With timing that was either irony or political tone deafness, just before Independence Day a panel created by the President of the United States issued a directive to all 50 states requesting that they submit a vast amount of information on American voters contained in state databases.

The rationale for this request is that the panel is looking to provide evidence for the President’s claim that there is widespread voter fraud in America.  Since virtually everyone who has looked at this issue has not found any voter fraud of significance, the panel is the President’s effort to find anything that it can to create a false impression of a problem.

Forty-five states and the District of Columbia have refused to fully cooperate with the Presidential Advisory Commission on Voter Integrity, either declining to release any of the requested data or by providing only limited information to the panel.  Governor Cuomo promptly pledged not to cooperate with the panel’s demands.

The panel requested “dates of birth, political party (if recorded in your state), last four digits of social security number if available, voter history (elections voted in) from 2006 onward, active/inactive status, cancelled status, information regarding any felony convictions, information regarding voter registration in another state, information regarding military status, and overseas citizen information.”

In May, President Trump created the panel to look into his claims – asserted without evidence – that millions of votes were cast fraudulently.  Now that panel wants virtually all the nation’s voter information.

The issue of voter fraud has been thoroughly researched.  There is scant evidence that voter fraud is a problem.  Probably the most definitive research in this area was done by a professor at Loyola Law School and an expert on voter fraud.  His research found 31 credible incidents out of more than 1 billion votes cast from 2000 to 2014.

The experts know this to be true, so do state elections officials, yet the Trump Administration presses on.  Why?

Those who peddle the rampant voter fraud lie have been using the claim to build the case for ever-stricter voting laws.  Since there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud, they keep using the few anecdotes and deliberately overstating and misusing the evidence that is available as tools in their efforts to pass stricter voting laws.

It’s an example of propaganda, not policymaking.

It’s their hope that by repeating a falsehood, people will believe you, even when the facts demonstrate the opposite.  Americans have seen this technique coming out of Washington quite a bit recently: a health care plan that is claimed to be better than the status quo, even though it takes away health insurance from millions; or that evidence of climate change is not definitive, even when the world’s experts have concluded otherwise.

Now the President is using this approach when it comes to democracy.

Of course, we all want there to be zero examples of voter fraud, but in terms of a problem, voter fraud is way, way, way down on the list.

What is a big problem, is “institutionalized voter suppression.”  That problem is the result of laws designed to make it harder to vote – a constitutionally-protected right.  The President should be looking at that problem – the way eligible voters are too easily purged from voting lists; the denial of adequate resources to set up polling places in urban areas; the hyper-stringent identification requirements; the ridiculous rule that voting must occur on a Tuesday in November, not when it is most convenient to vote.

New York should not feel smug in this area:  The state is one of the worst offenders when it comes to these problems.  America needs to do a better job and New York must too.  Here are three things to be done:

• Establish a system of automatic voter registration for citizens interacting with all government agencies.
• Allow voters to register and vote on Election Day.
• Eliminate the patronage-controlled New York Boards of Elections by establishing merit selection of permanent Board employees across the state.

Government officials need to be telling the truth about the problems of voting in America, not lying about the scale of insignificant problems in order to advance an un-American agenda.

Infrastructure maintenance is the Rodney Dangerfield of budgeting:  It never gets the respect it deserves.  Failing to maintain water tunnels, roads, bridges and mass transit systems can lead to catastrophic outcomes – both in terms of the impact on people as well as the cost to taxpayers.  So, it’s important to keep them well maintained and repaired when necessary.  As President John F. Kennedy once remarked, “The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.”

But too often public officials ignore that wisdom.

No one cuts ribbons to fix a sewer line, or to lay new asphalt.  They do cut ribbons to unveil a new bridge.  The publicity instinct of elected officials drives them to ribbon cuttings and leaves them far less interested in things like highway maintenance.  They often only pay attention when their constituents begin to rage against the failing systems.

