Citizens Union Reaffirms Support for NYS Matching of Campaign Contributions
Citizens Union announced its continued support and preference for a public matching funds program over that of full public financing. In releasing its position statement, Citizens Union urged the state legislature not to consider a full financing program but rather pass legislation that provides for a strong matching program. The position statement also includes statutory and regulatory recommendations to drastically lower contribution limits, strengthen enforcement and oversight, restrict certain contributions, and increase disclosure. Click here to read the position statement and here for the press release.
Citizens Union Supports Budget Reforms
Citizens Union supports proposed uniform qualification process applicable to all non-profit organizations which seek discretionary city funds awarded by the City Council and greater public disclosure of actual and possible conflicts of interest. To read the statement by Dick Dadey, click here.
Citizens Union Calls for Greater Public Oversight of Police Misconduct
Citizens Union issued it report reviewing New York City's policies and procedures governing the handling of alleged police misconduct and the subsequent internal disciplinary action. It doing so, CU has proposed a series of policy recommendations designed to improve public confidence and support for the New York Police Department (NYPD) by strengthening public oversight of police misconduct and ensuring a fairer and more independent procedure for handling complaints of misconduct. Click here to read the full report and here for the press release.
Citizens Union Statement on City Council Member Items
Citizens Union expressed concern over the City Council's practice of
appropriating taxpayer funds for member items in a way that was outside
an accountable and transparent budget process and called for additional
disclosure and review. To read the statement by Dick Dadey, please
click
here.
Citizens Union Urges New York State Legislature to Enact Congestion Pricing With Changes
Citizens Union announced its support for congestion pricing and urged the
NYS Legislature to pass legislation with a number of additional changes. Click
here to read the position statement and here for the press release.
Citizens Union Urges Governor Spitzer to Resign
After supporting Eliot Spitzer when he ran for Governor and during his time in office,
Citizens Union now sadly urges him to resign. In light of the recent troubling news,
it is CU's strong belief that it is now impossible for him to fulfill his
responsibilities as Governor.
Please click here to read Citizens Union's statement.
Citizens Union Proposes Reforms for Filling Elected Official Vacancies and Special Elections
Citizens Union has released its position statement and issue brief on how such vacant seats should be filled. Driving its recommendations was the discovery last year in a CUF report, "Circumventing Democracy: The Flawed System for Filling Vacancies for Elected Office in New York", that one-third of all currently serving state legislators was first elected to either their Assembly or Senate seat in a special election when voter turnout was extremely low. Compounding this fact is the realization that once elected, state legislators are practically assured a lifetime position since the re-election rate for incumbent legislators in New York is over 95%. Click here for CU's news release on this issue.
Citizens Union also testified at a recent New York City Council
Governmental Operations Committee hearing on its recommendation for
residency requirements for municipal office, which is part of CU's special election and vacancies position. To read the testimony,
please click here.
Citizens Union Calls for Investigation into the Reporting of Primary
Votes
Citizens Union expressed concern over reported discrepancies in the New
York City Presidential Primary on February 5th in 80 Election Districts.
Click here to read Dick Dadey's statement and letter to Governor Spitzer.
Citizens Union Announces Leadership Changes
The boards of directors of Citizens Union and Citizens Union Foundation accepted the resignation of CU and CUF Chair, Richard J. Davis and elected Peter J. W. Sherwin as the new chair on February 7th. Richard Briffault, who is a long time CU board member, was elected to fill a vacancy as vice chair. Click here to read an announcement to members and supporters.
Citizens Union Statement on the Mayor's State of the City
Address
Citizens Union applauds Mayor's pledges in his State of the City
to advance political reforms. In his State of the City address
today, Mayor Bloomberg announced that he will, "work with
Citizens Union to build a nonpartisan coalition," to end
partisan administration of elections in New York! Click here
to read statement by Dick Dadey.
Citizens Union Releases its New York State and City 2008 Policy
Agendas
Citizens Union has released policy agendas for New York State
and New York City that outline positions on a wide range of reform
issues important to the citizens of New York. In 2008, Citizens
Union will continue to engage New Yorkers, our elected leaders,
and other decision-makers to create more responsive, transparent
and accountable City and State governments that not only protect
the public interest, but also instill public confidence in the
integrity of public policy decisions. Please click here
for the State policy agenda, and here
for the City policy agenda.
