As part of an ethics reform overhaul, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, announced that he would look to increase transparency in the state Legislature during his State of the State tour earlier this month.
The governor’s initiative seeks to make state lawmakers—as well as the state’s ethics commission—subject to the Freedom of Information Law, FOIL. “It protects the public,” Cuomo said, “and it protects the government official from anyone saying he or she did anything wrong.”
State FOIL laws allow the public to request access to documents and statistics kept by government agencies, with certain exceptions such as classified documents.
Currently, the general New York state FOIL laws apply only to state agencies, which do not include the Legislature or the courts. A specific section of the law applies to state lawmakers; but that section does not require that lawmakers make documents such as emails available to the public.
Assemblyman David Buchwald, a White Plains Democrat who has championed the FOIL laws, questioned Cuomo’s assertion that FOIL laws don’t apply to state lawmakers. “FOIL does apply to the state Legislature,” he said. “It just applies in a somewhat different way because most of our actions are already made available to the public.” Buchwald added that he was open to any laws that would increase transparency.
In November, the governor signed an amendment to the FOIL law sponsored by Buchwald which he had shot down the previous year, shortening the appeals process.
State Sen. George Latimer, a Rye Democrat who has also pushed for transparency laws, said he would welcome an expansion of FOIL to encompass state lawmakers, and reflected on his previous experience as an elected official on the Rye City Council and the Westchester County Board of Legislators. “I was under the rules of FOIL in those days and I never felt that that was a problem,” Latimer said. “We’re not at the level of dealing with national secrets.”
