Spend time in New York's Capital Region and you will be hard pressed to go very far without seeing former Republican Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno's name -- and not because of his recent eight-count indictment on federal corruption charges.
If you arrive in the region by air, one of your first few steps may lead you past a bust of Bruno at the Albany International Airport. If you catch a minor-league baseball game, you will probably visit the Joseph L. Bruno Stadium. During a walk through Saratoga Spa State Park you will likely encounter the Joseph L. Bruno Pavilion. The list of buildings that bear the former senator's name goes on and on, from a lobby in a local YMCA to a biotechnology research center and a town park.
Local leaders, Democrat and Republican alike, bowed to Bruno whenever they could to secure funding for their own pet projects or to get legislative favors. Bruno famously responded to questions about whether it was fair that upstate New York benefited so greatly from his power, "It's been our turn these last dozen years."
Bruno had a leadership position and as one of the three men in the room wielded large amounts of power. But the types of questions that now face Bruno have confronted many New York's politicians. Most have not been indicted, but concern about their behavior and their use -- or abuse -- of their offices has arisen nevertheless.
A number of activists in New York say this atmosphere of impropriety -- and constant suspicion of impropriety -- must end. With that in mind they have proposed a package of measures designed to change the way business is conducted in the state capital.
For his part, Bruno faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and up to a $250,000 fine on charges that he traded his influence in the state legislature for financial gain. Among other accusations, the indictment alleges that Bruno's financial disclosures made from 1993 to 2005 did not include all required information and had misleading and false information. Those filings are required under the state's Ethics in Government Law. As Senate majority leader, Bruno had the power during most of those years to control the ethics committee that would have policed the transgressions Bruno is alleged to have committed.
At least some of the changes offered by good government groups would address that. The organizations want to set new guidelines that they think would reduce the chances that politicians will use their positions to enrich themselves financially and also would give constituents a clearer look into how influence is traded in Albany. They want to establish a new ethics commission that will oversee both the legislative and the executive branches. And they want more transparency and stricter guidelines on the use of campaign contributions.
Last week, members of New York Public Interest Research Group, Common Cause New York, the League of Women Voters of New York State and Citizens Union (whose sister organization is Gotham Gazette's publisher) gathered in Albany to ask for these changes and to challenge the new Democratic leadership in Albany to keep its promises to enact reform.
Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research Group said that politicians should be falling over themselves to do away with the perception that hangs over the capitol -- the perception that just about everyone in politics is a corruption scandal waiting to happen.
That does not seem to have occurred. Instead, the reaction was not overwhelming, according to Common Cause's Susan Lerner. DeNora Getachew of the Citizens Union said that she felt "this was just the beginning of a conversation."
Richard Azzopardi, a spokesperson for Sen. Craig Johnson, who chairs the committee on Investigations and Government Operations, said the proposals are "very thoughtful."
During interviews following his indictment, Bruno portrayed himself as an honest man who "needed to make a living." But take the time to stand in the shadow of the baseball stadium locals affectionately call "the Joe" and ask residents of Bruno's former district if they were surprised at Bruno's indictment. They will look at you like you've just asked them if they are surprised that leaves fall during autumn. They might say something such as, "He is a New York politician, right?"
Horner said an oversight body to police ethics for both the executive and legislative branches could give New Yorkers more confidence in their representatives' integrity. Currently, each branch has its own separate ethics watchdog. The Legislative Ethics Commission is made up of legislators from both houses. On the executive side, the Commission on Public Integrity has seven members -- all appointed by the governor.
In other words, officials basically police themselves. Horner, for one, thinks that presents a problem.
"Self regulation doesn't work," he said. "The system we have in New York for regulation is unusual in the entire country." Only four other states have similar oversight boards, 29 other states have one independent board that oversees the legislature and executive branches.
The Commission on Governmental Ethics, as proposed by the groups, would oversee both the executive and legislative branches of state government. It would have nine individuals. The governor would name three, and the comptroller, the attorney general, the speaker and minority leader of the Assembly, and the temporary president and minority leader of the Senate would appoint one member each. The executive director would be appointed by the chair and vice chair of the commission, who would be of different parties. Members of the commission would not be allowed to hold political office or be employed by lobbyists.
Horner isn't optimistic that the governor and legislature will approve this suggestion. "Politicians are nervous about the unintended consequences," he said. "They are loath to create an independent watchdog group. There is not enough public pressure for them to make the change. And the governor doesn't talk about it, so we will see."
