Goodbye Laura Seago, ReformNY will Miss You!

Here at the Brennan Center, we're in mourning over the fact that today is Laura Seago's last with us. She's on her way to the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, to pursue a joint PhD in Public Policy and Political Science (no surprise to us that pursuit of a single degree would not be enough for Laura).

Over the past two years, Laura has been the driving force behind this blog, authoring countless posts on all things related to New York and reform, from ethics in government, to campaign finance reform, from voting rights to redistricting and the budget.

In that time, she has also become expert in New York reform issues, co-authoring a report on the State Legislature, as well as a ground breaking law review article on Albany's failure to provide New Yorkers with legislative due process, and testifying at legislative hearings, among many other accomplishments.

Most importantly, as she learned more about New York, Laura became a true believer in the cause of reform, and her enthusiasm and interest inspired all of us to work harder.

No doubt, the loss for the Brennan Center and New York State is the University of Michigan's gain. We are confident that Laura will go on to do many great things. And we are equally confident that her replacement on the blog, John Patrick Travis -- who you'll be hearing more from in the coming days -- will bring his own enthusiasm, intelligence and creativity to stengthen our blog.

For today, however, we'll continue to feel a little sad that Laura will soon be gone. Thanks Laura for all that you have done for us in the last 24 months, and knock 'em dead in Michigan!

More Voices for a Better Overvote Procedure in New York

In the past week, editorial boards, public officials, and computer scientists have joined the Brennan Center in calling on the New York City and State Boards of Elections to refrain from using an unnecessarily confusing procedure for the handling of overvoted ballots that is likely to disenfranchise tens of thousands of voters.

A panel of leading computer scientists wrote to the Boards of Elections yesterday to emphasize that “[t]he most obvious solution to this problem is to set the voting machines to reject overvoted ballots… Because no software would be modified, testing of the change can be expected to be simple, straightforward and efficient, and to take no more than a day.” City Councilmember Margaret Chin also wrote to the State Board yesterday, asking for an explanation as to why they have “refused to implement this simple fix.”

Writing in another letter to the Boards of Elections today, chief election officials in jurisdictions across the country endorsed the automatic rejection of overvoted ballots, noting that this “better administrative practice…should not lead to long lines or confusion at polling places. To the contrary, by automatically rejecting overvotes, voters are immediately taken out of the voting line, provided with a new ballot, and given the opportunity to ensure that their intended choices are accurately recorded.”

In a July 5^th editorial, the New York Times called New York's current procedure “needlessly complicated.” This week, the Daily News demanded that this “dangerous glitch…must be fixed now,” and the Journal News concurred, saying that “it would be unacceptable to have even one vote go unaccounted.”

To read what others are saying about New York’s overvote procedure and to join the chorus of voices calling on the City and State Boards of Elections to implement an easy fix to the problem, click here.

UPDATE: State Senator Liz Krueger has also joined in calling on the State Board of Elections to change its procedure for handling overvotes. Click here to view her letter to the Board.

Closed-Door Budget Negotiations: Déjà Vu All Over Again

At this time last year, the State Senate had blown through the last scheduled day of session without finishing its legislative business for the year. The chamber, still in a state of post-coup deadlock, was unmoved by increasingly angry calls from the governor to convene in extraordinary session to pass the bills necessary to keep government entities afloat in the new fiscal year. Approval ratings for the legislature were at an all-time low, and for good reason.

Sound familiar?

Both chambers of the legislature may technically be functioning this go-round, but the rest of the scene looks all too familiar – missed deadlines, questionably effective attempts by the governor to spur the legislature to action, and even lower approval ratings.

This time, of course, legislative leaders and the governor are deadlocked over the budget (which is now three months overdue), not majority leadership of a chamber. But little else has changed. The public leaders’ meetings on the budget have been light on substantive conversation and heavy on finger-pointing. The real negotiations – the contents of which we are forced to glean from often vague comments to the press – are happening behind closed doors.