When it comes to the New York City mass transit system, the problem is compounded by base politics.  Republican governors are rarely interested in investing the billions of dollars needed to upgrade the City’s subways and buses, after all, City voters are unlikely to support Republicans anyway.  Democratic governors, on the other hand, can be disinterested in helping since New York City voters are very likely going to support them no matter what.

But the problem is that the City’s mass transit system has to work, or the City cannot.  The City simply cannot handle more cars – the air is already polluted and the traffic is already too congested.  Since the City is the state’s economic hub and accounts for a significant portion of state revenues, the City’s problems are of concern to everyone in the state.

The subway system is used by some six million riders every day; when the subway system hiccups, New Yorkers can be stranded, businesses lose money, lives are disrupted.

As long as the system keeps limping along, governors and New York City mayors can ignore the need for big expenditures to maintain mass transit, since addressing them might mean raising taxes and fees.  And they can succeed in avoiding the needs, until the problems get so large that they must act.

Of course, waiting means that the costs are more staggering when they finally address the problems.  Executives just hope that they won’t be in office when the system needs fixing.  The mentality is keep kicking the problem down the road and hope the meltdown is on someone else’s watch.

Governor Cuomo is the latest to get caught being in office when the problems of the New York City system simply cannot be ignored.  In advance of the crisis, the governor promised additional resources of which little have yet materialized.  He promoted inexpensive improvements – like USB ports for buses – which are far cheaper than spending the money needed to make the buses move faster than a snail.

In recent weeks, the problems of the City’s transit system have become front page news.  Initially, the governor tried to deflect blame to the city, arguing that he does not control the system that months earlier he said that he did and that he famously shut down in a snow storm

He then tried to present himself as the true champion of reforms.  But after six and a half years in office, the public seems determined to hold the governor responsible – fairly or unfairly – for the sad state of affairs.

Last week, the governor issued emergency regulations to speed up the purchasing processes to help the City transit system get the materials it needs to obtain necessary upgrades.  Maybe this will help.

But all the spin in the world cannot change the basic political and policy problem – kicking the can on infrastructure needs, for New York City’s mass transit, or Albany’s roadways, or Syracuse’s water mains – can exact a huge price for elected officials and the public that relies on those services.  The sun is no longer shining, for this governor it’s past time to fix the roof.

As the scheduled 2017 legislative session wrapped up, commentators noted that Governor Cuomo and the legislative leadership failed to address the seemingly unending corruption scandals that have plagued both the legislative and executive branches.

And those commentators are correct, nothing happened despite the convictions of the two top legislative leaders, many rank-and-file lawmakers, and top associates of the governor himself.

But it’s worse than it appears.

While true that no significant reform was passed, at the behest of the governor, the public’s accountability of important economic development programs actually was made worse. Yup, worse.

Here’s the backstory: The Start-Up NY program was initiated by Governor Cuomo in 2013 to give tax breaks to new businesses that locate in tax-free areas near college campuses. The governor said the goal was to encourage the next Google or Facebook to launch in New York and to “supercharge” the economy. Specific disclosure requirements on Start-Up’s performance were part of the original law. Those reports showed that the job creating record of the Start-Up program had been underwhelming. That simple fact has led to criticisms of the governor and his economic development strategies.

What should be done? A close reading of the final 2017-18 state budget identified that the law had been changed in the secretive budget process – eliminating the reporting requirements for Start-Up! The solution to bad results is, apparently, to stop reporting them.

When confronted with this change, the Cuomo Administration said it was a mistake. But that claim turned out to be false.

The governor’s proposed budget had eliminated that reporting requirement. The state Assembly added it back in during budget talks, but it was eliminated again in the final budget.

Still, the Administration claimed that it was a mistake.

If true, then the period after the budget passed in early April and the wrap up of the session would have seen that mistake corrected – unless the Administration was deliberately misleading the public.

In an effort to correct that “mistake,” legislation was introduced in both the Assembly and Senate to add back the reporting requirement. But that bill was killed.