Citizens Union testifies on Elected Officials Compensation
Citizens Union testified
on elected officials compensation and presented recommendations
regarding stipends for council members, the current practice of
enacting pay raises, and the designation of council members as
part-time or full-time employees.
CU Issues Statement After Speaker Quinn's Term Limits
Announcement
CU believes that the issue of term limits is important and regrets
that Speaker Quinn as decision may prevent needed public discussion
of this issue. CU would support the creation of a charter
commission with the possibility of presenting to the voters a
new referendum on the issue of term limits and answer the question
for how long they should be. Click here to read the
full statement.
City Council Acts on CU Advertising Report
Just weeks after Citizens
Union released Tax
Dollars At "Work" -
City Council Spending on Advertising, a report that analyzed
how pubic funds are used by City Council members for advertising,
the Council, under the leadership of Speaker Christine Quinn,
issued new rules governing the practice. The rules reform the
way in which ads can be used and bans those that are strictly
self-promotional. CU's report made specific recommendations for
greater disclosure and transparency, policy changes to limit
advertisements to those that provide a clear public benefit,
and enforcement of current bans on tax funded advertising during
election years - all of which are now part of the Council's new
rules, which can be read here and click here for CU statement
about these rule changes.
CUF Recommends Changes to Poll Worker
Program to Ensure Every Vote Counts
Making
Votes Count: 2006 Poll Worker Recruitment Program analyzes
the experiences of poll workers recruited during the 2006
elections. CUF expresses concern over the mishandling of ID requirements
and the use of affidavit ballots based on the reports of poll
worker survey respondents and recommends better training. It
also recommends increased recruitment of language interpreters
after finding that 53.9% of respondents said they experienced
a shortage of language interpreters at their site. The report
called for improvement in training becuase nearly 10% of poll
workers surveyed witnessed first time voters who failed to show
required identification were denied their right to vote by affidavit
ballot. Click here to
read CUF's press release and
here for
the full report.
Citizens Union Calls for Ban on Named Garbage Cans
Following
our efforts to ban self-promotional advertising by Council
members using tax dollars, Citizens Union issued a statement
decrying
the practice of placing the names of elected officials on public
garbage cans. Click here to
read Citizens Union's statement and here to
read the Daily News editorial on this issue and Citizens Union's
position.
Citizens Union Report on Council Member Advertising
Tax Dollars At "Work" - City Council Spending on Advertising
analyzes how pubic funds are used by City Council members for
advertising. The report makes specific recommendations for greater
disclosure and transparency, policy changes to limit advertisements
to those that provide a clear public benefit, enforcing current
bans on tax funded advertising during election years. Click here
to read the report, for the addendum of sample ads: part
one-sample public service ads, part
two-sample community event ads, and part
three-sample local paper ads, here for the press releas,
and here
for Gotham Gazette's coverage of this issue.
Citizens Union prefers Diana Johnson for Surrogate Court
Citizens Union supports Diana Johnson for Brooklyn Surrogate in
the one of the few competitive local races in the 2007 Democratic
Party primary election. Click here to read
the candidates' responses to the Citizens Union questionnaire.
Statement on Campaign Finance Reform Agreement
Dick Dadey, Citizens Union Executive Director, issued a
statement on the agreement in principle between
Governor Spitzer and the New York State Legislature to strengthen campaign finance
laws.
Citizens Union Advances Historic NYC Campaign Finance Reforms
Citizens Union and its good government colleagues joined Mayor
Bloomberg, Speaker Quinn and City Council Members to support
strengthen the city’s nationally respected city campaign
finance program. By reaching an agreement on how
best to improve NYC's Campaign Finance Program New
Yorkers will benefit from cleaner campaigns and competitive elections. Click here to read
the Collective Good Government Statement on Campaign Finance Reform
and here to
read Citizens Union's testimony to the City Council Government
Operations Committee in support of the proposed legislation.
Citizens Union endorses Greg Camp for Manhattan's
65th Assembly District to fill the shoes of Pete Grannis. To learn
about the candidates and their positions, you can read Greg
Camp's candidate questionnaire, Micah
Kellner's questionnaire, and Citizens
Union's news release.
