Legislative Happenings
Ethics Law
by Gary Bischoff

Readers of local papers know that the Ulster County Legislature is attempting to pass a comprehensive Ethics Law. In my research on ethics laws, I came across an interesting comment by a law professor. The professor opined about how a legislative body could pass an ethics law. He said, “Just like porcupines making love . . . very carefully.” The Ulster County Legislature has been struggling with an ethics law for over a year. At the August legislative session, the Ulster County Legislature voted to schedule a public hearing on the proposed ethics law. The public hearing will be held on September 3 at 6:20 p.m. in the legislative chambers on the 6th floor of the Ulster County Office Building.

The full text of the ethics law is here. Legislators debated various parts of the law, and several legislators were very passionate in their arguments for and against the proposed law. The controversial section deals with dual office holders. Proponents feel that is important to put safeguards and firewalls between politics and government, and opponents maintain that as legislators they should be allowed to hold powerful political positions as well as their legislative positions. There has been a great deal of misinformation including the article in the Kingston Freeman. The article in the Freeman stated that if the law passed, legislators would not be able to be politically active. This is not true, the only prohibition would be serving as an officer i.e. Chair, Vice Chair, Secretary or Treasurer of a county or higher political committee. Legislators as well as department heads would still be able to serve on local (town, village and city) political committes and to be officers on local political committees.

The other controversial aspect of this section is that the current Democratic Party Chair is also a county department head i.e. Board of Election Commissioner. Note that in New York, every county has a Republican Election Commissioner and a Democratic Commissioner in the belief that by having both parties represented, elections would be fair. Legislators were divided on this issue also, with several stating that the Board of Elections is political, and therefore it does no harm to have a political party chair in that position. Others felt that the Board of Elections Commissioner should not hold important positions in a political party.

During the debate on the issue, I pointed out that in 1994 the Republican County Chair was the Commissioner of Elections. When he was being challenged for leadership as party chair, he rejected designating petitions of challengers, which kept them off the Republican committee. This resulted in a lawsuit against the Ulster County Election Commissioners that taxpayers were forced to pay for.

Based on this history, I voted for the ethics law, in order to provide a degree of separation between political party leadership and an important county position that is given the important mission of keeping elections fair. This was a difficult vote given that my party chair presently holds both offices, and there could be reprecussions.

In my research, I found that other counties, Cortland County, for example, have specific provisions against a party chair serving as election commissioners. My vote on the ethics law and public hearing is based on doing the right thing for Ulster County and not on any political motives or agendas.

I would like to urge readers to read the proposed law and voice your opinions at the public hearing on September 3.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
See my previous postings here