ALBANY, N.Y. — A state judge this week ordered leaders of the state Legislature to disclose the names of lawmakers who decide how $170 million in taxpayer money is spent on pork-barrel projects in their home districts.
The suit filed in Albany’s Supreme Court by the Albany Times Union newspaper claimed Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, R-Brunswick, and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, violated New York’s Freedom of Information Law by refusing to let the public see computer data that shows the member items each lawmaker obtained and who got the money.
State Supreme Court Justice Robert Sackett of Sullivan County on Oct. 24 ruled that the names of the legislators are not protected from disclosure.
“As approved expenditures of public funds, the public has a right to know the names of legislators associated with the funding of member item projects,” he wrote.
Silver spokesman Charles Carrier said they were reviewing the decision. Bruno spokesman Mark Hansen said Oct. 24 that they had not seen it yet.
Eve Burton, an attorney representing the Times Union, said the paper was pleased with the decision.
“This is a great day for New Yorkers,” Burton said. “We’re hoping in light of the upcoming elections there will be no further delay in providing voters with this important information.”
For the past several years, $200 million in member-item money has been appropriated by the Legislature, with $85 million going to Bruno, $85 million to Silver and $30 million to Gov. George Pataki. Each decides how to distribute the money.
The newspaper has reported on a number of member items that raise questions. In one case, hundreds of thousands of dollars were directed from the Republican-led Senate to the North Bronx Westchester Neighborhood Restoration Association controlled by former Republican Sen. Guy Velella, even after his 2004 conviction for taking bribes.
Millions more, almost all from Assembly Democrats, went to the Metropolitan New York Coordinating Council on Jewish Poverty. Its executive director, who makes $273,181 a year, is married to Silver’s chief of staff.
The newspaper filed two FOI law requests but were given only partial information and not the names of lawmakers who sponsored the projects. Appeals of both denials were rejected.
New York’s FOI law limits public access to records of the Legislature, allowing the public to see only its laws, bills, committee reports and other standard paperwork. But it also says “factual or statistical tabulations” kept by lawmakers for their official business are public.