As a result, things have gotten worse; the public will get less information on the performance of spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on economic development. Reporting is now weakened in an area that has been identified by federal prosecutors as especially susceptible to corruption: the way in which it doles out economic benefits.

The Start-Up program is relatively small compared to the governor’s other economic development programs—which also are in great need of transparency and oversight.

Reformers had been pushing for corruption-fighting measures during the budget and continued after it was approved. Specifically, they were calling for reforms that would have restored the Comptroller’s independent oversight powers to review contracts before they are finalized, corralled unaccountable, state controlled not-for-profits, and created a “Database of Deals” to post information on spending of billions of dollars in state business subsidies.

None of these reforms were approved, not even the restoration of the Comptroller’s oversight powers. It is, after all, the constitutionally-mandated job of the separately elected Comptroller to monitor the books of state government. Yet the governor has spearheaded the effort to pull back those powers. During the period the governor has been diminishing the Comptroller’s oversight role, the scandals alleged by federal prosecutors occurred. A reasonable response would have been to restore those powers, but that didn’t happen.

Instead, in 2017 the governor – with the approval of the legislative leaders – weakened the public reporting requirements of Start Up. His staff then falsely told the public it was a mistake. And then the legislation to fix that mistake was killed.

New York has been rocked by recent “pay-to-play” scandals tied to the state’s economic development programs. The lack of transparency and accountability has led to federal prosecution of several high-ranking officials and prominent business leaders. Removing the requirements could encourage other unscrupulous officials to incite more scandals.

New Yorkers must demand an end to corruption and broader government transparency, not to allow it to get worse.

New York State government does all it can to operate in secret: $150 billion budget deals are hammered out behind closed doors, multibillion hikes for electric ratepayers are engineered outside of public view, legislative agreements are finalized often minutes before the vote.

The Congress and the federal government have, in the past, operated in a more open fashion.  Not open enough to ensure that the public got all the information it deserves, but generally open – certainly by contrast with Albany.

But that is changing.

The House of Representatives cobbled together legislation to overhaul the nation’s health care system with no hearings or meaningful opportunities for the public to express their views on various proposals.  It was just jammed through.

The Senate is now doing the same thing.  In a departure from practices that go back 100 years, the Senate Republican majority is putting the finishing touches on draft legislation to overhaul the health care industry.  If they succeed in drafting the legislation and passing it, both houses would then have to agree on final legislation to go to the President.  And President Trump seems determined to sign whatever comes out of that process.

Why would Washington act in this fashion?  Why would they want to put together legislation of such magnitude outside of its normal practices?

Because they know that the more the public scrutinizes the plans, the more likely voters will hate what they are coming up with.

What happened in the House of Representatives offers the clearest evidence that the Congressional leadership knows that their plans face a likely public backlash.  As it took up the overhaul plan, the leadership not only sealed off the public process, they also didn’t wait for an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).  Normally, the Congress waits for a CBO “scoring” in order to better understand the impacts of their actions.

But the House Republican leadership decided to act prior to that review.  The reason became clear once that review came out, which occurred well after the vote.  According to the CBO, an estimated 23 million Americans would lose their health insurance as a result of the House’s plan.

The House leadership knew this, of course, but they wanted to ram through their plan prior to the public knowing what the legislation meant.

The Senate is now following suit.  It looks like the Senate will have no hearings, no public process, just drafting a health care overhaul behind closed doors.

What could be their reasoning?  Most likely the same as the House’s – people will hate it.

Unlike the House, the Senate is involving the CBO by sending the office various aspects of their plan and then adjusting the plan after the CBO review of that provision.

Of course, all behind closed doors.

In addition, the Senate Majority Leader is invoking a Senate rule which will allow the health care measure to be voted upon by the full house without going through the normal committee reviews.

The secrecy surrounding its deliberations keeps from the public the details of the planned massive overhaul of health care in America.  We don’t have the details yet, but it’s a safe bet that their plan will deny health insurance to millions of Americans, the only question will be how many millions.

To his credit, Governor Cuomo has pledged to protect New Yorkers from the changes, but it is not clear how successful the state can be and at what cost to taxpayers.