After several three-way closed-door negotiating sessions with the governor, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Democratic Leader John Sampson decided to break with the governor over the weekend and forge a two-way budget deal. When asked what caused the breakdown, Speaker Silver was vague on the details:

“Obviously the governor called us, his staff, and briefed us on his version of a three-way deal, which was a number of things that didn’t affect the budget, that, you know, didn’t help us get there, and things that neither house wanted.”

It’s unclear precisely what elements Silver refers to here, and while details of the two-way deal have trickled out over the last day, the legislative leaders are doing little to bring the budget debate into daylight now that it is entirely within their control. Today, Senator Sampson told reporters asking about the budget deal that they were “conferencing it,” which is to say they are discussing it in another closed-door meeting, this one attended by the Senate Democratic conference. It’s difficult to say if the Assembly is even doing that much.

It is worth noting that the roots of last year’s coup could be traced in part to an opaque budget process that offered little opportunity for open and substantive debate. Apparently our lawmakers haven’t learned their lesson.

Brennan Center files Complaint Against State and City Boards

You may have seen the article in today's Times. The complaint as filed is here.

The Times does a decent job of explaining the issue. As we've blogged before, this is a big but very basic problem, with a simple solution.

The problem: the State and City Boards have setup the new machines so that they do not give voters adequate warning of “overvotes”– ballots that cannot be read in full because the machine reads the ballot as having too many votes for a particular contest. Instead of returning the ballot, as is done in many other jurisdictions, in New York the ballot will be retained, and a computer screen with present the voter with a confusing message that includes a green “cast” button. Voters are not told if they press the green button, their vote will not count.

The only other time these voting machines have been used in the same way in a major election -- same confusing message, ballot not automatically rejected (13 counties in Florida in 2008) -- they produced overvote rates almost 14 times higher than expected, with thousands of votes for the presidential contest rejected – in comparison to almost no votes rejected in the 36 counties that automatically returned the ballots. Evidence shows that African Americans and Latinos, in particular, were disproportionately impacted by the lack of overvote protection.

The solution: the State and City Board can fix this problem by checking a box in the setup files that would automatically reject overvoted ballots. Despite numerous attempts by the Brennan Center and other voting rights groups to make this change, they have not done so.

In today’s New York Times, New York State Election Board spokespersons took issue with the Brennan Center’s proposed fix, arguing that in order to reset the machines, it would take a months of testing and that they would have to re-program thousands of machines.

That's simply not true. Numerous sources, including the State Board, the voting machine vendor and independent computer scientists have confirmed to us in the last several months that requiring the machines to return overvote ballots requires only "checking a box" in the setup file for these systems. These machines were built to allow the City and State Board to do this at anytime. It will not cause delay to do the right thing.

How a Bill Becomes A Law

Via Andrew Sullivan comes this handy chart for how a bill becomes a law. What's striking, of course, is how many of the things listed in this chart do not apply in the New York State legislature. Under "Committee Work," we'd have to get rid of hearings devoted to the bill in almost all cases, of course, as well as "mark-up," "final reading," and "report." And then there's introduction of amendments, voting on amendments, public debate, confirmation from an independent budget office that "the bill adheres to spending and revenue constraints," "conference committees," etc., etc. How many bills in New York go through even a majority of the items listed on this chart?

Other States Provide Better Models for Ethics Oversight

It is the beginning of election season, and calls for ethics reform in New York State abound. Helping us to sort through this “Christmas in May” situation is a great pro bono law firm, Kaye Scholar. Associates Leah Kagan and Lindsay Moilanen, overseen by Partner Jim Herschlein, have been examining the structures and powers of ethics commissions in several states to give us a means of comparison in New York. We expect that in the coming months the project will serve as a trove of good ideas as reform proposals surface.

