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Assemblyman Ron Kim
can't be re-elected because he must be
indicted for "wilful misconduct in office", including fraud & larceny
with respect to his OWN legislative salary & the Legislature's OWN budget.
Here's why --
THE GENERAL CHARGE -- & THE EVIDENCE THAT BACKS IT UP
CJA's June 9, 2020 corruption complaint,
filed with Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz,
in support of grand jury inquiry & indictment
click here for:
The referred-to "Grand Juries" webpage
linking & posting the substantiating EVIDENCE
& its
"Background
Primer for the Grand Juries"
* * *
& NOW FOR SPECIFICS RELATING TO
ASSEMBLYMAN KIM
#I: PERTAINING TO THE NYS CONSTITUTION
KIM was elected to the Assembly in 2012 &
re-elected in 2014, 2016, and 2018 -- meaning that FOUR times he
took the prescribed
oath of office swearing to support the NYS Constitution:
January 2013, January 2015, January 2017, January 2019. In so doing,
hadn't he read the New York State Constitution? What did he understand
or not understand from it, as, for example:
Article III,
§9
pertaining to the Legislature: "...Each house shall
determine the rules of its own proceedings... shall choose its own
officers; and the senate shall choose a temporary president and the
assembly shall choose a speaker."
In other words, did KIM not
understand that his 1st job, as Assemblyman, was determining the
Assembly's rules? Did he read the existing Assembly
rules? What did he understand about them? And did he not know,
and did no one tell him, that the
Brennan Center for Justice had issued reports in
2004, 2006, and 2008 detailing that NY's Legislature is "the most
dysfunctional" in the entire country because of legislative rules giving
autocratic powers to the leaders and emasculating rank-and-file members and
committees? What rules changes has he ever proposed?
And, throughout the years, hasn't he voted AGAINST all legislative rules
reforms presented by the Assembly Republican minority, as, for instance,
on January 22, 2019? Why, specifically, did he vote against the 15
proposed rule changes? Was it because that is what the Assembly's
Democratic majority leadership instructed in its closed door party
conferences?
Article III,
§10
pertaining to the Legislature: "Each house of the
legislature shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and publish the same,
except such parts as may require secrecy. The doors of each house
shall be kept open, except where the public welfare shall require secrecy..."
In other words, did KIM not understand from this that the closed-door
party conferences that are a staple of the Legislature, substituting for the
discussions not taking place on the Assembly and Senate floor and in
committees, are unconstitutional?
Article VII,
§4
pertaining to the state budget: "The
legislature may not alter an appropriation bill submitted by the governor
except to strike out or reduce items therein, but it may add thereto items
of appropriation provided that such additions are stated separately and
distinctly from the original items of the bill and refer each to a single
object or purpose. None of the restrictions of this section, however,
shall apply to appropriations for the legislature or judiciary. Such an
appropriation bill when passed by both houses be a law immediately without
further action by the governor, except that appropriations for the
legislature and judiciary and separate items added to the governor's bill by
the legislature shall be subject to his approval as provided in section 7 of
article IV."
In other words, did KIM not IMMEDIATELY understand that the state budget
is completely "OFF THE CONSTITUTIONAL RAILS" because NY has a rolling
budget, with the the Governor's appropropriation bills, other than for the
Legislature and Judiciary, becoming "law
immediately" upon the Assembly and Senate reconciling their separate
emendations, limited to striking and reducing items.
#2: PERTAINING TO THE
ASSEMBLY
COMMITTEE ON GOVERMENTAL OPERATIONS
From January 2013, when he first became an assemblyman, to the present, KIM has been a member of the Assembly Committee on
Governmental Operations. Its jurisdiction is set forth in the
Committee's annual reports as including "the organization and operation of
the executive and legislative branches of State government."
Throughout the seven years of his membership, what has KIM done to ensure
that the Committee has exercised its jurisdiction over the "organization and
operation" of the Legislature -- and wouldn't such exercise include being
apprised of, and keeping tabs on, lawsuits against the Legislature?