Citizens Union Presses for Campaign Finance Reform
Citizens Union issued a statement calling
upon NYS elected officials to publicly disclose their positions
and enact campaign finance
reform. Working with its good government colleagues, specifically
NYPIRG, CU will contact individual state legislators over
the next two weeks and ask them to tell us - and their constituents
- where they stand on reforming the state’s campaign finance
laws. In the near future, CU will release our findings
to the public.
Citizens Union Advances Accountability
Today Citizens Union announced its Candidate Accountability Project
to increase accountability in the actions of government. Citizens
Union issued its announcement with Major Bloomberg on the
occasion of his most recent periodic self-evaluation. As
a part of the Candidate Accountability Project, Citizens
Union will include in its evaluation of candidates for office whether
they
committed to such an examination of their actions and
how well they reported to their voters. Click here for Citizens
Union's statement and here to
read the news release.
Discontinue "Use of Messages of Necessity"
In a letter to the Governor and legislative
leaders, Citizens Union is urging the state’s leaders to
break the bad habit of issuing “messages of necessity” to
push the final budget through on an expedited process and, instead,
allow the legislature the proper time to review the final proposal
before being required to vote on it. With a new governor involved
in the budget process this year for the first time in 12 years,
and in light of the legislature’s vocal support for government
reform measures in recent months, Citizens Union sees this as
a timely opportunity to end the rushed passage of the budget
for good. Click here to read the press release.
New Report
Circumventing Democracy: The Flawed System for Filling
Vacancies in New York State, a
new briefing report issued
by Citizens Union Foundation, examines the way in which vacancies
for elected office are filled and the prevalence of special election
winners in the State Legislature. This study finds that
31% of New York State Legislators are first elected to office
in special elections. The report proposes reforms
to give voters a more meaningful role in filling vacant
seats.
Click here to
read a commentary on filling vacancies by
Richard Davis (Citizens Union Chair) and Dick Dadey (Citizens
Union Executive Director).
Citizens Union Testifies on Lobby Law
Citizens Union provided testimony to
the City Council in support of amendments to the city’s
local lobbying law that would clarify reporting requirements
for lobbyists.
Citizens Union Statement on City Council Special Election
Citizens Union issues a statement on the February special
election results and residency requirements for City Council Candidates.
In this statement the organization supports Speaker Quinn's decision
to review the matter and calls on the Campaign Finance Board to
close the loophole and require candidates to legally residency
in the district for which they are running or forfeit eligibility
for funding under the program. Click here to
read this statement.
Citizens Union Issues Endorsement for Brooklyn ’s
40th Council District
Citizens Union issued a joint
endorsement for Zenobia McNally and Wellington Sharpe
in Brooklyn. The Special Election
will be held Tuesday, February 20, 2007. To
view candidates' responses
to Citizens Union questionnaire, click here.
City Budget Reforms
Citizens Union issues statement supporting
new city budget reforms.
Albany Ethics Reform
Citizens Union issues statement in
support of new legislation to
address serious deficiencies is the regulation of lobbying and
oversight
over ethics in government while calling on the Governor
and Legislative leaders to consider suggestions on how to further
strengthen
ethics oversight and enforcement. In addition, CU asks
the Governor and Legislature to end “Pay to Play” practices
and restrict the personal use of campaign contributions.
New Voting Machines
After attending several of the voting machines
demonstrations that took place in the five boroughs of the city
over the past two
months, Citizens Union Foundation provided testimony to
the Board of Elections and the New York City Council that
addressed concerns with all four of the machines that are currently
seeking certification. While neither Citizens Union Foundation
nor Citizens Union have taken a position on which machine New
York City should select we continue to play an active role in
ensuring that the machine selection process is open and transparent
and the final machine selected will live up to New Yorkers requirements
for security, accessibility and ease of use. CUF’s testimony
highlights pros and cons of all machines and outlines
general concerns with the process moving forward.
Ethics Reform
Citizens Union joined its good government colleagues in
urging new Governor Eliot Spitzer and legislative leaders, Senate
Majority Leader Joe
Bruno and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to overhaul the ethics laws
in New
York State in light of the unprecedented number of scandals and abuse
of office. To
read the news release and
the package
of proposed ethics reforms, click
here.
Campaign Finance Reform
Citizens Union testified before a hearing of the Government
Operations Committee of the City Council on the issue of campaign
finance reform. CU called for restrictions on contributions
from those that “do business” with the city and other
improvements in the NYC campaign finance program. To read Citizens
Union’s full testimony, click here.
