The preliminary report from Gov. Cuomo’s Commission to Investigate Public Corruption, released Monday evening, makes for frustrating reading.
We’re informed that the panel has issued 200 subpoenas and interviewed dozens of witnesses, “political insiders and whistleblowers.”
We’re told that the commission has “conducted undercover operations, including surveillance, recorded calls and meets.”
We learn that a data-mining firm hired by the commission uncovered “eyebrow-raising patterns of potential misconduct” — including a company “in a controversial and heavily regulated industry” that, after winning passage of a bill, spread a lot of money around Albany through “shadowy corporate affiliates.”
It’s all very tantalizing — except the commission fails to name names.
“Many of the specifics from our active investigations, such as names and identifying details, cannot be shared in this preliminary report without compromising the integrity and confidentiality of those investigations,” the report deflatingly explains.
“What we can describe, though, is deplorable conduct, some of it perfectly legal yet profoundly wrong; some of it potentially illegal — and, indeed, this commission will make appropriate criminal referrals at such times as it deems appropriate.”
In other words, the panel’s core mission — of getting to the bottom of endemic corruption in Albany — is far from finished.
The only reason for going public now is that Cuomo mandated a report on Dec. 1, just five months into the panel’s existence, supposedly to spur action by the Legislature during the 2014 session.
The panel dutifully presents a list of mostly excellent reform recommendations, including making political bribery easier to prosecute, tightening restrictions on campaign donations, beefing up enforcement by the Board of Elections and forcing legislators to divulge more details of their outside income.
But there’s not much new there either — since this agenda closely follows what Cuomo proposed, and the Legislature rejected, earlier this year.
One ray of hope is that the panel split on the dubious idea of public financing for state campaigns — which would be an invitation for disaster in Albany’s scofflaw political culture. A majority backed the idea, with seven members dissenting.
But since the report offers little in the way of explosive new revelations, it’s hard to see how or why it will change minds in the public — or in the Assembly and Senate.
Cuomo’s cart-before-the-horse schedule is one of many head-scratching decisions that have compromised the commission’s credibility and effectiveness. The first was how it was born — in a fit of political pique.
Throughout his term as governor, Cuomo has repeatedly threatened to sic an investigative commission on the Legislature when its members balked at voting the way he liked. He finally pulled the trigger this July, after lawmakers refused to pass his take-or-leave-it reform package. As a result, the project smacked of retribution.
Cuomo’s next mistake was to stuff the commission — jointly appointed by him and Attorney General Eric Schneiderman — with elected officials, including DAs. They were meant to bring bipartisan credibility and prosecutorial experience. But they also swim in the same fund-raising swamp — and exploit the same loopholes — as the lawmakers they are investigating, leading to inevitable charges of hypocrisy.
Cuomo further erred by failing to give the panel the independence he promised. He has supplied its staff, controlled its purse-strings and even weighed in on which entities should be subpoenaed.
Making things worse, Cuomo privately and publicly suggested that he would call off the hounds if lawmakers would pass a reform deal — cementing the idea that this was more of a bargaining chip than a bona fide investigation.
The commission’s probe did produce publishable results in same areas.
It offers new details of how brazenly the state Senate Republicans used the Independence Party as a money-laundering operation, secretly funneling hundreds of thousands from donors to Republican candidates.
It documents how the policies and practices of the state Board of Elections — where control is evenly divided between the major parties — “actively prevent aggressive Election Law enforcement.”
If the commission keeps up that good work, and fills in the blanks on the scandals it can now only hint at, it still stands a chance of becoming game-changer that Albany sorely needs. Cuomo must give it the time — and independence — to do its job.
whammond@nydailynews.com