Governor "Things Will Be Cleaner This Time Baby, I Promise" Cuomo is preparing to sign an ethics bill into law, which in part will require elected officials who practice law to disclose the names of their clients that they represent with regard to state business. Cuomo claims that provisions like these will "help clean up state government and give New Yorkers confidence in their elected officials." But today's Times reports on what the bill doesn't do: require lawmakers to to report clients represented by their colleagues at their firms. This has been a very common practice over the last five years, when the state has awarded contracts totaling $7.4 billion to the clients of their firms.
For instance, Senator Nozzolio, a Republican from Seneca County, works for the law firm Harris Beach, which counts O'Connell Electric Company as a client. O'Connell Electric "has been awarded dozens of state contracts worth more than $50 million," and "has donated thousands of dollars to Mr. Nozzolio's campaigns in recent years." Its CEO calls Senator Nozzolio a "great guy," and that "if any questions ever come up, he knows where to get answers."
Senate majority leader Skelos works at a firm whose client has been awarded $130 million for supplying salt on state highways. His firm has an "independently run lobbying firm," and its chairman assures us that, "I don't step over the line because I don't have to step over the line. I can be just as effective without ever having to go near the majority leader." Right. You don't have to golf with him or anything, a voicemail probably suffices.
The director for citizen's lobby Common Cause tells the paper that, "It's a culture of special access. A partner will say to a client: 'Well, we have X senator who is of counsel, why don't we discuss this with him?' That's the reason why" the lawmakers are hired in the first place. But enough about that: Albany's so squeaky clean now the Virgin Mary HERSELF would be proud to go up there and take a dump!
