2. Super PACs are already dominating this federal election cycle, and an article from Crain’s New York Business suggests they may play a major role in New York City elections as well. “There will be super PACs,” said New York Republican State Committee Chairman Ed Cox. “It’s impossible not to have them. They’re a part of the process now.” Such organizations could put unlimited dollars behind policy issues or mayoral candidates, according to some sources. Nonetheless, heightened disclosure requirements and a vigilant city Campaign Finance Board, according to the Board’s former general counsel, Laurence Laufer, may mean that these organizations work within greater restraints in New York City than at the federal level.

3. After more than a decade of accusations of misusing public funds, the law has finally caught up with the former New York State Senator Pedro Espada. A federal jury convicted Espada of four counts of theft, and he now faces up to forty years in prison. The charges stemmed from Espada’s unlawful use of over $400,000 belonging to a health clinic he helped found in 1978. Espada became known statewide in 2009 after taking part in a coup against party leadership shortly after the Democrats gained a narrow majority in the Senate. Two other Senators involved in that political turmoil – Hiram Monserrate and Carl Kruger – recently pleaded guilty to separate corruption charges.

2. A new report issued by the Center for Working Families examines how money in politics led taxpayers to foot the bill for the new Yankee Stadium. In 2006 Yankees ownership paid over $300,000 to a lobbying firm run by former Bronx Assemblyman Roberto Ramirez—the largest lobbying fee reported that year—as well as other influential lawmakers including former state senator Joseph Bruno, in an apparent effort to secure funding for the stadium. The report highlights the financing of Yankee Stadium as a case study in the high-stakes influence-peddling permitted by New York’s current campaign finance regime.

3. The Democrat and Chronicle strongly urged Gov. Cuomo to stand behind his promise to prioritize campaign finance reform, recalling a 2010 campaign publication in which Cuomo called on state legislators to “fundamentally alter our system to give voices to all New Yorkers” by creating a small-donor matching program for publicly funded campaigns. Bills that would create such a program have been introduced in the Assembly, but Cuomo’s support is widely seen as instrumental in moving campaign finance reform through the Senate

Our group is part of a coalition of civic groups and technologists in the NYC Transparency Working Group, which successfully campaigned for the New York City open data law. There’s a lot to like in our new open data law, and it has the potential to do many things for many stakeholders, from tech start-ups to policy analysts to advocates to city bureaucracies. More broadly, it is a step towards changing public expectations about the nature of government digital information, and whether it belongs to the government or the public — or better yet, both.

However, the open data law is only one of many efforts to harness the information revolution for the public benefit, and there many misconceptions about what it will and will not do. This is where the debate that Tom Slee sparked comes in. The NYC open data law calls for posting regularly updated public data sets consisting of lists, charts and tables; not “narrative data,” not reports, not budget updates, not analysis, not contracts, and not the myriad of digital information that sheds light on what city government is actually doing. NYC’s law does not call for the disclosure of all digital information releasable under New York’s expansive Freedom of Information Law. Nor does it actually compel agencies — including the notoriously secretive NYPD — to disclose anything.

Again, the NYC open data law is strong work, and we are going to bust our tails to help make it work. Among other things, it is part of encouraging a change of heart and perspective within city government. But it, like other open data laws and initiatives, are a facet of open government, not open government.

2. The debate over public financing has begun in the state Senate, with the introduction of new legislation by Senator Eric Adams, which would establish a public financing program, create an independent enforcement counsel in the State Board of Elections, lower contribution limits and improve disclosure of independent political spending.  At a press conference called by Senate Democrats, Senate Democratic Leader John Sampson told reporters that public campaign finance would dilute the influence of moneyed interests and enhance the power of small donors. Sen. Tom Duane added that Gov. Cuomo’s support is crucial for a bill’s passage, observing that the governor’s track record on marriage reform and pension benefits is clear evidence that “when he puts his mind to something, he can win.”

3. Reform groups including Citizen Action New York gathered in Albany on Monday to protest the outsized influence of the natural gas industry on the state legislature’s approach to hydrofracking, noting that the industry has contributed more than $1.3 million to state legislators in an effort to buy support for the controversial practice. Sierra Club representative Robert Ciesielski cited a study by Common Cause that the governor of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, had received over $1.6 million in political donations from the industry—a figure that, given the current state of New York’s campaign finance laws, lobbyists in Albany could well surpass.

