1 September 2021: Two JCOPE Commissioners to Resign as Cuomo Influence Network Shrinks

At JCOPE, two more Cuomo appointees resign

This report indicates two members of New York's Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE), who were appointed to their positions by Andrew M. Cuomo, will soon resign:

The number of former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's appointees on New York's ethics commission are dwindling.

In the short term, that could render the Joint Commission on Public Ethics unable to take action against Cuomo; in the longer term, the departures could provide the ex-governor far less protection from possible sanction.

Daniel Horwitz and James Dering, both gubernatorial appointees, this week announced their plans to resign.

That's according to JCOPE Commissioner Gary Lavine, a Senate Republican appointee to the panel, who told the Times Union about the resignations.

The resignations mean that JCOPE cannot vote to refer any new cases involving ethical misconduct to New York's Attorney General's office for criminal investigation, which would require the positions appointed by New York's governor to be filled under state law. They would not impact any cases they have already referred, such as the recent request for the AG to probe the 2019 leak of JCOPE proceedings to Andrew M. Cuomo.

The resignations would also not affect whether JCOPE's commissioners might rescind the green light JCOPE's lower level staff members approved for Andrew M. Cuomo's pandemic "leadership" book:

The special voting rules do not apply to all matters before JCOPE. For instance, Lavine plans to bring up a motion in open session at a meeting in September that would rescind the staff's approval of Cuomo's $5.1 million book deal. That would require only a simple majority vote — eight out of 14 commissioners — to pass.

The best quote from the article is this one, which comes with the caveat that it won't happen in the short term: "The resignations open the door for JCOPE to more vigorously pursue investigations into Cuomo, since his loyalists are evaporating from the panel."

Perhaps they'll find new employment working for Andrew M. Cuomo's campaign organization, which seems to be where Cuomo loyalist dead-enders go on after exiting their appointed positions.