appointed officials than current New York law. Some
of the factors which we believe are most important are further specificity of
income levels, and the identification of clients, at a minimum with information
regarding the areas of practice or business which the elected official’s firm is
engaged in. We also believe that strong enforcement provisions, including
specifying that random audits should be undertaken, rather than compulsory
audits of every single disclosure, and fining members of the Commission should
they fail to conduct such random audits are necessary.

Strengthen and Clarify Restrictions on Personal Use of Campaign Funds

Any ethics reform should clearly enumerate what constitutes permissible campaign
uses in addition to detailing prohibited uses. We also think that specifying the
disposal of campaign funds under specific problematic circumstances is helpful.
Clarification of the law in this area is long overdue. We get many too many phone
calls from the press seeking to “Gotcha” elected official about the use of their

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campaign funds. Passage of such clear guidance should help put a cap on this
perennial press pastime, leaving only truly improper expenditures to be
discovered.

Ending Pay to Play

We believe that New Yorkers would appreciate and benefit from the systematic
collection and public disclosure of data regarding companies and entities that do
business with the state. We also support restrictions on campaign contributions
from those who do business with the state or are registered lobbyists – of which I
am one. We prefer the approach taken by our neighbor, Connecticut, which
completely prohibits campaign contributions from lobbyists and state contractors
and so support S1565 introduced by Senator Addabbo. We also support disclosure of
business relationships between lobbyists and public officials, with the reporting
obligation place on both lobbyists and elected officials.

But most importantly, we believe that no ethics package is complete if it focuses

only on narrowly defined ethics issues. Real change can’t happen in Albany until we
limit the torrent of special interest money flowing into incumbents’ coffers, lower
campaign contribution limits, create a public funding system that will provide a real
alternative for candidates from the current status quo of money and politics and institute
vigorous enforcement of campaign finance laws.

The sad state of ethics oversight – in practical effect, the absence of any ethics
oversight – is an embarrassment that reinforces the worst stereotypes of corrupt
politicians conjured up by the most cynical members of the public and press. It
has led to a crisis of confidence in our state government and should be addressed
by the passage of legislation that would set up an independent ethics commission
with broad jurisdiction, reform our campaign finance system, set up a public
funding of elections system and provide for effective ethics and campaign finance
enforcement.

The public is disgusted with the Legislature’s repeated failure to address this
important issue. The Legislature’s standing with members of the public is at an
historic low. Developing the strongest and most effective ethics and campaign
finance reform legislation through an open process that is responsive to the
comments and concerns of New Yorkers will help to change that.

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