4. On Wednesday, Fair Elections for New York held a screening in Albany of “Pricele$$,” a new documentary on the influence of money in politics that includes interviews with former Gov. Mario Cuomo and former U.S. Representative Dan Maffei (D—NY), who is currently running for the seat he lost in 2010. Filmmaker Steve Cowan posted full transcripts of his interviews with Cuomo and Maffei on the film’s website, which include Maffei’s observation he supports public campaign finance “because it means the only people we’ll have to worry about in our day are the taxpayers and constituents in our district, and that’s what we’re supposed to do.”

“You can take the public relations track of appearing to do something and I can put out my bill and rant and rave about it or I can actually get something done…I normally don’t put out a bill when we can actually get an agreement and pass something.”

This contrast between city and state once again reveals how abysmally low expectations are for basic democracy in Albany. In the New York City council — and other functioning democracies —  bills are introduced well before a vote and debated and discussed in committee hearings. In Albany,  our governor tells reporters that it’s “ranting and raving” to introduce legislation so it can be seen and understood by the public and members of the legislature.

The governor’s remarks are incredibly cynical, and are an embrace of “Three men in a room” back room deal making. They also directly contradict the recommendations in the Brennan Center’s famous “dysfunction” reports. Those reports are centered around the importance of the legislative committee process.

Brennan’s Still Broken: New York State Legislative Reform 2008 Update includes five recommendations.

1. Strengthen standing committees so that debate is robust and rank-and-file members can
force a hearing or a vote, even over the objections of the committee chair
2. End the leadership stranglehold on bills coming to the floor.
3. Allow ample opportunity for adequate review of all bills.
4. Provide all members with sufficient resources and opportunities to fully consider legislation
5. With respect to all of the above, make records of the legislative process transparent and easily
accessible to the public via the Internet.

2. Media producer and NY LEAD coalition member Marc Weiss, writing for Newsday, called for New York senators and assembly members to support Gov. Cuomo and Speaker Silver in passing public campaign finance legislation, asking, “Do they want to continue business as usual, or do they want to be part of the solution?” Under the state’s current system, Weiss observed, “regular voters feel disconnected from the process and tune out altogether. He went on to cite a Siena poll conducted earlier this year that found 3 out of every 4 New Yorkers would support a statewide campaign finance reform that includes a voluntary small-donor public matching funds program.

3. Washington Post editorial writer E.J. Dionne offered unequivocal support this week for public campaign finance in New York state, pointing out that, like the New York City small-donor matching system on which it is modeled, the state public finance legislation “creates incentives for more people to participate… expands the number of people speaking through their contributions… [and] opens the way for candidates who might otherwise be driven from the competition by established politicians with access to traditional funding sources.” Simply put, Dionne concludes, “it makes our democracy democratic again.”

4. The Nation reminds us why this year presents such a unique opportunity for the passage of public campaign finance in New York, pointing out that the current legislative campaign has garnered the support of the pro-business Committee on Economic Development, Senator Russ Feingold, and an impressive roster of business leaders and philanthropists. But no bill will pass without the public support of Gov. Cuomo; the article finds that public campaign finance presents the governor with the opportunity “to step into the leadership vacuum and provide a rare glimpse of hope on a mission-critical progressive priority.”

5. Former state Senator Carl Kruger was sentenced to seven years in prison on Thursday for his leading role in a million-dollar bribery conspiracy that exemplified the pay-to-play reputation of the New York state legislature. In imposing the sentence, federal judge Jed S. Rakoff observed that Kruger had engaged in “extensive, long-lasting, substantial bribery schemes that frankly were like daggers in the heart of honest government.” This week also saw closing arguments in the corruption trial of Pedro Espada, Jr., the former state senate majority leader accused of embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from a publicly funded healthcare system in order to finance his lavish personal lifestyle.

