Paterson, Dad To Get Ethics Opinion
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- April
- 11
Gov. David Paterson and his father, an attorney for a powerful law firm, will seek an opinion from the state Commission on Public Integrity to avoid potential conflicts of interest between their two high-profile jobs.
Basil Paterson, the Democratic governor’s father and former state Secretary of State, said Thursday that he and his son have agreed to rules for them to follow to hopefully eliminate any conflicts between their positions.
Basil Paterson said they expect to forward the self-imposed guidelines as early as Friday to the public-integrity commission for review.
The elder Paterson said the protocol – which was developed by attorneys for his Long Island-based law firm Meyer, Suozzi, English & Klein and the governor’s legal staff – has several stipulations.
He said the guidelines prohibit him from sharing in any revenue from the firm’s lobbying division and from representing any client before an agency that the governor’s office has influence on.
“We have established a set of protocols that prohibit me from probably even talking to his mother,” Basil Paterson, 81, joked in an interview with Gannett News Service. “That’s how stringent they are.”
The governor has faced criticism over the tight relationship his father, a former Harlem state senator, has with powerful unions. Basil Paterson is an attorney and not a lobbyist, but his firm has a sizeable lobbying business, representing dozens of unions and special-interest groups.
Moreover, the elder Paterson has represented unions in major cases, including transit workers in 2005 during a strike against the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
He also is counsel for the United Federation of Teachers, which was among unions that in recent days sought successfully to have the Legislature and the governor ban school districts from using student test scores in determining teacher tenure.
Yet the governor denied that he sided with the unions because of his father’s influence. He said he supports measures that unions don’t always like, such as his support for increasing the number of charter schools in New York.
“My father has a job to do, and I have a job to do,” Paterson told reporters this week.
Basil Paterson said he had nothing to do with the tenure bill, saying he didn’t discuss the issue with United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten
“She said to me, ‘Basil I deliberately never spoke with you, and you wouldn’t have taken my call,’’” he said. “I said of course I would take your call, but I wouldn’t do anything.”
The elder Paterson said he is contacting his clients to tell them he can’t represent them in matters before the state. “It’s going to be an impact on my business, on my income, but, well, I’m proud of my son,” he said.
Blair Horner, legislative director for the New York Public Interest Research Group, said the Patersons should have an independent monitor, either the public integrity commission or a separate group, keep tabs on their professional business to ensure accountability.
“It will always be an issue. It will never go away,” Horner said of the potential conflict of interest.
“The best way for the governor to handle it is to have a reasonable protocol that inspires public confidence and not public cynicism.”
This entry was posted
on Friday, April 11th, 2008 at 10:07 am by Joseph Spector.
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Paterson’s father is a chief lobbyist for the teachers unions, which basically own the Democratic Party, and some Republicans too. Ask Bloomberg and his Education boss how they feel about the latest Legislature capitulation to the teachers unions on how “tenure” is granted.
Essentially, if teachers are still breathing and not currently doing 10 years in prison, they get tenure.
The Public Integrity Commission can be parsed like the Holy Roman Empire- Not Holy, Not Roman, Not an Empire.
Just like Mayor Daly and his son got an ethics opinion 40 years ago. Some things never change.
Ed: lol. You ought to be writing a newspaper column, and books.
Go get “American Pharoah,” by Cohen and Taylor (Little Brown: 2001). The second bio of Richard J. Daley, after Mike Royko’s “Boss” (1971). I know you will enjoy it.
But more important: read the House Ethics Committee’s opinion on William F. Gray III (Congressman Bill Gray of Philadelphia, author of the anti-apartheid act) when Mr. Gray was cavorting with his secretary, in 1987.
It’s not unethical unless you’re related to your paramour by marriage or other family (say, she’s a second cousin, ala Jerry Lee Lewis).
We need Elvis back! Nobody ever complained about him. Ditto, Nelson R and Wilt.
Hello, Tim. Do publish literary (magazine) stories, poetry and books, but fiction, (no politics), all books but one (ironically the earliest) are out of print. Working on another long one, though. Seems I irritate my agent and a lot of editors because I rarely take their advice or their push. All they have is $ and I don’t really need that any more, so I can afford to be whispered to be misogynistic, homophobic, anarchistic, none of which I think I am, but even editors sometimes confuse fictional characters with the author. One reviewer said that my work sometimes makes ‘Mr. Sammler’s Planet’ read like ‘The Ode to Joy.” Ha! I cherish that one. Will try to find the Gray story. Don’t know why I don’t remember it. Daly, though, was some piece of work. Always felt a little sorry for Elvis. He seemed the simplest and nicest of the bunch.
Ed! Misogynistic, homophobic, and anarchistic! Your books should sell greatly, in a fair world, especially with the Sarah Lawrence degree behind you.
Publishing was once “the arena of many ideas,” according to my mentor in the business, who was WFB’s editor. Now, it’s become “celebritized,” where editors are more interested in dingbats such as Paris Hilton.
Okay: go get “American Pharoah,” and then we’ll talk.
You write well, have great wit, and—most important— you seem to be a contrarian.
Me, I grew up enjoying Eric Hoffer and George Santayana. And Harry Stein. And, as is clear: Elvis.
;>
more anon—