What could go wrong with giving the power to fire someone who was hired to investigate corruption that might target them?
According to Republican Nassau County legislators, nothing.
Or at least that’s what they hope county taxpayers will think after voting to create an inspector general to oversee county contracts — with a catch. The catch is that a majority of the Legislature would be allowed to hire or terminate the inspector general in a majority vote.
And guess who will have an 11-8 majority beginning in January?
Perhaps Republican county legislators will also seek the same authority to fire the Nassau County District Attorney or the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District?
It was, afterall, the then U.S. Attorney for the Southern District, Preet Bharara, who indicted then state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos and his son, Adam, in 2015 on political corruption charges. The charges included Skelos’ efforts to pressure Nassau County to award a $12 million storm water treatment contract to a company that hired Skelos’ son. Skelos and his son were later convicted of the charges. The verdict was later overturned, but the U.S. Attorney’s office said they will retry the case.
That case is not to be confused with charges of political corruption related to county contracts brought against Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano and his wife, Linda, as well as other charges against Town of Oyster Bay Supervisor John Venditto. They are scheduled to go on trial in March.
Skelos, Mangano and Venditto are all Republicans — just like the majority in the Legislature.
Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas, a Democrat, proposed an independent inspector general with subpoena power following an investigation into county contract practices in the wake of the Skelos indictment.
Singas’ investigation found an antiquated system with few protections of taxpayer money. The county did not require vendors to disclose subsidiary companies, criminal convictions, political contributions or whether a vendor is barred from government contracts in other places.
And among those whose received contracts, she found, was a contractor with ties to organized crime, a contractor barred from doing government business in another jurisdiction and a convicted felon with a bankruptcy.
This came on top of a Newsday report in 2015 that hundreds of Nassau County contracts worth a total of nearly $10 million have been awarded in recent years at amounts just dollars below the $25,000 threshold for legislative approval.
Minority Democrats have lobbied for creation of the inspector general recommended by Singas since early 2016, holding up hundreds in millions in borrowing in an effort to force the GOP majority’s hand.
County Legislature Republicans and Mangano have said the county’s commissioner of investigations, who is appointed by the county executive, already had the power to oversee contracts.
This is hardly reassuring. Another Mangano appointee, county Deputy County Executive Rob Walker, testified during the Skelos trial that he was under investigation for a county contract for clean up work following Superstorm Sandy.
The Republican legislators have also expressed concern about the potential abuses of an inspector general without the Legislature’s oversight. We might take that claim seriously if they exerted any oversight of the Mangano administration.
Still, Presiding Officer Norma Gonsalves, who did not seek re-election this year, called the GOP’s proposal a compromise.
And county Executive-elect Laura Curran, a Democrat who takes office Jan. 1, called the bill “a step in the right direction.”
Nassau County may be one of the few places in the universe in which both Gonsalves and Curran could be correct. The GOP’s offer is a compromise — from the laughable position they previously held to one that is an invitation for abuse.
Curran, who campaigned on fighting political corruption, correctly stated that the Republican plan doesn’t go far enough to protect the proposed inspector general from political interference.
Nassau County Legislator Delia DeRiggi-Whitton said the inspector general should be picked by a 13-member supermajority of the Legislature.
This seems like a much more workable plan that would be even more attractive if Republicans agreed to fair elections in Nassau County by approving an independent redistricting commission to redraw the Legislature’s districts after the 2020 census.
Perhaps Republicans will see the error of their past ways with a Democrat as county executive.
After all, it is Curran and her administration that would be subject to the inspector general’s oversight and it would be they who would face the criticism if any wrongdoing was uncovered.
Republicans could also rightly point to the enhanced checks and balances provided by two-party rule.
And if Republican legislators obstruct legislation intended to protect against waste and fraud they might find the Democrats in charge of both branches of county government.
That would re-establish one-party rule in the county, making an independent inspector general that much more important.
History offers many examples proving that Democrats are no more immune to unchallenged power than Republicans.
