Our Views: GOP legislators try ethics reform

The Island Now

Republican Nassau County legislators filed a bill Monday that would bar anyone convicted of corruption crimes from ever holding public office.

If approved, the bill would prohibit any felon convicted of any of eight specific offenses from being elected to countywide offices or appointed to any Nassau boards or commissions.

New York State law already strips felons of their right to hold offices. But the GOP proposal would extend the prohibition to convicted felons who have received a court waiver restoring their voting rights, officials said.

This effort to curb county corruption may not amount to much.

“They are now closing the barn door after the horses are already out,” Minority Leader Kevan Abrahams (D-Hempstead) said at a news conference.

Suspicious minds might also question the proposed law’s timing — months before county legislators face the voters in November.

As the saying goes, nothing concentrates the mind like the prospect of being hanged.

Still, the proposed legislation is a step in the right direction.

The law would apply to anyone convicted of felonies involving bribery, embezzlement of public money, extortion, theft, perjury, fraud, tax evasion or conspiracy to commit any of those crimes.

Several states have similar provisions in place, but in New York convicted felons can seek a court order restoring their rights to vote and run for office if they show good behavior. The Nassau bill mirrors one proposed but not passed in Albany, Legislature Presiding Officer Norma Gonsalves (R-East Meadow) said.

The proposed law is actually a continuation of a series of reforms implemented in the wake of corruption scandals centered in Nassau County.

The most recent came in October, when Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano, his wife Linda, and then Oyster Bay Town Supervisor John Venditto were arrested on federal corruption charges stemming from an alleged bribe and kickback scheme.

After declining to join other Republican officials in calls for his resignations for six months, nine of the 12 GOP legislators asked Mangano to resign a month ago; he has refused to do so.

In 2015 the Legislature lowered the threshold for legislative review of county contracts to $1,000 from $25,000 after Newsday reported that hundreds of pacts had been approved for amounts just lower than the threshold.

Another measure passed that year required contractors to disclose donations to candidates for county offices.

But Republicans have rejected a recommendation by  District Attorney Madeline Singas, backed by Democrats, for the county to create an independent panel to hire an inspector general with the power to review and investigate any contract after her review of the county’s contracting system.

The recommendation came in the wake of former Republican state Sen. Dean Skelos’ indictment on corruption charges that involved a county contract with Arizona-based AbTech Industries. Skelos and his son, Adam, were later convicted during a trial in which Deputy County Executive Rob Walker said he was under investigation for political corruption.

Mangano and Gonsalves said the county’s Commissioner of Investigations and Director of Procurement Compliance — a position created upon the recommendation of a panel Mangano commissioned to review the contract system —- already fulfilled the role an inspector general would have.

Forgive us for having our doubts — beginning with Gonsalves’s involvement in the process.

A state judge ruled in December that she violated state campaign finance disclosure rules eight times between 2013 and 2015 after the state Board of Elections brought legal action after finding she failed to file reports listing her campaign’s donors and expenses at least 34 times between January 2006 and February 2015.

Gonsalves was also among three Republican legislators to use a taxpayer-funded mailer in 2015 before the last election in which the legislators falsely claimed not to have increased county taxes over a five-year period. The county had, in fact, raised taxes that year. Singas asked for an investigation by federal prosecutors.

Given this track record, an inspector general selected by an independent panel would seem like the least county Republicans could do to restore the public’s confidence.

But for now we will accept baby steps.

Until election day, we have no other choice.

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