1. This week saw the publication of several editorials calling on Gov. Cuomo to maintain his commitment to creating a public campaign finance program in New York state, beginning with a Sunday New York Times editorial that cut to the heart of the matter: “There is no mystery about what New York State needs: do it like New York City.” The Times also noted that Cuomo now has “big-time support” for public campaign finance in the form of the NY LEAD coalition, the subject of a front-page story in the Times last week.

2. On Monday, the Newsday editorial board called public campaign finance “New York’s chance to blunt big donors,” noting that the current contribution limit of $60,800 for a state candidate is over 12 times the national median, and citing a recent report by NYPIRG that found that just 127 donors gave one third of the total amount of money raised by state-level candidates and political parties. The editorial praised Gov. Cuomo for supporting public campaign finance but adds, “better still would be action to make it a reality.” Monday’s Times Union reported that Cuomo’s popularity, together with emergence of the NY LEAD coalition, have created what Citizen Action Executive Director Karen Scharff calls a “unique moment in time” for public campaign finance. A Times Union editorial also highlighted one of the major benefits of public campaign finance: not only a reduction in the influence of corporate money, but a “surge in civic engagement,” based on new information released by the Campaign Finance Institute (below).

3. The Campaign Finance Institute released a new report by Prof. Michael Malbin finding that a state-level public matching funds system would “reverse the importance of small and large donors” in state electoral campaigns, and that “importing something like the city’s program is likely to bring greater participation and equality to the state’s campaign finance system.” Prof. Malbin’s report concludes that a small-donor matching funds program is likely to boost the total percentage of small donations ($250 or less) in state races from 6% to 54%, allowing small donors to be “the most important financial constituents instead of the least important.” The full study can be downloaded as a PDF here.

4. As if to confirm the conclusions drawn by the Campaign Finance Institute, the Wall Street Journal noted this week that hedge funds have contributed tens of millions of dollars to state political candidates and parties within the past few years, and that the amounts are steadily growing: from $4.1 million in 2006 to over $7 million in 2010.

5. Advocates for Fair Elections for New York held a well-attended press conference in Albany on Wednesday, urging lawmakers to pass a public campaign finance bill before the end of the legislative session in June. The press conference included statements from NY LEAD, Citizen Action, the Brennan Center, NYPIRG, and Citizens Union, among other organizations and community groups from across the state.

6. An Albany grand jury is deciding whether to indict former Sen. Majority Leader Joe Bruno on new charges of receiving kickbacks while he was in office. Bruno, who was earlier convicted of fraud by a federal district court, saw that conviction overturned on appeal thanks to a Supreme Court ruling that limited the definition of “honest services fraud,” which includes accepting bribes and kickbacks. Bruno spent nearly $2 million in campaign contributions to fund his legal defense during his trial in 2009.

7. In other news concerning disgraced New York state senators, former state Sen. Carl Kruger, facing over a decade in prison for taking over $500,000 in bribes during his tenure in office, appealed to a federal judge for mercy this week in a sentencing memorandum that emphasized his “humble and modest life.” He will be sentenced in Manhattan federal court next week. Meanwhile, testimony in the embezzlement trial of former Sen. Majority Leader Pedro Espada Jr. revealed that Espada took in over a quarter of a million dollars from his Soundview Health Care Network, ostensibly for “unused vacation time,” in order to reimburse Soundview for the “personal expenses” he charged to its corporate American Express card—expenses that included tickets to sporting events and bills from restaurants near Espada’s home in Mamaroneck.

Citizens Union • Common Cause NY • League of Women Voters of NY State
Reinvent Albany • New York Public Interest Research Group

 Recommendations for Governor Cuomo

1. Create a FOIL Center webpage and post all non-personal FOIL requests, refusals and disclosures within a week for Chamber and agencies.
   
2. Create an Open NY or Innovation Team to help spread good transparency and technology ideas and practices throughout the executive branch, and to implement the transparency revolution.
3. Issue executive orders to put government digital information online, starting with the most frequently FOILed and requested documents.
4. Adopt DOH Metrix data transparency/collaboration goals for all agencies.
5. Fully use NY Performs as a public accountability tool: Fully fund and deploy NY Performs online performance system, and make fully available to public.
6. Fund an upgrade of the Authorities Budget Office website.
7. Pick one area for fast tracking greater transparency: for instance, consumer financial information, mortgages, insurance, bank rates and credit card rates.
8. Launch a high caliber “Project Sunlight” site at Office of General Services.

