New York awaits more reform


From today’s editorials: An on-time budget is just one step in fixing state government. Public accountability needs to accompany fiscal responsibility.

Think of it this way, New York. That on-time budget, with less state spending and no new taxes? Think of it as a down payment on a more responsible and representative state government.

Governor Cuomo delivered on his promise. But what about the promises made by all those legislators and legislative candidates last fall?

They vowed to the voters across the state that they would surrender their power to draw their own district boundaries for their 2012 re-election campaigns, remember?

The government reform groups sure do. And they’re legitimately alarmed by a provision in the budget to extend funding of government operations that were otherwise due to expire. New Yorkers are still paying for the bad old ways of legislators drawing their own districts and effectively picking their own voters.

Don’t forget this acronym — LATFOR.

Literally, it’s an abbreviated form of Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment.

Figuratively, however, it might as well stand for More of the Same Gerrymandering.


“It’s a disappointment. It’s a reaffirmation of the status quo,” says Alex Camarda of Citizen Action.

That’s not to say that the money to pay for redistricting can’t be moved — from legislators’ self-interest to the public interest. It would have to be, in fact, if Governor Cuomo prevails upon the Legislature to surrender control of the mechanics of democracy.

You’ve heard this before: Follow the money. So goes the journey toward taking back state government.

What else needs to be on an urgent agenda for what suddenly smacks of the politics of the possible?

Ethics reform, surely. Legislators have to level with the people they’re supposed to represent about their outside financial interests. No exceptions for lawyers and their clients. This transformation in public accountability wouldn’t require a dime out of the state budget, either.

Campaign finance reform. Elections in which the incumbents have such a huge financial advantage rank right up there with made-to-order redistricting as impediments to genuinely competitive democracy in New York. The state needs to lower campaign contribution limits, provide the money for publicly-financed elections and restrict the legal use of all that money to the cost of actually running for office.

An honest services law. Legislators must be compelled to require themselves to adhere to rules that would target public officials accused of engaging in schemes that benefit their private interests. Attempting to defraud the government and so much as offering or soliciting bribes need to be more serious crimes than ever.

None of these are new ideas. What is new is the context in which they’re pushed anew. A government capable, finally, of fiscal responsibility is capable of so much more.

Comments are closed.