Was Moreland extortive? Depends on when you ask …
Casey Seiler, Capitol bureau chief
What’s extortive? To Andrew Cuomo, it’s for a governor to say, “I’m going to investigate you unless you pass a piece of legislation I want you to pass.”
Or at least that’s what Cuomo said at a Crain’s New York edit board meeting on Thursday, as he insisted that the Moreland panel was his creation … except that he allowed it to act independently … although it would have been totally fine for him to have directed its actions had he wanted to.
The governor’s opinion about whether or not it was extortionate to hold the hammer of an investigation over the collective head of a recalcitrant Legislature seems to have changed a bit since last summer, when Cuomo made it crystal clear that he would launch a Moreland Commission investigation if lawmakers failed to take up his ethics reform package.
http://blog.timesunion.com/capitol/archives/211393/was-moreland-extortive-depends-on-when-you-ask/