The newest absurd controversy in New York politics has to do with the question of whether District Attorneys can endorse political candidates.
This is now an issue on the blogs because Nassau DA Kathleen Rice endorsed Eric Schneiderman for Attorney General, while Staten Island DA Dan Donovan refused to say what he thinks about Carl Paladino by by saying that as a D.A. he was forbidden from endorsing.
This prompted the PoltickerNY to say –
http://www.observer.com/2010/politics/so-can-district-attorneys-endorse
Many people assumed that Donovan was just dodging the question, but as it turns out he is correct.
According to the District Attorney Association of the State of New York, "District Attorney and assistants shall not…Endorse candidates, except that Assistant District Attorneys shall be permitted to engage in political activity in support of the re-election of the District Attorney by whom they are employed."
David Friedlander of the NY Observer ended this story by writing –
Not sure that this code of ethics has the full force of law, but you can read it for yourself here.
Well David, I’m not a DA or a lawyer but I know that a private association’s rules don’t have any force of law.
Here’s the story of what District Attorney Association straight from their website –
http://www.daasny.org/About%20Us.html
The District Attorneys Association of the State of New York was formed in 1909, as the idea of District Attorney Beecher S. Clother of Glens Falls (Warren County), New York. The first known public mention of its formation appeared in the Rochester (New York) Union and Advertizer in its August 27, 1909 issue. "Upon the theory that big crooks have an organization to beat the law," the article stated, "the district attorneys of the state are going to combine into an association by which they will defeat the lawbreakers by mutual help."
In other words, the DA Association has about as much authority to tell a DA what to do as the AARP does to tell a senior citizen or the Auto Club does to tell a driver.
Kathleen Rice got it right, when she said in endorsing Schneiderman, "All 62 D.A.'s throughout the state are independently elected officials and they are entitled to make decisions about who they endorse and who they don't endorse.”
Dan Donovan is afraid to say what he thinks about Carl Paladino and the NY press shouldn’t let him use this excuse to get away with ducking the question.