Most calls for reform from outside Albany include an end to the self-policing nature of oversight. Currently, separate ethics commissions are charged with oversight of the legislature and executive branch in New York State. The Legislative Ethics Commission is comprised of nine members, four of whom are legislators, with the remaining five members appointed by legislative leaders. The 13-member Commission on Public Integrity oversees statewide elected officials and lobbyists. Though both Commissions have the power to investigate, fine and refer extreme cases for further action, these are rare occurrences. Simply put, members of both Commissions owe their positions to the elected officials who appointed them.

All agree that what is needed is an atmosphere filled with powerful disincentives for corrupt behavior. And intuitively, self-policing ethics oversight would be the wrong message going forward. Yet publicly, elected officials express concern that a strong, effective ethics oversight body would be manipulated for political means, hindering real change to this structure.

In fact, preliminary research has shown that several states have removed oversight from the hands of legislators and given it instead to entities dominated by an independent majority. Spending a few minutes examining the territory of ethics oversight reveals that self-policing practices could be the poorest option going forward.

A few examples:

In Louisiana, a single ethics commission oversees the executive and legislative branches. The eleven-member commission is selected by the governor and legislature from a list of nominees put together by a nominating committee comprised of the presidents of eight of the state’s leading private universities.

In California, the Fair Political Practices Commission, established after a voter ballot initiative in the 1970’s, has five members, none of whom are appointed by the legislature. The five commissioners are selected by the Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State and Comptroller, with not more than three members from the same political party.

In Washington State, separate ethics commissions oversee the legislature and executive branches. However, the Legislative Ethics Board consists of nine members, only four of whom are appointed by legislators. The remaining five are citizen members, four of whom are chosen by the governor from lists submitted by legislative caucuses, and the fifth elected by the other four citizen members.

In Alaska, legislative ethics are overseen by two separate entities, the Senate and House Subcommittees. These subcommittee consist of seven members each, two of whom are legislators, the remaining five public members are selected by the Chief Justice of the Alaska Supreme Court and ratified by two-third of the full membership of the Senate or House. The legislative members of these subcommittees cannot serve as chair or vice-chair of these committees.

In Connecticut, ethics enforcement for both the executive and legislative branches is overseen by the nine member Citizens Ethics Advisory Board. Though legislative leaders appoint six of the nine members, two of the six are appointed after being nominated by “a citizens group with an interest in ethical government.” To further minimize charges of politically motivated enforcement actions, complaints are submitted to a randomly selected judge trial referee for findings of probably cause. The judge trial referee is selected by the judicial branch in Connecticut from a list of retired judges who have volunteered for this duty. After a finding of probably cause, a new judge trial referee is selected to preside at the public hearing.

We encourage reform advocates to consider adopting one or some combination of the above examples, or to engineer a new structure. And also, to stay tuned to these empirical comparisons.

Goodbye and Thanks, Jay

We were saddened to learn this morning that Jay Gallagher, veteran of the Capitol Press Corps in Albany, passed away last night after a difficult struggle with pancreatic cancer. Right up until the end, Jay continued to serve our state by asking lawmakers tough questions and opening state government to the people. Throughout his illness, Jay continued to share his incisive commentary on state politics through a League of Women Voters blog, and less than three weeks ago, Jay served as the voice of voters and good government advocates at Albany on the Record.

Jay’s love of New York was evident in everything that he did, and over his 25 years of covering state government, he made our state better in ways both large and small. He will be missed. To read the moving eulogy released by Jay’s daughters this morning, click here.

On Cuomo's Reform Agenda

Accompanying the long-awaited announcement of his candidacy for Governor, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo released a 224-page “New NY Agenda” that outlines the issue areas on which he will focus during the campaign and – he hopes – in office.

The chapter on reforming state government covers many of the issues the Brennan Center and its allies have been pushing for years. The agenda includes independent ethics oversight, a pay to play ban, disclosure of lawmakers’ outside income, an independent redistricting commission, reforming the member item grant process, and an overhaul of campaign finance laws that includes public financing, a reduction in contribution limits, limits on soft money (including narrowing the so-called “housekeeping accounts” loophole), and increased enforcement.

