Gov. Cuomo says if state lawmakers resist his efforts at reform he’s prepared to hammer them where it hurts — at the polls.
“Next year is an election year, and it will be an accountability year,” Cuomo declared Thursday on the “Capital Press Room” radio show.
“We can and should do ethics reform and increase the [public] trust,” he said.
Cuomo’s statement comes on the heels of a tug-of-war between the governor’s anti-corruption panel — known as the Moreland Commission — and the Legislature.
The Cuomo-appointed panel has issued a blizzard of subpoenas to law firms and other businesses that employ lawmakers to determine if there’s any conflict of interest between their private and public duties.
The panel also subpoenaed the campaign accounts of all the major political parties.
The state Senate GOP campaign committee on Wednesday moved to quash its subpoena, while Democratic lawmakers accuse the commission of overstepping its authority. They argue an executive panel cannot investigative the Legislature, an independent branch of government..
They’ve also complained that Cuomo has intervened in the internal workings of the panel and steered its activities toward snooping only on the Legislature, not the executive branch. The governor has denied doing so.
“The Legislature doesn’t want to answer the subpoena . . . It’s saying outside income is none of your business,” Cuomo said on the radio show.
A conga line of Albany power brokers have been convicted of crimes or indicted in recent years — including former Senate leaders John Sampson and Malcolm Smith, and ex-Sens. Pedro Espada, Hirram Monserrate, Shirley Huntley, Carl Kruger and ex-Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin, among others.
The Democratic governor said the Legislature has “the right” to file a legal challenge. But he has a right to make his case to the voters the need to clean up the Albany swamp.