In the annals of government fecklessness, there have been only a handful of moments when the right person at the right time has had the courage to hold up a Bose speaker to our collective lethargy and scream, "Wake Up, People!"

One of those times was during the McCarthy hearings in 1954. It happened in New York State in 2018 with the Sexual Harassment Working Group. And it’s happening again in Albany, with good government groups on the issue of JCOPE.

"Unfortunately, the nickname ‘J Joke’ is totally justified," Cleary Gottlieb senior counsel Evan Davis told Capital Tonight. "It’s the worst in the nation, when it comes to this incredible convoluted system of voting that’s designed to protect rather than to get to the truth."

That is, protect the politicians who appoint the commission members.

The Joint Commission on Public Ethics, better known as JCOPE, is comprised of 14 appointees. The governor appoints six people, the four legislative leaders appoint two members each. 

According to Davis, it only takes two members of the commission to veto an investigation into the executive branch. It takes three members of the commission to veto an investigation into the legislature.

"This is a structurally flawed system," Davis explained. "Why shouldn’t there be one unit that investigates, comes up with conclusions, decides the sanctions and enforces the law?"

Davis, who is a former counsel to Governor Mario Cuomo, as well as the manager of the Committee to Reform the State Constitution, makes the connection between corruption and taxpayer dollars.

"Think of all the money that government spends. The great power to send people to jail, to write the laws, to decide how the police should be empowered. The incredible power of government; to have it not checked by real ethics enforcement is dangerous," he said.

Davis, along with NYPIRG’s Blair Horner, John Kaehny of ReInvent Albany, and others, are pressing lawmakers to take a crucial step and give first passage to a constitutional amendment introduced by State Sen. Liz Krueger and Assemblyman Robert Carroll that would create a truly independent ethics board.

The Krueger/Carroll bill empowers the judicial branch to choose the majority of the new commission’s membership.

Horner and Davis wrote the following in Newsday:

"All members of the new commission, and its staff, would be prohibited from being involved in partisan politics or representing clients before government, and they would have to pledge their loyalty to the public, not political entities or individuals."

Notably, when asked about the bill last week, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart Cousins told Capital Tonight that there is debate within her conference about whether a constitutional amendment is needed to create an independent commission, or simply a new statute.  

What is clear, is that with a governor accused of sexual harassment, an executive branch accused of mishandling nursing home data, and lawmakers too numerous to mention in jail, action needs to be taken soon.   

At long last legislature, have you no sense of urgency?