Attorney Richard Emery hosted a fundraising party for State Senator Eric Schneiderman last week.
Blair Horner of NYPIRG, complained to Liz Benjamin of the Daily News about this because Emery is a member of the State Commission on Public Integrity, even though the Commission does NOT have jurisdiction over the Senate.
http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/2009/12/horner-public-integrity-and-fu.html#more
"We believe members of the commission should be removed from politics, as pure as Caesar’s wife," Horner told me. "I don't think it's against the law, I just think it's a terrible mistake for someone who plays a quasi-judicial role over the lobbying industry to be out raising money for Democrats."
"Imagine how Republican-affiliated lobbyists would feel if they knew one of the people who could be voting on their fate is deeply involved in Democratic politics and raising money for a Democratic elected official.
I wonder how far Horner and the other good-government groups want to go in removing members of the commission from politics.
I looked Emery up on the voter rolls and discovered that not only is he registered to vote but he lives in Scheiderman’s district, is a registered Democrat and voted in years when Schneiderman was on the ballot.
Wouldn’t all that affect Republican-affiliated lobbyists’ delicate sensitivities also?
Emery voted in 2006 when Governor Paterson and Attorney General Cuomo were on the ballot. He either voted for them or didn’t. Isn’t either of those acts political enough to cause what Horner and the goo-goos are always worried about – an “appearance of conflict of interest?”
I haven’t researched the other members of the commission but I’m willing to go out on a limb of suggest that all of them also vote and most are registered as either Democrats or Republicans. Shouldn’t something be done about them also?
And what about the goo-goos themselves – are any of them voters?
How far on the slippery slope of depriving people from engaging in their first amendment protected rights to engage in politics do we have to go before some people are satisfied?