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Establish a Legislative Ethics Commission – one independent of legislators – with investigative and enforcement authority, that would conduct its meetings in public. In addition, ensure that no one elected official dominates appointments to the Commission on Public Integrity and that its proceedings will be conducted openly.

Adopt public funding of election campaigns which would make grants available to candidates who agree to abide by spending limits and to not raise additional money from special interests, along with significantly lower limits on all campaign contributions and strong, non-partisan oversight with significant penalties for violation of the spending limitations.

Legislators have a vested interest in the political boundaries of their own legislative districts. Given this obvious conflict, new laws must be enacted that take the redistricting process out of the hands of legislators and give it to those who have no vested interest in the outcome and are independent of the partisan, political process. Clear rules for forming districts must be prescribed and software used to create the districts must be made public.

a.  Require public release of all staff reports on bills;

 

b.  Require committees to conduct open meetings on the bills assigned to them with an opportunity for the public to testify and be heard;

 

c.  Require that committee attendance and all votes be recorded and promptly made public;

 

d.  Require Conference Committees to meet and resolve differences between adopted Assembly and Senate Bills when requested by any of the bill’s sponsors;

 

e.  Give committee chairs and ranking minority members authority over committee budgets and staff hires; and,

 

f.   Create a New York “C-SPAN” for all of state government.