Cuomo apparently intends to tour the state asking other candidates to sign on to this agenda, but this effort has already met with some resistance. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who would be required under Cuomo’s plan to disclose information about his clients that he has previously kept secret, said he would not be signing on, asserting that pledges “never really mean much.”

In this sense, Silver may be right: pledges only mean something if they are followed by action. The true measure of Cuomo's commitment to reform will be the work he does to make his ambitious plans come to fruition if he is elected.

But this agenda is a good first step, and we hope that other candidates similarly commit themselves to cleaning up state government. As Brennan Center Democracy Program Director Susan Liss reminded us in an excellent Daily News editorial this weekend, lawmakers who don’t take steps to reform our broken state government may finally face the populist wrath from which they have so far been sheltered.

New Yorkers Take Action to Restore Voting Rights

Cross-posted from brennancenter.org

The effort to restore voting rights in New York is gaining momentum. Today, over 100 New Yorkers sent postcards to their legislators and Governor Paterson urging them to restore the right to vote to people in New York who are on parole and probation.

New York law disenfranchises individuals in prison or on parole. As we have mentioned in previous posts, this law has a stark impact on people of color. A new Brennan Center report, titled Jim Crow in New York, confirms that the current criminal disenfranchisement law traces back to a century-long effort to keep African-American citizens out of the voting booth. As a result, over 80% of those denied the right to vote in the Empire State are African-American or Latino.

And New Yorkers are finally calling on our state leaders to end this injustice.



This writing campaign stems from a lively public conversation held at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture on this very issue. The discussion included Rev. Dr. Calvin O. Butts III from the Abyssinian Baptist Church of the City of New York, Hazel Dukes from the NAACP New York State Conference, Glenn Martin from the Fortune Society, and Columbia Law Professor Theodore Shaw.

Hopefully Albany will heed its constituents’ demands. There are several bills pending in both the Assembly and the Senate that would restore the right to vote to people with a prior criminal conviction.

Among them is legislation introduced by Assemblyman O’Donnell and Senator Thompson that restores voting rights to people on parole. The bills have been referred to the Assembly Committee on Election Law and the Senate Committee on Elections.

Senator Montgomery and Assemblyman Wright have also introduced the Voting Rights Notification and Registration Act that would help eliminate some of the confusion about who is eligible to vote. The bill would require the Department of Corrections and the Board of Parole to provide information to individuals about their voting rights once they regain eligibility. The bill passed the full Assembly in June 2009 and is currently pending in the Senate Elections Committee. (The Brennan Center testified in favor of this bill in April 2009). Similar bills have passed the Assembly twice before.

Contact us to request postcards to tell your elected officials that it is time to restore voting rights to people with prior convictions.

Setting the Record Straight on New York Uprising

The Brennan Center never provides material support to efforts to influence the outcome of elections. An article in last week's Legislative Gazette incorrectly stated that New York Uprising, which has successfully obtained pledges from gubernatorial candidates regarding redistricting reforms, had received support from the Brennan Center and other good government groups. The Brennan Center has studied redistricting for a decade: our extensive materials are available on our website free of charge, our attorneys regularly speak with groups of all kinds as part of our education and outreach about this issue and we often comment on various proposals for reform. Deeply committed to reform of New York’s state government, we do not oppose or support any specific candidates, and, by extension, candidate pledges.

Making it Harder for the Next Joe Bruno

We’ve just learned that former Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno was sentenced to two years in prison for violations of the state’s honest services law.

As we’ve written before, one of the most disturbing things about the Bruno case is that much of the unethical behavior of which Bruno is accused is completely permissible under New York State’s notoriously weak ethics laws.

While the legislature’s major ethics overhaul was killed by the governor’s veto pen earlier this year, smaller reform measures have made strides toward closing some of the most egregious loopholes in the state’s laws that govern public officials’ behavior. A bill signed in February made it illegal for public officials to use state resources for private pursuits for which they get money, and a new bill, called the Public Corruption Prevention and Enforcement Act, would create a stricter definition of public services fraud and increase the penalties for corruption.