Citizens Union • Common Cause NY • League of Women Voters of NY State
Reinvent Albany • New York Public Interest Research Group

Basic Principles

We urge our elected leaders to adopt and publicly endorse the following basic principles for using Information Technology to open up government.

1. Government information is public information. Information subject to public disclosure under the Freedom of Information Law is public information, except for privacy, security and contractual concerns.
2. Public digital information should be put online in a searchable, usable, common format, and kept updated.
3. State policymakers should use Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests to guide what information goes online first. The universe of digital records is huge. New York State government gets twenty thousand or more FOIL requests a year. The most FOILed (non-personal) records should be posted online in usable formats.
4. The State should seek ways to use technology to keep the public informed and engaged. Information Technology is abundant and cheap. Most transparency measures involve a change in mindset, not great expense.
5. Online digital information should be searchable, downloadable, and usable by the public. Government documents should be online in common, usable formats like TXT and CSV. Government should not hide information in plain sight — scanned paper copies of documents, saved as image files in PDF format are unsearchable from the web or within the document. They are effectively inaccessible to the public.
6. Government should welcome and share public feedback
7. Government websites should give the public many opportunities to comment on government decisions before they are made. Those comments and responses should be shared.
8. The state should use online maps to show the public what government is doing.

A picture is worth a thousand words – a map is worth ten thousand. A government serious about transparency will post information online as interactive maps as the federal government did with Recovery.org, including spending, tax breaks, capital projects, member items, economic development projects, etc.

2. In preparation for the launch of the Fair Elections for New York campaign, a series of events in Albany and across the state are being held to call attention to state legislators’ reliance on out-of-district campaign contributions—further evidence of the need for a state public campaign finance system that relies on small donors and local money. A partial list of upcoming public events can be found here.

3. The Utica Observer-Dispatch is the latest paper to add its voice to the chorus calling for public financing of elections, noting in an editorial this week that lobbying interests and super-wealthy contributors have skewed the electoral process against the small donor. The paper cited recent reports by the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) and the state’s Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE) as evidence of the outsized influence that Albany lobbyists currently enjoy.

4. Speaking of lobbying, the Daily News reports that the NRA has given New York state legislators over $200,000 since 2003: more than the pro-gun group has spent on campaign contributions in any other state. Almost half of these donations came in 2010, when the New York legislature defeated a bill that would have required bullet casings to carry unique markings. Democrats, including Jose Peralta (D-Queens), who sponsored the “microstamping” bill in the Senate, argue that the gun lobby’s donations to the GOP are a key reason for the demise of the bill. On Friday, the Daily News editorial board expressed its strong support for the microstamping law, arguing that senate Republicans should “stop kowtowing to the NRA.”

5. Former governor George Pataki announced this week that he has formed a super PAC, “Tipping Point,” intended to raise money to protect incumbent Republicans in the state legislature and unseat vulnerable Democrats. Pataki declared in an interview that he hopes the super PAC will raise an amount “in the high seven figures. If things go well, in the low eight.”

6. The Times Union editorial board writes this week that the three seats left open by retiring Assembly members will create new opportunities for more competitive races during the next election cycle. Although the decisions by assemblymen Ronald Canestrari (D-Cohies), Jack McEneny (D-Albany) and Bob Reilly (D-Colonie) means the loss of lawmakers who voiced strong support for campaign finance reform and other reform measures, the empty seats will ensure that no candidate in the next election arrives with the advantages of incumbency. “As for reform,” the Times Union writes, “we’ll be looking to those new, would-be incumbents to talk about what it might look like.”

7. The New York Post finds that NYC Comptroller John Liu has spent more in legal defense this year than he has raised in campaign contributions. The past year has seen Liu’s campaign weather a number of legal problems related to the Comptroller’s campaign finance reports, including an ongoing federal investigation, as well as the arrest of both his former treasurer Jenny Hou and a campaign fundraiser, Oliver Pan, who was indicted for his role in a straw bundling scheme.