Saturday, December 17, 2022

17 December 2022: New Ethics Panel Proposes "Cuomo Rules" to Block Media Project Profiteering by Pols

Cuomo rules: New York’s new ethics panel looks to prevent another book scandal

You know a politician has crossed ethical lines when they name new laws or policy fixes after them. This report describes the "Cuomo Rules" proposed to stop NY politicians from personally profiting from their powerful elected positions through media deals.

The newly formed New York state ethics panel said Friday it will put safeguards in place — being referred to as “Andrew Cuomo rules” — that would prevent approval of any fat book contracts from a governor or statewide official without input from commissioners.

Reports released by the state Assembly and the much-criticized Joint Commission on Public Ethics – a now defunct body replaced by the state Commission on Ethics and Lobbying months ago – detail how Cuomo was able to profit off of his 2020 memoir “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic” under questionable circumstances.

Cuomo, who denied any wrongdoing, received permission to ink the lucrative $5.1 million deal with Penguin Books from a lawyer for JCOPE – an agency he was known to dominate – before reportedly leaning on government resources to help him produce the 309-page tribute to his own pandemic response.

JCOPE’s own commissioners never voted to approve the book deal and some were not even aware of the details....

“The successor agency [to JCOPE] should require any outside activity request by a statewide office holder to be decided by a vote of the Commissioners,” the report by the Hogan Lovell’s law firm said.

The ethics agency should also create a list of information and documents that must be provided in connection with all outside activity requests and have a “standard waiting period” for such requests.

Here is background on Andrew M. Cuomo's pandemic "leadership" book deal from the timeline:

As of 17 December 2022, the state attorney general's criminal probe of Andrew M. Cuomo's book deal has made no visible progress since 5 April 2022.

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