In 2008, Paterson introduced a campaign finance reform bill, but critics say he has not pursued reform as tenaciously as his predecessor, Eliot Spitzer. "We want to not dictate campaign finance reform. We want to really persuade legislators that it is really the root of the dysfunction we have in Albany," Paterson has been quoted as saying. "We'd like to come to consensus with the two legislative bodies about curtailing it."
Paterson also has not adhered to the $10,000 ceiling on individual contributions that Spitzer imposed on himself. The governor said he would operate under the existing law that sets the limit for contributions at $55,900.
The Ethics Reform Act of 2009 would require politicians to publicly disclose the names of all people they do business with and the amount of money they make from those business dealings. Currently, New York State law requires that public officials disclose the names of the businesses that employ them, but they do not have to report the amount of money they make or the names of their clients. Horner said that this lack of information can make it hard for constituents to know who is influencing who and can also create an appearance of impropriety where none should exist.
John Pikus, the special agent in charge of the Albany division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who oversaw the Bruno investigation, told the press that one reason the Bruno investigation took three years is because of the nature of the legislative process in Albany.
"The ability to understand the legislative process is difficult at best," Pikus said. "There are factors involved in which bills are passed, member items are approved, which never see the light of day. ... And that, really, from our standpoint, from the FBI's standpoint, was the problem. We can subpoena. We can provide opportunities for individuals to come in and talk to us, but the legislative process was almost Byzantine."
The Ethics Reform Act of 2009 also would restrict the amount lobbyists and firms that receive state contracts could contribute to politicians and political committees. Lobbyists and those receiving government contracts also would be barred from serving on boards and commissions that make decisions on audits or the awarding of contracts. A database of lobbyists and contractors would be created to make it easier for the public to see who is peddling influence. And finally, laws on the personal use of campaign funds would be strengthened so that campaign money could not go to pay legal defense bills, tuition, mortgage, rent or utility bills, or dues and fees to country clubs -- as has been the case in the past.
Horner said he hasn't heard much support for these ethics reform changes this year, "The winners of the game rarely want to change the rules," he said.
He, however, does expect a renewed debate on better oversight, increased transparency and more limits on the influence of lobbyists and contractors. "If they address all three things," said Horner, "it will be a very good session.
With change in the air as Americans watched the inauguration of a new president and the start of a new year, New York's leaders are setting their agendas for 2009. This month Gov. David Paterson delivered his first State of the State address, focusing on the economy and the challenges facing New York. Mayor Michael Bloomberg's State of the City also emphasized an economic recovery plan. Both executives spoke about education and infrastructure issues, as well as the tough choices government will have to make this year. What was clear in both of their addresses -- mostly from what Paterson and Bloomberg did not say -- is that during these difficult financial times reform will be left on the sidelines, particularly election changes that would make casting ballots easier and more secure for New Yorkers.
In November, Paterson asked New York Secretary of State Loraine Cortes-Vazquez to issue a report analyzing the 2008 election and highlight potential reforms that could increase voter participation. Cortes-Velazquez's report is set to be released in February. Despite the impending report and pleas from advocates, however, many wonder how much of a priority election reform will be for this administration. With a new year ahead, voting advocates and many voters have their own ideas about changes big and small that would make the election process more accountable, more secure and more accessible.
The excitement surrounding the 2008 elections caused record voter turnout nationwide. Voters headed to the polls early in states that allow people to cast ballots before Election Day. The rules for early voting vary from state to state and can range from allowing residents to cast absentee ballots without citing a reason to establishing early voting centers with voting machines.
In New York, state law allows absentee voting only by residents who are absent from the county or too ill to vote in person on Election Day. Despite that, New Yorkers, apparently unaware that early voting is not permitted here, headed to their borough election offices days before the Nov. 4 election to cast their ballots. The New York Times reported that between 50,000 and 60,000 absentee ballots had been received by Oct. 28, and some voters waited up to two hours at their borough office to obtain and cast an absentee ballot. Their votes were included with those cast in person on Election Day. In a press conference, Marcus Cederqvist, executive director of the city Board of Elections, speculated that stories from other states might have led New Yorkers to believe early voting was available here.
Voter advocates have begun pushing for a change in the New York State constitution and state law that would allow voters to cast ballots before Election Day using an absentee ballot without requiring the voter to provide an excuse. No-excuse absentee voting would increase the number of people who would vote in advance of the election and ultimately boost turnout.
