15 September 2021: JCOPE Votes Again to Request NY Atty General Probe Leak to Cuomo

After rebuff, JCOPE again refers Cuomo leak to AG

Throughout its troubled 10+ year history, the Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE) has earned its reputation as a gang that can't shoot straight. This report describes what happened after the commissioners, who were so co-opted by former Governor Andrew M. Cuomo they failed to investigate a leak of its secret internal deliberations to him back in 2019, were told by the state attorney general on 14 September 2021 their vote to request her help to probe the matter was too shoddy for her to even consider.

Amid a flurry of machinations within state government, New York's ethics commission voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to seek a criminal investigation into the 2019 leak of confidential information to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.

The vote of the Joint Commission on Public Ethics was 11-1, with one abstention, to give Attorney General Letitia James' office the authority to pursue the matter if she chooses. On Monday evening, James rejected an earlier JCOPE referral seeking an investigation, saying the vote to authorize it was legally improper.

In her letter to JCOPE's top staffer, James raised concerns that an earlier JCOPE referral made in August — passed 8-0, with five abstentions — hadn't included any votes from appointees of the governor, as required by the complex rules governing the ethics panel.

New York's governor appoints six JCOPE commissioners: three Democrats and three Republicans. As James interpreted state law, JCOPE cannot make a criminal referral seeking a probe of state officers or employees unless two of the three Democratic gubernatorial appointees votes in favor.

That occurred on Tuesday, facilitated by Gov. Kathy Hochul, who announced a new Democratic Party commissioner, Judge C. Randall Hinrichs, just ahead of the meeting. Hochul also promoted a prior Cuomo Republican appointee, Commissioner James Dering, to serve as the new acting JCOPE chair — a choice that dismayed Republican leadership and progressive Democrats.

The convoluted rules JCOPE follows are designed to provide the appearance of upholding ethical conduct, while allowing the commissioners who are all appointed by powerful state politicians to look the other way when considering official misconduct by powerful state politicians.

We think that after voting to allow Andrew M. Cuomo to keep the $5.12 million for his pandemic "leadership" book despite his use of state government resources and employees to produce it, the JCOPE commissioners could not afford the negative optics of having a second vote appear to favor Andrew M. Cuomo's interests in the same day, which accounts for the lopsided balance.