By Committee: Assembly Ethics and Guidance
No Set Powers or Meetings, But an Insistent Role
Mon, 11 Feb 2008 14:21:00
The Assembly Ethics and Guidance Committee is a unique and often misunderstood body charged with the narrow mission of upholding the rules and decorum governing its members—not necessarily the laws.
The chamber's only committee evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, Ethics and Guidance rarely meets. Most of the issues brought to its leaders are the responsibility of a separate, larger ethics commission.
Some Albany observers are skeptical that the Assembly can police its members effectively. Others say there is no other way.
Outgoing Committee chair Kevin Cahill (D-Ulster/Dutchess) said the body was created to consider ethical transgressions that could be, but are not necessarily, illegal.
The committee is one of four bodies in a complex web exercising oversight over state government employees including legislators: the Commission on Public Integrity, which can investigate and enforce violations of the state’s ethics and lobbying laws for the executive branch and lobbyists, the joint Legislative Ethics Commission, which focuses on ethics, conflicts of interest and financial laws covering members and staff of the Legislature, the Senate Ethics Committee, which watches over senators, and the Ethics and Guidance Committee.
The Assembly committee conducts investigations of alleged ethical violations at the direction of the speaker. However, the committee has no review over new ethics legislation, which is handled by the Government Operations Committee. Nor is there a single document detailing the committee’s jurisdiction. Potential violations include fraternization with interns and sexual harassment.
Since most of its work is providing guidance to members, the Assembly committee has only had about six meetings in the last three years, according to Cahill, all of these to investigate allegations against Assembly Member Mike Cole (R-Erie/Niagra).
Cole, who remains in the Assembly, admitted that last April 16, he drank and then spent the night on the bedroom floor of a 21-year-old female intern. Cole was stripped of his seniority and $9,000 annual stipend as the ranking Republican on the Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Committee.
Cahill said that the committee was on the verge of meeting to deal with a situation involving another legislator last year. Though he did not mention then-Assembly Member Ryan Karben (D-Rockland) by name, he described circumstances that fit Karben, who allegedly fraternized with female interns. Karben resigned last May, before the committee could be convened to act.
Dick Dadey, executive director of the government watchdog group, Citizens Union, said the lawmakers should not be monitoring themselves, and that the current structure should be replaced with another.
“We support the idea of a unified agency having singular responsibility for the Legislature and the executive,” Dadey said.
Professor Eric Lane of Hofstra Law School, who served in Albany as chief counsel to the Democrats in the Senate for six years, said he believes feuds would make external oversight untenable.
“There is no government neutrality. All have a political axe to grind, so if you want to maintain a separation of powers you have to let the Legislature do its own work,” he said.
A policy banning fraternization with interns was adopted in 2004, after accusations that Adam Clayton Powell IV (D-Manhattan) raped a 19-year-old intern that year. The charges were later dropped.
The committee's newest member, Thomas O'Mara (R-Chemung/Schuyler/Tioga), suspected he was tapped because of his experience as an attorney.
“It deals with having to make determinations and judgments on colleagues as various ethical issues arise," he said. "I don't think there are members clamoring to get on.”
The chamber's only committee evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, Ethics and Guidance rarely meets. Most of the issues brought to its leaders are the responsibility of a separate, larger ethics commission.
Some Albany observers are skeptical that the Assembly can police its members effectively. Others say there is no other way.
Outgoing Committee chair Kevin Cahill (D-Ulster/Dutchess) said the body was created to consider ethical transgressions that could be, but are not necessarily, illegal.
The committee is one of four bodies in a complex web exercising oversight over state government employees including legislators: the Commission on Public Integrity, which can investigate and enforce violations of the state’s ethics and lobbying laws for the executive branch and lobbyists, the joint Legislative Ethics Commission, which focuses on ethics, conflicts of interest and financial laws covering members and staff of the Legislature, the Senate Ethics Committee, which watches over senators, and the Ethics and Guidance Committee.
The Assembly committee conducts investigations of alleged ethical violations at the direction of the speaker. However, the committee has no review over new ethics legislation, which is handled by the Government Operations Committee. Nor is there a single document detailing the committee’s jurisdiction. Potential violations include fraternization with interns and sexual harassment.
Since most of its work is providing guidance to members, the Assembly committee has only had about six meetings in the last three years, according to Cahill, all of these to investigate allegations against Assembly Member Mike Cole (R-Erie/Niagra).
Cole, who remains in the Assembly, admitted that last April 16, he drank and then spent the night on the bedroom floor of a 21-year-old female intern. Cole was stripped of his seniority and $9,000 annual stipend as the ranking Republican on the Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Committee.
Cahill said that the committee was on the verge of meeting to deal with a situation involving another legislator last year. Though he did not mention then-Assembly Member Ryan Karben (D-Rockland) by name, he described circumstances that fit Karben, who allegedly fraternized with female interns. Karben resigned last May, before the committee could be convened to act.
Dick Dadey, executive director of the government watchdog group, Citizens Union, said the lawmakers should not be monitoring themselves, and that the current structure should be replaced with another.
“We support the idea of a unified agency having singular responsibility for the Legislature and the executive,” Dadey said.
Professor Eric Lane of Hofstra Law School, who served in Albany as chief counsel to the Democrats in the Senate for six years, said he believes feuds would make external oversight untenable.
“There is no government neutrality. All have a political axe to grind, so if you want to maintain a separation of powers you have to let the Legislature do its own work,” he said.
A policy banning fraternization with interns was adopted in 2004, after accusations that Adam Clayton Powell IV (D-Manhattan) raped a 19-year-old intern that year. The charges were later dropped.
The committee's newest member, Thomas O'Mara (R-Chemung/Schuyler/Tioga), suspected he was tapped because of his experience as an attorney.
“It deals with having to make determinations and judgments on colleagues as various ethical issues arise," he said. "I don't think there are members clamoring to get on.”
