Attorney on New York’s new ethics commission

The New York Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government (CELG) was created by Gov. Kathy Hochul and legislative leaders this previous April. The physique will regulate lobbyists in addition to ethics allegations towards state stage public officers. It replaces the widely-seen-as-dysfunctional Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE). 

“JCOPE obviously suffered from a lot of slings and arrows from the public and insiders alike over its eight or 10-year existence,” mentioned Karl Sleight, a accomplice within the agency Lippes Mathias. “But I think a new start should prove helpful to this new commission.”

Between 2001 and 2007, Sleight was government director of the New York State Ethics Commission, one of many many precursors to JCOPE.  

CELG will ultimately consist of 11 commissioners. The nominations break down like this: three from the governor; two from the Senate majority; one from the Senate minority; two from the Assembly majority; one from the Assembly minority; one from the legal professional common and one from the state comptroller.

This is a departure from JCOPE, which was dominated by gubernatorial appointees.

“It’s very different,” mentioned Sleight. “Governor Cuomo had a larger number of nominees of commissioners (and) was able to direct things in the opinion of some. We don’t have that here. Only three nominees (are made by) the governor.”

Another distinction? A group of law school deans has been convened to vet the nominations. The group seems to take its job severely: nominations from the legal professional common, the Senate minority chief and one of many Assembly speaker’s nominees have been rejected.

According to Sleight, these rejections pose an attention-grabbing authorized query. 

“You have a situation now with this dynamic where the law school deans have effectively vetoed three of these nominees. Whether that passes legal muster is a very interesting question,” he mentioned.

Senate Minority Leader Robert Ortt, whose nominee, Gary Lavine, was rejected by the panel of deans, promised there could be some authorized motion introduced towards it.

So far, seven of CELG’s 11 nominees have withstood the vetting course of.

Some different variations between CELG and JCOPE? The government director has a four-year time period. Also, the expectation is that numerous the prevailing JCOPE workers will make the transition to the new commission. 

“You may recall, by virtue of one of the past commissions, the Commission on Public Integrity, had some difficulties and the statute that replaced that and created JCOPE really empowered the commissioners themselves and limited the power of staff,” Sleight mentioned. “This (CELG) is kind of a return to the days of the State Ethics Commission (and) the Temporary State Commission on Lobbying where staff kind of ran things on a day-to-day basis in conjunction with the chair of the commission.”

Is CELG designed higher than JCOPE?

“You have to see how the commissioners themselves behave. How they deal with matters. That’s really the true test of whether something is working or not,” Sleight responded.

As for what the commission has to do to regain the general public’s respect, Sleight mentioned the appointing authorities want to understand it’s useful for them to have an impartial commission.  And, in fact, the commission itself must be truthful.

“(It needs) to be dispassionate and impartial and to handle things in such a way that doesn’t suggest that they’re political,” Sleight mentioned. “These commissions almost invariably fail when they become politicized. That’s the death knell for these commissions.”