More Reaction to Budget Deal on Campaign Finance, Anti-Corruption Measures

At his budget signing press conference this morning, Gov. Cuomo defended the pilot program on public campaign financing, calling it “the largest advancement on public financing in 30 years.”  He also said that will continue to press on the issue, but notes that the necessary votes are still lacking.

With respect to the Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption, Gov. Cuomo explained that the Commission did what it was intended to do, and helped get the Legislature to approve his “Public Trust Act.”

In an interview with New York public radio, Comptroller DiNapoli questioned whether the pilot public financing program — which would apply only to his office — can work.

The New York Times reports that good government groups are very unhappy that Gov. Cuomo negotiated away the Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption.

The Albany Times Union editorial board laments “Cuomo’s Swing and Miss” in fixing Albany’s “awful ethical climate.”

The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle editorial board says that the new state budget is “off base on ethics reforms.”

The Buffalo News editorial board calls the changes “insufficient.”

In the Daily News, columnist Bill Hammond writes:

“Progressive reformers and good-government groups are celebrating a huge victory in Albany after Gov. Cuomo and the Legislature finally replaced their anything-goes fund-raising bacchanal with a clean, tightly regulated system of public campaign finance.

April Fools! This year’s big push for campaign-finance reform was a complete bust.”

NYPIRG’s Blair Horner calls it “legislative bait-and-switch.”

And in the Syracuse Post-Standard, Moreland Commission Co-Chair and Onondaga County District Attorney Bill Fitzpatrick discusses the end of the Moreland Commission.