That disgraced ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo gets to hang on to his ill-gotten $5 million book payment is just the latest sign that New York state’s leaders are incapable of imposing any ethical restraints on themselves.
The only thing keeping corruption remotely in check is the risk of federal prosecution.
Last month, a state judge ruled that the state Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government is an “unconstitutional fourth branch of government.”
That decision is on appeal, but for now the panel is even a more toothless joke than the “watchdog” it replaced, the Joint Commission on Public Ethics, a k a JCOPE or, more accurately, J-JOKE.
JCOPE in its 11 years mainly served as a weapon at Cuomo’s disposal, a way to threaten legislators who crossed the gov.
When Gov. Kathy Hochul engineered a successor “cop,” no one mourned JCOPE — but the doubts it would be any tougher now stand confirmed.
The only way to get genuine policing of Albany politicians is to amend the state Constitution to allow for a truly independent ethics authority beyond the influence of the pols it’s supposed to watch.
As it stands, New York’s state lawmakers are not only the nation’s best-paid and laziest, but also a good-government laughingstock.