Cuomo, Legislature At War

The knives are now officially out for Cuomo in Albany:

ALBANY — The battle between the Legislature and Gov. Cuomo's anti-corruption commission is set to explode Friday.

The Senate and Assembly plan to jointly file papers in Manhattan Supreme Court to quash subpoenas from the commission that seek detailed information on lawmakers’ outside income and clients, according to sources.

Private lawyers representing the legislators will argue that the subpoenas are overreaching, violate the constitutional separation-of-powers edict and seek protected client information, sources said.
They will also charge that the panel is improperly browbeating the Legislature into accepting an ethics reform deal, they said.

“It’s about protecting the institution of the Legislature,” said one source.

Following a spate of legislator arrests this spring, Cuomo repeatedly warned he would use the state Moreland Act to form a corruption-probing commission unless the Legislature passed an ethics package. After lawmakers balked, Cuomo created the panel in July.

It would be one thing if Cuomo were honestly trying to clean up Albany and state politics.

But few politicians in Albany are as dirty as Cuomo himself.

He has hidden his corporate donors list, closed down his lobbying group the Committee To Save New York rather than reveal the donors who gave to the group, taken millions from gambling interests to legalize gambling, taken hundreds of thousands from real estate interests in return for millions in tax breaks and given millions in tax breaks to the movie and TV industry for donations in return.

In addition, Cuomo had his Moreland Commission quash subpoenas to his own campaign donors in order to hide who was paying him cash for political favors.

And that's just the stuff we know about - you can bet there is more under the radar.

Now if Sheriff Andy runs for president in 2016, we'll see a lot of this stuff unearthed by his opponents in the race and given to the press to run against him.

But up until now, Cuomo has kept his own dirt and criminality under wraps while tarring the legislature as the most crooked entity in Albany.

Are there crooked and corrupt legislators in Albany?

Of course.

But should we root for a crooked and corrupt governor to take on those crooked and corrupt legislators in a battle to clean up state politics.

Nahh.

I say, pox on all of them - but an especially itchy pox on the crooked, corrupt and hypocritical governor.