At yesterday’s Albany on the Record event, Governor Paterson said he was continuing to work with the legislature to achieve the major overhaul that the state’s ethics laws so badly need. Of the bill he vetoed spring, the Governor said that an ethics bill shouldn’t just be responsive to a particular event (like the Bruno trial), but rather should be a holistic and forward-thinking solution.

Liveblogging Albany on the Record

Join us at 11am tomorrow, May 5 for live commentary from Albany on the Record!

Skelos' Links to Lobbyists and Other Matters Worth Discussing with Legislative Leaders

The New York Post had a story this weekend about the lobbying group, Empire Government Strategies (EGS), funded by Senate Minority Leader Den Skelos’ law firm. According to EGS’ chairman, the lobbying firm is ‘operationally independent’ of the law firm from which Skelos draws a paycheck, but the association may be a little too close for comfort.

Skelos – like his counterparts in the majority leadership of both chambers – is not required by current state law to disclose his clients at his law firm, so it’s difficult to know if anyone with an interest in influencing state policy has a direct impact on his income. At the very least, the Post points out, Skelos “still collects a paycheck from a law firm with a vested interest in the lobbyist outfit’s success.”

New Yorkers will have the opportunity to ask Skelos about this association and other issues related to government reform at this Wednesday’s Albany on the Record event. Skelos will be joined by Senator Sampson, Assemblymen Silver and Kolb, and Comptroller DiNapoli. Yours truly will be live blogging the event.

Albany on the Record

At a press conference today in Albany, another non-partisan group working for more open and accountable government was launched. "Reinvent Albany" is looking to shake things up in our state capitol. They've already announced their first event, Albany on the Record, which will be held in Albany on May 5th. The purpose of the event is to get the state’s top elected officials to tell New Yorkers how they will restore the public’s trust, and put them on the record for what reforms they will fight for during the next legislative session. Albany on the Record will be webcast live from Empire State Plaza. The Brennan Center, Citizens Union, Common Cause, the League of Women Voters, and NYPIRG are joining Reinvent Albany in sponsoring this event.

CORRECTION: When we initially posted this item, we erroneously omitted our good friends at the League of Women Voters of New York. We sincerely apologize for the unintentional oversight.

Brennan Center Notifies Department of Justice That New York Voting Changes Were Not Precleared

We've blogged before about serious concerns the Brennan Center and other New York voting rights groups had about policies adopted by the State Board for New York's new electronic voting machines, which will be used statewide for the first time this September. After extensive research, we have concluded that these policies violate New York State law and should have been precleared with the Department of Justice, pursuant to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. This apparently was not done. We have alerted the Department of Justice, and the New York State and City Boards to our findings. A copy of the letter detailing our findings, and a press release can be found here and here.

Albany Lawmakers Propose Shareholder Rights As Citizens United Response

Last Week, New York State Sen. Daniel Squadron, D-Brooklyn/Manhattan, and Assemblyman Rory Lancman, D-Queens, proposed a bill which would require shareholder approval before a New York corporation could spend in politics. The bill also requires more transparency by mandating that companies tell shareholders of their past political spending. The new bill mirrors language proposed by the Brennan Center’s Ciara Torres-Spelliscy in her report, “Corporate Campaign Spending: Giving Shareholders A Voice” which encourages Congress to make similar changes at the federal level. Congress has a similar bill called the Shareholder Protection Act (H.R. 4790). If Congress fails to act, shareholders will need protections from state laws like this New York State bill. The Senate will be holding hearings on this and other election reform bills this week.

A Better Budget?

Today, the Senate democrats unveiled a series of proposals to reform the state’s budget process, which this year has dragged on a week beyond the mandated deadline with no apparent end in sight.

Most of the proposals – which are outlined in six separate bills – focus on better long-term financial planning and external oversight of the budget designed to eliminate waste. One bill would move the budget deadline back to May 31, following the recommendations made by the Senate’s Select Committee on Budget and Tax Reform in a report also released today.