It’s a tragedy that one of the major political parties has as its policy goal to strip millions of Americans of their health insurance.  The results will include more untreated illnesses, more avoidable early deaths, more bankruptcies, and more heartache for the families affected.

And Congress knows this; that’s why they put these deals together behind closed doors.  They know that they are putting politics ahead of the well-being of millions of people.  They just don’t want to pay a political price for it.

Let’s hope they do.

While the nation was transfixed by former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony on the Russian efforts to influence the 2016 Presidential election and the possible involvement of the Trump campaign, Albany was moving legislation which could dramatically lower electric utility rates across the state.

Last year, the Cuomo Administration pushed through an agreement to raise electric utility rates in order to bail out aging nuclear power plants located on Lake Ontario.  The Administration’s final deal was pushed through with virtually no public participation and done so in the middle of the summer.  At that time, the Administration offered no cost estimates for the impact of the 12-year deal, other than to admit that the first two years would hike rates around a billion dollars.

The total cost of the 12-year deal could be as much as $7.6 billion according to an independent analysis.  Those costs would be passed on to all the state’s ratepayers – industrial, commercial and residential.  Thus, local governments and school districts would have to pay more, not-for-profits like hospitals would have to pay more, businesses would have to pay more and they would likely raise prices to pass those costs onto their customers.  As a result, the public – which would have its own residential rates hiked as well – would bear the entire multi-billion-dollar price tag.

The bailout plan covers four upstate nuclear power plants, all located on Lake Ontario.  Three of them are among the oldest on the planet and two were scheduled to be shut down since they were increasingly unprofitable.

Then the Cuomo Administration stepped in and cut its bailout deal largely outside of public view.

The deal has stunned some of the leading members of the Assembly and hearings were held to examine the process and the impact of the agreement.

As a result of that process, the Assembly last week moved legislation that would cap the monthly charge imposed on residential utility consumers by the governor’s deal to bailout the nuclear power plants.  The bill prohibited any utility from charging a residential consumer more than 25 cents per month for costs related to the continued operation of the bailed out nuclear-powered facilities.

The 25 cents per month cap is not a number that comes out of thin air – it is the exact fee charged for costs contained in a similar deal in the state of Illinois.  Illinois’s program was the product of a deliberative legislative process, unlike New York’s process which relied on secret negotiations between the Cuomo Administration and the Chicago-based company Exelon.

Exelon is a Fortune 500 company that owns nuclear power plants in both Illinois and New York and is the sole beneficiary of New York’s decision to bail-out the nuclear power plants.

And while New York’s $2 per month surcharge may not sound like a lot, right now many state residents are having a hard time paying their electric bills.  According to the state, roughly one-in-eight New York residential ratepayers are 60 days or more late in paying their bills.  For them, this deal will make it even harder to catch up.

In order to protect all ratepayers, but certainly those most in need, New York’s legislature needs to drive that same bargain as Illinois and save ratepayers money.

Other than the price, the deal is similar in both states.  New York’s deal covers four reactors for 12 years (those facilities generate 3,351 MW); in Illinois, the deal covers three reactors over 10 years (2,889 MW).  The financial bailout, however, is markedly less expensive in Illinois.  Why should New York cut a worse deal?

Ironically, Exelon crows about the consumer savings for Illinois consumers on its website.  Clearly, the company is satisfied with its deal – even at one-eighth the cost of New York’s.

New York ratepayers need protection.  There is a good case to be made for not bailing out power plants that were built in the 1960s and have far outlived their usefulness.  Instead, the state should be investing that money in clean, renewable, 21^st Century technologies.

However, if such a subsidy is to be imposed, it should cover the costs of operating those plants, not gouge New Yorkers to fatten the profits of an out-of-state company.

Whether, and how, the state legislature chooses to react the Administration’s bail out plan is likely to be one of the key issues as lawmakers move into the last two weeks of their session.  What they choose to do could have a real impact on the costs of the electricity in New York.