Taxes and ethics are on Cuomo’s agenda

With the inauguration of Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Saturday, New York state officially ended its brief but disastrous Spitzer era. Eliot Spitzer, the former attorney general, was elected governor in 2006 in a landslide and then entered office not to make friends in Albany, not even to govern, it seemed, but to rule the land. He crashed and burned in one of the country’s most notorious sex scandals, after which he resigned and Lt. Gov. David Paterson assumed the state’s reins.

Paterson appeared promising at first, but he could do little to quell the political maelstrom that was brewing in the state Legislature, where partisan rancor reached historic proportions. A handful of Democrats and Republicans in the Senate helped to engineer a power grab, which many called a coup, to restore Republicans to the majority in June 2009. The move held up the state’s business for weeks, costing taxpayers millions of dollars while sending New Yorkers’ confidence in their government to an all-time low and making the Empire State a national laughingstock.

Now the time has come for Cuomo, son of former Gov. Mario Cuomo, to lead. He must begin by working to repair relations with one of the nation’s most dysfunctional legislatures. That will mean making friends, not issuing orders and caveats the way Spitzer did. Based on Cuomo’s early signals to legislative leaders, he appears ready and willing to strike a conciliatory tone.

He has found common ground with the Republican leadership in the GOP-controlled Senate, in particular Majority Leader Dean Skelos of Rockville Centre, by calling for a 2 percent cap on annual property-tax increases. The Senate had previously passed a 4 percent cap, which Paterson had said he would sign, but the Democratic-controlled Assembly was unwilling to entertain the idea.

Polls have shown that New Yorkers are fed up with paying some of the nation’s highest property taxes. Clearly, this is an issue that must be addressed.

State mandate relief, however, would have to go hand in hand with any cap. Officials in our local governments and school districts note, quite rightly, that increases in annual health premiums and retirement plans for workers alone would likely push property-tax increases above a 2 percent limit –– and perhaps even one of 4 percent. With a property-tax cap and no mandate relief, services would likely have to be cut, and that is why Democrats in the Assembly have been unwilling thus far to even consider a cap. Cuomo will have to tread lightly on this issue, and consider all sides.

Equal in importance to a tax cap is ethics reform. After four years of scandals, New Yorkers are ready for a new day in Albany. Cuomo said during his inauguration on Saturday –– a low-key affair without fanfare or expensive balls afterward ––– that he plans to make ethics reform a cornerstone of his administration. That’s easier said than done in Albany, where lobbyists –– or, more precisely, their money –– have traditionally played a major role in policymaking.

Cuomo is requiring ethics training for his staff. His administration, he has said, will be guided by clear rules in an effort to restore honor and integrity to Albany. Ethics training is one thing. Navigating the ethical morass that is Albany is a whole other story.

That’s in large part because legislators have little fear that they will ever lose an election. The Legislature, which controls election redistricting, has comically gerrymandered state electoral lines to offer political advantage to incumbent candidates so that state races are anything but competitive. They are, most often, a joke. As a result, legislators too often act in their self-interest rather than in the interests of we, the people.

Cuomo has called for change. He says he wants an independent, nonpartisan commission to redraw the state’s election districts so that they more resemble squares rather than the disfigured octopi that too many have become.

We would like to see Cuomo press hard on this issue. If Albany is to be cleaned up, legislators must have some modicum of concern that they could lose an election when they aren’t taking care of the people’s business. Right now, however, they simply don’t.

We certainly wish Cuomo all the best as he begins his term. Here’s hoping, for all of our sakes, that he does better than his two immediate predecessors.