Another election change aimed at making voting easier and more accessible to voters is Election Day registration, also know as same-day registration, which is currently allowed in nine states. Election Day registration lets voters both register and vote on the day of the election. In some states, voters are required to fill out an affidavit ballot, and after their eligibility has been verified, the vote is counted. In other states, voters register at a central location and then, on the same day, vote at their local polling place. Still others allow same-day voting if the voter casts a ballot before Election Day.
New York State offers none of these options. Instead people must register to vote at least 25 days prior to the election.
In 2004, New York ranked 46th in voter turnout across the country, and in the last five presidential elections (not including 2008), New York State voter turnout failed to exceed 51 percent of the voting age population. In contrast, in three of the states with Election Day registration -- Maine, Minnesota and Wisconsin -- voter turnout in the 2004 presidential election exceeded 70 percent.
In New York, Assemblymember Michael Gianaris sponsored bill A. 4488 during the 2007-2008 legislative session, which would have amended state election law to implement Election Day registration. This bill has not been reintroduced yet for this session.
Those lobbying for the change cite New York's abysmal voter turnout rates as a key reason for implementing same-day registration. Opponents, on the other hand, argue that the process would be too costly, would create more work for election officials and, if improperly implemented, make elections more vulnerable to voter fraud. None of the nine states with Election Day registration, however, reports increased voting fraud.
Another election reform that has been receiving attention is universal registration. Under this practice, the government would compile a list of all citizens eligible to vote and use it as the official roster of voters. Anyone on the list would automatically be registered and would only have to show up on Election Day and vote. Lists would be compiled either from census records or by adding names from different municipal or state lists, like social service recipients or people registered with the Department of Motor Vehicles.
Proponents argue that universal registration would eliminate the problems voters encounter with not being on the rolls on Election Day and increase voter participation. A recent report from the Brennan Center for Justice entitled "Universal Voter Registration" examines the link between registration barriers and voter participation. At a recent City Council hearing, state Board of Elections commissioner Douglas Kellner said, "The concept is quite simple: Every citizen over 18 year of age, who is not incarcerated for a felony conviction and who has not been declared judicially incompetent should be entitled to vote. Period."
Even without bold changes such as these, voting advocates argue that steps can be taken to improve the election process in New York. Modernizing election agency Websites, improving hotline capacity, better training for poll workers and increased access to the polls for disabled voters are among the many changes advocated by organizations like the Brennan Center, Citizens Union, Common Cause/NY, New York Public Interest and Research Group, the League of Women Voters of New York, the Women's City Club of New York and Center for Independence of the Disabled.
For some though, these small-scale reforms -- and the slow or nonexistent progress of the state's election agencies and city and state elected officials to implement them -- signal a need for greater changes to the structure of New York's election administration. Citizens Union (whose sister organization, Citizens Union Foundation, publishes Gotham Gazette) plans to issue a report in the coming weeks that discusses the importance of reforming how elections are run and a departure from what it characterizes as the old way of voting.
While reforming elections in New York state may not top anyone's agenda, at least publicly, for 2009, voters and advocates will no doubt continue to tell their legislators "out with the old, in with the new" when it comes to voting procedures in the state.
Andrea Senteno is program associate for Citizens Union Foundation, which publishes Gotham Gazette.
Michael McKee, the treasurer of the Tenants Political Action Committee, worked hard to secure a Democratic majority in the State Senate. Besides making substantial donations to the campaigns of Democratic Senate hopefuls last year, McKee said, more than 50 people from Tenants PAC worked to elect Joe Addabbo in his bid to unseat Sen. Serphin Maltese.
Why?
"We knew that as long as the Republicans were in charge we couldn't get the simplest, Mickey Mouse bill out of the Senate," McKee said. According to McKee, Senate Republicans received a steady flow of cash flow from the real estate industry that "kept them in power"and so had no interest in passing legislation that would be favorable to tenants.
Addabbo's campaign was successful, and the Democrats seemed set to become the Senate Majority. McKee expected the Senate would then easily pass housing legislation the Democratic-controlled Assembly had moved on year after year. Now, though, dissension within Democratic ranks has cast doubts over whether 2009 will be the banner year for tenants McKee and other advocates had hoped.
In general, housing advocates want to strengthen rent control and reverse many of the measures to weaken it that were enacted by the New York City Council and the Republican-controlled state government over the last two decades. The expected legislation includes A02005, which would would undo the law that allowed landlords to remove rent regulation on vacant apartments on which the rent had reached $2,000 a month rent. Advocates say the passage of A02005 would be a triumph for tenants since it would also restore to rent regulation some apartments that had been decontrolled.
