OPINION: Bound By Laws Forged In Corruption

In the Olympics and pro cycling, athletes suspected of cheating, i.e., using performance-enhancing drugs, are investigated and, if found guilty, are stripped of their medals and championship titles. In New York, however, convicted corrupt lawmakers keep their pensions and the residents are left living with the laws they enacted.

This year’s stunning arrests of former top legislative leaders Sheldon Silver and Dean Skelos seem to indicate something insidious and corrosive was afoot. The scope of the indictments have caused me to seriously question allowing the laws they championed, negotiated and steered into enactment to remain legally binding on the people of New York.

In June, Mickey Carroll, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll, said, “Four out of five voters think the leadership domination helps lead to corruption.” In the same poll, more than two-thirds of respondents faulted “three men in a room” as a cause of corruption in Albany.

As it stands, polls indicate that an overwhelming number of New Yorkers say government corruption is a serious problem. But pollsters don’t ask voters if they think they should be governed by laws emerging from a corrupt process.

One report noted that the criminal charges against former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver contain “vague references to how he sold out tenants the last time the protections expired in 2011 as part of a corrupt deal with a developer.”

When asked about the renewal of rent laws every few years, former Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos responded that “(sunsets) add excitement.” In other words, opponents and proponents spend money and make donations to campaigns to gain access and to be heard. Extortion or corruption, some might say.

Disgraced former Assemblyman Eric Stevenson was convicted of taking $20,000 to sponsor legislation giving his confederates a monopoly in adult day care services. He effectively rented his lawmaking ability to Russian criminals. Stevenson’s bill never saw the light of day.

Whether or not Stevenson could have gotten his adult day care moratorium enacted is debatable. One Albany veteran pointed out that even if the moratorium were enacted, it required the vote of the Legislature and therefore it could not be invalidated because the entire Legislature wasn’t bribed.

It’s striking that there has been no talk of reviewing the legislation, tax breaks and funds negotiated and allocated by the two indicted leaders. Perhaps even the most ardent of reformers are reluctant to embrace this idea because it would create a crisis of governance.

When I posed this question to Fordham professor Zephyr Teachout, whose book, “Corruption In America,” looks at the history of legislative and judicial responses to corruption in government, I realized it created a conundrum. In her book, Teachout discusses U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall’s decision to enforce the Yazoo land grant, which was passed by a bribed Legislature. She concludes that Marshall “had no clear way to tell the difference between a bribed legislature and an unbribed one.” Apparently, the same conclusion would pertain in Albany, too.

SUNY New Paltz professor Gerald Benjamin says that narrowly defined parameters must be established in order to allocate identifiable behaviors or outcomes due to the influence of a particular legislator, corrupt or not. Otherwise, like many others with whom I have spoken, Benjamin believes every bill would be subject to the threat of invalidation.

Hunter College Professor Emeritus Kenneth Sherrill suggests that the Legislature must hold robust public hearings on matters of substance and controversy. Important matters determined by the give and take of closed-door budget negotiations carry with them the taint of something underhanded. The confluence of money, backdoor dealing and secret three-men-in-a-room deals allows the abuse of power which harms our civic and legislative culture.

Brian Kolb, minority leader in the Assembly, agrees with Sherrill’s call for robust public hearings and debates on important and controversial matters, such as changing rent laws, 421-a, the SAFE Act and education tax credits. Kolb also wants to democratize the legislative process so leaders can no longer hide behind closed doors.

Five years removed from the Assembly, the scales have fallen from my eyes. I now believe that the chambers must democratize, hold more public hearings on major legislation and use joint conference committees to hammer out agreed-upon legislation, instead of relying upon closed-door meetings between their leaders and the governor.

And lastly, laws found to be the product of corrupt conspiracies should be reviewed by a joint legislative panel for repeal or amendment. If victories and milestones achieved by athletes who cheat are investigated and then stripped, why should the residents of New York be bound by laws forged through corruption?

Perhaps, Sherrill was right when he told me that “severe punishment may be the only way to cure the (Legislature).”

Michael Benjamin is a former assemblyman who represented parts of the Bronx. You can follow him on twitter @SquarePegDem