Ethics Reform, Albany Style
After years of scandal in Albany, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and leaders in the Legislature have managed to reach agreement on an ethics bill that could help change how business is done in New York’s chronically secretive and corrupt state capital.
For the first time, the state’s part-time lawmakers would be required to reveal to the public how much they earn from outside business interests and the names of their clients and their customers doing any business with the state. Failing to disclose clients could result in a referral to a prosecutor with the potential for a $10,000 fine, enough to make even the Albany crowd take notice.
The bill would also establish a broad, searchable database of all firms and individuals with business before the state — a way to cross-check lawmakers’ disclosures. It would set up a method for reducing or denying state pensions for future public officials convicted of crimes related to their public offices. And it would expand disclosure requirements for independent campaign contributions that have become the real political muscle in elections.
While these changes are commendable, the new 14-member Joint Commission on Public Ethics created to monitor elected officials, legislators and lobbyists is so deeply flawed in its structure as to be wholly ineffective.
There has long been a need for an independent commission to investigate ethical problems in Albany. But this version is so clearly driven by the aim of protecting those in office that it is certain to lead to more paralysis.
Under the bill, the six members would be appointed by the governor (three from each major party) and eight members appointed by the legislative leaders (four each from the two parties). No commission member could have served in a statewide or legislative office in the past three years, but that restriction would not ensure independence.
In fact, any investigation would require consent from at least eight members of the commission, with at least two yes votes by appointees from the same party and branch of government as the subject of the investigation. This provision would essentially give legislative leaders the ability to squelch any investigation or even any public release of the allegations.
The evisceration of the commission was part of a deal struck with Republicans who were said to be nervous that Democrats would use the new commission to go after them. But a toothless commission would only add to the cynicism about Albany’s shameful state.
Finally, missing from this bill is a tightening of New York’s loose campaign finance laws. The bill also does not address the need for an independent reapportionment commission to draw new districts fairly — a change that needs to be enacted swiftly. Governor Cuomo, who put ethics reform at the top of his campaign agenda last year, called the bill a good first step. Clearly, more are needed.
Kicking the Can
Greece has made it through its latest near-meltdown. But the solution patched together last week — more European bailout money for more Greek austerity — only buys some time without offering any realistic hope of recovery.
Athens agreed to impose a new $9 billion round of tax increases and spending cuts and speed up nearly $75 billion in promised privatizations. Europe and the International Monetary Fund, which had threatened to cut off financing after the government missed its deficit-reduction targets, will continue paying a $160 billion bailout package and likely provide as much as $86 billion more when that runs out.
Greece needs to reform its sputtering economy and bring discipline to its fiscal accounting. But a new round of tightening just now could deepen the recession and further shrink the tax base, making it even harder for the government to cut its deficit. Greece has no chance of reviving its economy — or paying off its bills — if it has to keep paying full interest and principal on a debt burden that is now more than 140 percent of gross domestic product and rising. Debt relief, or, to use the bankers’ euphemism, restructuring, will be needed. Debts must be written down, payments deferred and interest rates reduced.
Prime Minister George Papandreou let political resistance and bureaucratic inertia stall promised privatization efforts. He has now committed to clearing away those obstacles. While Mr. Papandreou has begun telling his people unpopular truths about necessary sacrifices and painful reforms, other European leaders are failing to do the same about the need to restructure Greece’s debt.
They are worried about a voter backlash and that other countries may demand similar relief. Denial won’t make the problem go away, and delay will only make the required debt relief much larger.
Europe’s central bank president, Jean-Claude Trichet, has been one of the most vocal opponents of writing down existing debt. Even he recognizes that bold actions are needed. Last week, he suggested creating a European finance ministry with power to supervise spending by all countries using the euro.
Euro-zone governments are protective of their sovereignty and fiscal illusions. But the European Union is fast reaching the point where it will have to choose between members yielding some fiscal sovereignty or seeing some countries forced out of the euro zone. The former would be hard. The latter would be catastrophic, and not just for debtor countries. Exporters and banks in Europe’s most successful economies, Germany’s included, would be gravely threatened by an unraveling of the euro zone.
Europe’s leaders also need to tell the truth about their struggling banks, whacked by housing busts in Ireland and Spain and wobbly Greek loans. This is a continental problem demanding a continental solution — rigorous new stress tests followed by recapitalization of weak institutions. In exchange for help, banks must be required to accept write-downs of Greek and Irish debt so those economies can grow their way out of their crises.
It is past time for Europe’s leaders to acknowledge the depth and breadth of the euro-zone crisis and the need for real solutions.
‘I Don’t Know What I Was Thinking’
For more than a week, Representative Anthony Weiner, a New York City Democrat, baldly lied in denying that he had sent a lewd photo of himself to a woman over Twitter, claiming that his account was hacked. When he finally and tearfully confessed the truth on Monday, it turned out to be worse than expected: He admitted to a longstanding pattern of sending inappropriate photos to women.
Over the last three years, Mr. Weiner said, he has conducted sexually charged Internet and telephone conversations with six women whom he has never met, sending similar photographs without even knowing the real identities — or ages — of the recipients. It was a profoundly squalid and offensive pattern of conduct, admitted only after some of the photographs began to emerge on the Web. It also raises serious questions about his judgment and character, considering that he was once considered one of the savvier members of the House.
Had it not occurred to him, in an era of unending sexual scandal, that repeatedly sending these kinds of photographs to strangers would eventually catch up with him? And that, if it did, his attempt to exploit his political celebrity for online sexual gratification would be considered reprehensible? This was a man who had hoped to lead the City of New York as mayor, a dream that now seems unimaginable.
Mr. Weiner says he will not resign, and there is no evidence yet that he broke the law or abused the resources of his office. He said the computer and BlackBerry that he used were his own, not issued by the government. But Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader, was right to call for an ethics investigation into whether he had broken any House rules, an investigation with which Mr. Weiner said he would cooperate. If it shows that he did abuse his office, he should resign.
But if he chooses to run for re-election next year, voters in Brooklyn and Queens will at least have a chance to decide whether they want a man like Mr. Weiner representing their interests in Congress.
Another Flawed Plan for Yellowstone
Since the mid-1990s, the National Park Service has been trying to come up with a plan to regulate the use of snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park that would withstand legal rulings and political pressure. Protecting the environment has almost always come out last.
For a moment in 2000, the environment won and the Clinton administration proposed to ban all snowmobiles. Repeated studies have shown that they disturb animals and create air and noise pollution. A judge rejected it because of inadequate public participation in the decision process. The administration of George W. Bush then opened the park to as many as 720 snowmobiles a day, and a court said that that violated pollution standards. The number has varied almost every year since. Last winter, the Park Service settled on 318 a day.
The Obama administration’s draft of a new winter use plan is only a slight improvement. It would admit from 110 to 330 per day according to a schedule that would be published a year in advance. If you want a quieter Yellowstone experience, says the plan, visit the park with skis or snowshoes on a low snowmobile day.
In the past decade, the Park Service has tried to make the presence of snowmobiles more palatable, mainly by requiring guides for snowmobilers and the use of lower emission, state-of-the-art four-stroke machines. That has improved conditions since the 1990s, when a noxious cloud often hung over the west entrance to the park.
Snowmobilers and the local businesses that depend on them will surely complain that the new numbers are too low. We are certain they’re too high. Yellowstone needs more protection. Besides, there are miles of snowmobile trails in the national forests surrounding the park.
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