22 October 2021: Editorial - JCOPE Should Either Get Act Together or Die

JCOPE, get your act together and claw back Cuomo’s book profits

The Advance Media NY Editorial Board would really like the competence-challenged Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE) to either get its act together or die.

Would somebody please put the Joint Commission on Public Ethics out of its misery, and ours?

New York’s ethics watchdog again showed its toothlessness this week. JCOPE voted 7-2 — one vote short of the necessary eight votes — on a motion to rescind approval of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s $5 million payday from his pandemic memoir, “American Crisis: Lessons in Leadership from the Covid-19 Pandemic.”

The ethics board must approve outside income earned by state employees, including the governor. However, JCOPE members never voted to approve Cuomo’s book deal. The ex-governor got permission on the say-so of one person: JCOPE general counsel Martin Levine....

The Times-Union of Albany reported that a “strong majority” of the commissioners favored revoking the book deal. But by the time the commission voted, after a long, behind-closed-door meeting, five commissioners had peeled off and the votes were no longer there. That’s happened several times.

Enough with the games and the endless discussions. JCOPE must rectify its mistake in approving Cuomo’s windfall and take the necessary steps to claw back the money. Lavine told the Times-Union he planned to bring up the motion again, and he should.

How many bites at the corrupt apple will it take to claw back the millions Cuomo collected on the backs of all the state government employees who worked on producing his book using state government resources?