While we have not yet analyzed the legislation in detail, we’re glad to see the Senate thinking constructively about ways to reform the state’s broken budget process and we hope that the Assembly also seriously considers reform. If the Senate does not have the cooperation of the lower chamber, it should at the very least demonstrate its commitment to a better budget by continuing to build upon the steps it has taken toward greater transparency. New Yorkers certainly deserve to have their tax dollars managed more wisely, but they also have a right to be privy to the decisions made about how their money is to be spent.

Member Item Distribution Still "Grotesquely Unfair"

Today, our friends at NYPIRG released their analysis of the legislature’s member items for the current fiscal year.

The bottom line is that the funds are still distributed inequitably. In the Assembly, a whopping 81 percent of districts receive less than the average disbursement, which means that a small number of members – usually those in or close to the leadership - receive a disproportionately large amount of the funds. In the Senate, fewer than one third of the chamber’s members control more than 75 percent of member item funds.

While many member items fund good causes in members’ home districts, they can also be a tool for chamber leadership to retain control over members and another pot of money into which corrupt legislators can dip – as was the case with Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin, who collected $95,000 from a little league that was included in his member item distribution.

Reform advocates (including NYPIRG and the Brennan Center) support a measure that would entitle members to the same amount of member item funding and place tighter controls on conflicts of interest.

Correction: A Different Reading of Senate Rule VII § 3(e)

Andrew Stengel, Senior Adviser for Government Reform for the Senate Democrats and loyal reader of our blog, contacted us today to give us a different interpretation of Senate Rule VII § 3(e) than we provided in a blog post last week in connection with the Farmworkers Rights Bill.

The full rule is below:

No motion for committee consideration shall be in order after the first Monday in May. The sponsor of any bill may file, through the Journal clerk, a motion for committee consideration forty-five days after the bill has been referred to such committee. Once a motion for committee consideration is filed, the chair of the committee shall place the bill on a committee agenda and schedule a vote within forty-five days. In the case of a bill that is referred to a standing committee having secondary reference, the bill shall be considered within the next two committee meetings [emphasis added].

We interpreted the last clause of this rule to mean that in the case of bills referred to a committee of secondary reference, as the farmworkers bill was, the committee must consider the bill within two meetings once a motion for committee consideration has been filed.

Andrew tells us that the Senate has a different interpretation. He says that this clause only applies to bills that passed out of the committee of first reference with a motion for committee consideration - so the sponsor does not have to wait to file a second motion for committee consideration or wait 45 days for that motion to be honored once it hits the second committee. If the motion for committee consideration is filed for the first time once a bill is in a committee of secondary reference, the chair still has 45 days to consider the bill. Going forward, this reading will be extremely be useful to those attempting to understand how the rules work and how best to decrease the likelihood that leadership can use committee referral to kill a bill.

This seems to be good news in the sense that leadership should have less power to silently kill a bill by referring it to a new committee and having the clock for a vote start all over again, but it's less clear how helpful it will be for proponents of the bill currently in question. Because the motion for committee consideration on the farmworkers bill wasn't filed until the bill was already in the committee of secondary reference, it may have to wait a full 45 days for consideration, rather than two meetings as we and the bill's supporters originally thought.

The main lesson for sponsors of bills (and their supporters) seems to be that if you want to get your bill to the floor quickly, make sure you file a motion for committee consideration as soon as possible.

New Senate Rules in Action

Just a quick update on the farmworker’s rights bill battle that we blogged about last week:

On Monday, the bill’s sponsor, Senator Onorato, filed a motion for committee consideration, a new procedure that was enacted as a part of the Senate’s post-coup rules reform.

Now, according to Senate Rule VII § 3(e), the bill must receive consideration within the next two committee meetings. The Agriculture Committee’s normal meeting time is 9:30 on Tuesday mornings, but the committee does not appear to have posted a meeting agenda for today on the Senate’s website, so it seems unlikely that the two-meeting timeline will directly translate to two weeks.