1 June 2021: Op-Ed - Ban Compensation for Public Officials' Book Deals

Essay/Sen. Tom O'Mara: Governor’s book deal puts exclamation point on bad ending

NY State Senator Tom O'Mara (R-Big Flats) has a few choice words about Governor Cuomo's controversial book deal proclaiming his pandemic "leadership" lessons:

Where to even begin. Set aside the dubious timing of the undertaking, with the state in complete lockdown under state government by Cuomo executive order, with businesses shuttered, millions unemployed and, most egregious of all, a disaster unfolding in our nursing homes, Governor Cuomo still found time to enrich himself with a book that, we now know, painted a deceptive picture of his competence, to say nothing of the effectiveness and integrity of the state’s response.

We now know, for example, that the governor and his inner circle withheld information and accurate data on the number of COVID-19 deaths in state nursing homes in order to, in part, portray the administration’s response efforts in a more favorable light in his book. The number of COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes was certainly exacerbated by Cuomo’s fateful March 25, 2020 order directing nursing homes to accept COVID-positive hospital patients.

Additionally, the state’s Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE) – in an informal staff (staff which Cuomo controls by appointment) advisory opinion requested by the governor which bypassed the JCOPE commissioners -- spelled out specific conditions that this governor could not violate in the writing of the book, including that state property, resources or personnel could not be used to produce or market it. Subsequent news reports have made it clear that Cuomo and top aides likely ignored JCOPE’s ethics requirements and violated the state’s Public Officers Law.

Furthermore, the JCOPE staff opinion Cuomo received stated that “the subject matter (of the book) must be sufficiently unrelated to the governor’s official activities so that authorship or the advice or material provided in the book cannot be viewed as part of the governor’s job.” Can he really argue now that the state’s COVID response was not part of the governor’s job? No.

Such violations of the Public Officers Law can be punished by a fine of up to $10,000 and the value of any “compensation or benefit received as a result.” The governor’s illegitimate windfall should be forfeited.

In short, the governor penned a dishonest book and made millions.

O'Mara is a co-author of draft legislation to prohibit elected and appointed statewide public officials from being compensated for books or other published works written while they are in office.

From our perspective, we think that's a good start and that the legislation should be expanded to cover all elected state government officials and their appointees as well.