Blair Horner, the longtime legislative director at the New York Public Interest Research Group, recently returned to his watchdog post after spending a year working for Attorney General Andrew Cuomo (D) on Project Sunlight, the searchable database of lobbyist and campaign information. Sitting on the plush green velvet seats outside the Senate chambers, Horner discussed how receiving a government paycheck changed how he saw civil servants, how New York just had the worst 15 months ever in the state’s political history and how Project Sunlight could be just the beginning.

The Capitol: How did your time working with the attorney general on Project Sunlight change your perception of government?
Blair Horner: Well, I had experiences that I wouldn’t have had. For example, I had to file ethics filings. I read the forms before, I knew what the law said, so it wasn’t a complete shock. But you start to think about, ‘Well, people will see this.’ You develop a different type of sensitivity. So, in that way I think it helps round out my understanding. Because what I’m doing as an advocate is I’m trying to get the legislature to change the laws. It helps if you have a deeper understanding of the concerns people have when you’re advancing those reforms. Because you’ve got to get it done. It doesn’t get done if they don’t pass a law. I learned a lot about technology, which was kind of cool. But the other thing that was interesting was I got to work closely with the civil servants. And, you know, I’ve heard all the stories about government workers, they come in at 10, they take a break, they eat lunch, then at 3:30 they take another break, then they go home. That wasn’t my experience at all. These guys were motivated. They were excited to be a part of it. They came in and worked late, they worked on the weekends, they actually came in on Thanksgiving weekend because there was a problem. People say government should be run like a business. I think that’s probably wrong. I feel that government should be run like a well-run not-for-profit. Because you can’t fire anybody, really. You have to motivate them, you have to inspire them. Not every project is going to be super exciting. But if the idea is to inspire people to work harder on interesting projects, then I think we’d end up with a better government as opposed to a top-down, we-know-best, you-are-merely-functioning-cogs-in-this-great-machine approach. I think people resent that and are motivated by that. So it was very interesting. That part of it is something I would have never gotten without the experience. Again, it was only one year. Who knows if I had done it for decades how I would have felt about it. It was eye-opening, it was interesting, it was fun. I didn’t know what to expect. I was really relying on these people to do a good job.

TC: Are there other technological steps that the government can take to be more transparent?
BH: The short answer is yes. I have to be a little careful because I have revolving door issues. I can’t really discuss what I was recommending Project Sunlight do. I think the prototype of what we did, which was to design a site that would educate and inform citizens and was designed in a way that would make it easy for citizens to use, I think should be the way that other agencies do their websites.

TC: Can that be extended to giving more transparency to public authorities or looking at how the comptroller spends pension money?
BH:Everything is slightly different. I think people want to know environmental information in their communities. The [Department of Environmental Conservation] collects a lot of information. I think that the Health Department collects a lot of information about health care that the public would want to have when they’re trying to make health decisions. What really matters is not only providing information to the public but providing it in a way that’s useful. And that’s really where you have to put on your thinking cap. So you have to look with an eye on who’s the audience, what are they really looking for? And it’s different in different areas.

TC: This current budget process once again lacked transparency. What can be done between now and next year to improve that process—and who needs to take the reins?
BH: The governor needs to take the reins. He’s the single most powerful figure in state government. Constitutionally, he’s one of the most powerful governors, arguably one of the most powerful in the country in terms of the power the Constitution gives to him. You don’t see this in other states. The governor says he wants to change it, he wants to change the process, he’s also trying to figure out a way to reduce the size of spending. He’s talking about a five to 10 percent reduction. My view is, if he wants to do this, he can only win if he makes this a public discussion. So long as he relies on activity behind closed doors, he’s set with a set of rules that lead to the outcome we had this time—maybe a little bit better, maybe a little bit worse, but pretty much the same deal. The interest groups know what’s going on and they’re able to engage in the process behind closed doors—and that actually short-circuits any reforms or proposals. He has to make it more open. And he can start by just opening up the government. He has an advantage right now, which is for some period of time, a few months—the government that he’s running is not his. He inherited Spitzer’s government. He doesn’t have to deal with the issue for why the government runs the way it does. In a year, he will. This is his window of time to engage the public in what should be the appropriate role of government, the size of it and the programs that it runs. … There’s that and then there’s technical things. Where it fell down this year is that the legislative branch didn’t hold up their end of the bargain. They immediately retreated to the time-honored ways of secret deal making. … The conference committee process should be more substantive, there should be requirements that it’s open, there should be requirements that they make decisions. You can statutorily lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink. At the end of the day, if they don’t want to do that, they won’t. But you can make that process better. The last major thing that we would want is to create an independent budget office. In New York City, I think the IBO does a great job. And it would be good to have unbiased, non-political, technical expertise working with the budget. It would help the public knowing what’s going on as well as lawmakers. The comptroller sort of does that. But he, at the end of the day, has to be the person to sign off on whether the budget is balanced. He is not a day-to-day player. New York City has a comptroller and it also has an IBO. We think the IBO plays a unique role in New York that should be replicated in Albany.

TC: Now that you spent a little time in government, have you developed a taste for politics? If Andrew Cuomo ran for governor at some point and asked you to be his running mate, what would you say?
BH: I don’t think that’ll happen. I’m not an enrolled Democrat. I’m not enrolled in any political party. And I don’t have any money.