New addition
Former judge, named by Stewart-cousins, could shift the panel’s power dynamic
14th JCOPE member appointed, a move that could shift panel’s power dynamic./
Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-cousins has finally made her appointment to New York’s ethics commission — a move that could end up causing major headaches for Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.
Stewart-cousins’ appointment to the Joint Commission on Public Ethics is Juanita Bing Newton, a former longtime judge on the Court of Claims and an ex-state Supreme Court justice. She recently retired as dean of the New York State Judicial Institute, the educational arm of the court system that provides mandatory education to the judges and attorneys.
In a statement, Stewart-cousins said her appointee “brings an impressive amount of knowledge and experience to the commission after a 45-year legal career and a lifetime of civic service.”
“The Senate majority is committed to reforming the flawed JCOPE process and I thank Judge Juanita Bing Newton for her willingness to continue her service to New York as an independent monitor to uphold and improve the integrity of our state government,” Stewartcousins said.
In recent months, an unusual dynamic has developed among the commissioners on JCOPE, which regulates government ethics and lobbying in New York. On one side of votes taken at meetings have been the six Cuomo appointees to the panel; on the other side have been the four appointees of Republican leaders in the Legislature, who have joined with the three appointees of Speaker Carl E. Heastie, a Democrat.
That has resulted in several motions aimed at the Cuomo administration failing by a margin of 7-6, with the seven legislative appointees in a majority. But because eight votes are needed to pass motions, the commission has in effect been deadlocked. At a meeting on Tuesday, for instance, a motion to subpoena Cuomo’s office for records went down by that 7-6 margin, with the six Cuomo appointees in opposition.
The final, 14th JCOPE commissionership appointed by Stewart-cousins has long been vacant. At Tuesday’s meeting, JCOPE Commissioner Jim Yates called out Stewart-cousins for not making an appointment, noting that “effectively, the Senate Democrats are voting ‘no’ on any investigation.”
But now, if the bipartisan legislative bloc holds at future meetings, Stewart-cousins’ appointment could bring the eight votes needed for JCOPE commissioners to pass a wide range of motions opposed by the Cuomo appointees.
It remains unlikely that the commissioners will vote to authorize an investigation into the slew of sexual harassment allegations leveled in recent weeks against Cuomo. Under the much-criticized 2011 law creating the commission, two Cuomo-appointed commissioners of his own political party would have to vote in favor of any investigation into the governor. A similar requirement exists for investigating members of the Legislature.
On Tuesday, the Senate Ethics Committee advanced a bill sponsored by Democratic state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi that would reform that requirement. Under the bill, a simple eight votes would be needed start an investigation, not the consent of commissioners appointed by the person being investigated. Similarly, Biaggi’s bill would remove the requirement that legislators and statewide officials can be found guilty of ethical violations only with the consent of their own appointees to the commission.
“JCOPE is an inherently flawed institution, and so this is a short-term fix,” Biaggi told the chamber’s Ethics Committee on Tuesday, adding that the longerterm repair was a constitutional amendment proposed by Democratic state Sen. Liz Krueger.
Stewart-cousins’ prior appointee to JCOPE resigned in September 2018, and under state law, Senate Democrats were supposed to make a new appointment within a month. During the more than two-year delay, Senate Democrats have said it was difficult to find someone to serve on the much-maligned panel. They also cited unfairness in the law creating JCOPE, which gave Senate Republicans three appointees to JCOPE and Senate Democrats only one, regardless of which party held the majority.
A spokesman for Stewartcousins, whose conference resoundingly took the chamber’s majority in 2018, said Democrats were considering changing the appointments law as well.