Proponents of the bill in the Assembly say that rent decontrol encourages landlords to harass and mistreat tenants in rent controlled apartments to drive them out and then rent the apartments at market rates. Rising rents also make it difficult for tenants with regulated apartments to even consider moving. Meanwhile landlords have an incentive to lie about the pricetag of renovations on vacant apartments to artificially raise the value of the unit.
Maggie Russell-Ciadri, executive director of Tenants and Neighbors, said that ending decontrol is the single most important issue for tenant advocates. Experts say more than 50,000 rent-regulated apartments were lost between 2005 and 2008 because of decontrol.
Returning rent regulation to the city by repealing the Urstadt law has been a priority for many tenants' advocates for years. The Urstadt law, enacted in 1971 by Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, took rent regulation out of the hands of New York City and gave it to the state. Therefore legislators from districts without much rental housing can influence the price of apartments in New York City. This year, though, advocates are less focused on repealing the Urstadt laws than they were in previous years and have made abolishing decontrol their focus.
Other bills before before the Assembly would address other tenant concerns. One, A1928, would make rent increases for major capital projects a temporary surcharge so that tenants could pay off the costs of improvements rather than having permanent increases in rent. Bill A2002 would increase penalties for landlords who harass their tenants.
Bill A168 would limit a landlord's ability to claim apartments for the use of their family. Now landlords are able to push tenants out of their apartments and some have been able to empty entire buildings to create luxury mansions. The bill would limit recovery for family use to one apartment. Other bills in the Assembly package are designed to close loopholes to keep landlords from drastically raising the rates of their rent controlled apartments.
Progress on these issues now seems unlikely to proceed as smoothly as tenants groups had hoped. Thanks to hard bargaining by three renegade Democrats who threatened to bolt the party -- the so-called gang of three -- the landscape in the Senate has changed from what many anticipated on Election Day. Sen. Liz Krueger of Manhattan, a passionate supporter of tenants' issues and the ranking Democratic member of the Housing Committee, was assumed to be in line for chair. She was bumped in favor of gang of three member Pedro Espada of the Bronx.
Housing advocates have voiced their displeasure at Espada's nomination, with some calling the gang of three "the Manchurian Democrats."
McKee said that Espada is simply the wrong person to chair the Housing Committee. According to McKee, when Espada served in 1993 as the ranking Democrat on the committee, he was "not only unresponsive" but also "destructive."
However, McKee said, "it's unclear how Espada will perform as chair" and how much it will matter. McKee said that he is sure the Democratic Senate, especially Majority Leader Malcolm Smith, realizes tenants' issues are "life and death" to them. In light of that, McKee expects the Democratic leadership will make sure the Senate does away with rent decontrol regardless of Espada.
Responding to complaints from tenant advocates, Espada said, "Maybe they don't know me." He added that the Section 8 subsidized housing program and tenant-protection issues are "very close to me."
Espada said he grew up on public assistance, has experience being homeless and worked as a tenant organizer. All this, he said, makes him sympathetic to the plight of the working family. "I'd like to meet an advocate who has experience that I don't have," said Espada. "I would ask for their patience and cooperation."
Espada seemed ready to take on broader issues as well. "It's a really exciting time in America," he said, explaining that he expected a "new urban reality," thanks to the Obama administration. "It's time to think beyond brick and mortar housing. We should be thinking out of the box. We should revisit the complete policy of how we assist cities."
One way to expand the supply of housing, he said, would involve making it possible for people to live upstate and quickly and affordably commute downstate. "We need to talk about how we get workers in Manhattan to Sullivan and Ulster counties to live there. There are ghost towns there now. "
As for his loyalty to the agenda of the majority leader and the Democratic majority, Espada said, "As a whole there is a clear synergy, but the idea that we should all be on automatic pilot is ridiculous. We are going to have to take each issue as it comes--not just draw up battle lines, but look at the merits of each issue."
As housing advocates wonder exactly what they can expect from the Senate, their old allies in the Assembly appear more than ready to push ahead as they have in the past.
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver released a statement earlier this month pledging his support to "protect working families who are struggling with the cost of housing." Assembly Housing Committee chair Vito Lopez has already held hearings on rent regulation.
It is expected that next week the Assembly will move to pass the package of pro-tenant legislation
McKee has grown accustomed to seeing the Assembly take action on tenants issues while knowing the legislation will die because of inaction by the Senate. This year he has considerably more hope, but there is still a great deal of uncertainty.