POINT A.
During KIM's seven-year membership on the
Assembly Committee on Governmental Operations, what role has the Committee
played in compiling the Legislature's budget which, pursuant to Article VII,
§I of the
NYS Constitution, is required to be: "Itemized estimates of the financial
needs of the legislature, certified by the presiding officer of each
house...transmitted to the governor not later than the first day of December
in each year"
If none, how then has the Legislature's budget been compiled, by whom and by
what process? And who is ensuring that it is certified as "itemized
estimates of...financial needs"? What oversight has the Committee been
doing? Has the Committee examined what has been transmited to the Governor? At which Committee meetings? How about
the Governor's appropriation bill for the Legislature's budget, to which he
inserts, in an out-of-sequence section, at the back of the bill, not
properly titled, over two dozen pages of "reappropriations" for the
Legislature, not tallied but seemingly about $100,000,000.
Has the Committee examined it -- and the
Governor's appropriation bill for Judiciary's budget, which he throws onto
the same bill as for the Legislature's budget.
POINT B. During KIM's
seven-year membership on the Assembly Committee on Governmental Operations,
what role
has the Committee played in ensuring the
integrity of the Legislature's independent audits, required every three
years by Legislative Law, Article 6. On their face, the audits appear to be
utterly worthless. Has the Committee examined them at any of its
meetings?
POINT C.
Legislative Law Article 5-A provides for 14
joint Senate and Assembly Commissions -- including the Commission on
Government Administration and the Commission on State and Local Relations.
Legislative Law Article 5-B provides for the Administrative Regulations
Review Commission. During KIM's seven-year membership on the
Assembly Committee on
Governmental Operations, has it overseen what has been happening with these
statutory entities, most of which are non-functioning because their members
have not been appointed. And how has the Committee been able to "act[] on legislation
proposed by the Administrative Regulations Review Commission, and the
Legislative Commission on Government Administration" -- as its
annual reports state it does -- when these are among the non-functioning entities,
with unappointed members.
POINT D. Although the Assembly
Committee on Governmental Operations is the Assembly committee with
jurisdiction to determine the adequacy of legislative salaries,
whether legislative stipends should be curtailed or eliminated, whether
legislators' outside income should be banned or restricted, during KIM's
seven-year membership on the Committee it has held NO
hearing on these subjects.
Nor, during this time, has the Committee had before it any bill about these
things that it could not vote to pass. What was KIM's view on
these subjects? Did he ever sponsor or co-sponsor any bill relating to
legislative salaries, stipends, and outside income? And when he
ran for the Assembly, in 2012, did he think the $79,500 legislative salary
was inadequate? How about when he ran for re-election in 2014, in
2016, or in 2018? What did he tell voters?
POINT E. In 2015, the Assembly Committee on Governmental
Operations not only allowed the Assembly Speaker, Temporary Senate
President, and the Governor, as part of their "three-men-in-a-room" behind
closed doors budget deal-making, to unconstitutionally use the budget as a
vehicle to establish a quadrennial Commission on Legislative, Judicial and
Executive Compensation, whose report recommending pay raises would have the
"force of law", but then
"sat on" a bill sponsored by
several of its own minority members, including its then ranking
member, to remove the "force of law" aspect as unconstitutional. In 2018, it allowed the
"three-men-in-a-room" to unconstitutionally insert into the budget a
provision establishing a supplement to the Commission on Legislative,
Judicial and Executive Compensation -- a one-time Committee on Legislative
and Executive Compensation, whose report recommending pay raises would have
the "force of law".
POINT F. The 2015 budget bill that established the
Commission on Legislative, Judicial and Executive Compensation
simultaneously repealed an earlier bill enacted by the Legislature
in 2010, in a lameduck session, establishing a quadrennial Commission on
Judicial Compensation whose report recommending pay raises would have the
"force of law". At no time prior to passage of that earlier bill
had the Assembly Committee on Governmental Operations or any other
legislative committee been unable to pass legislation raising judicial
salaries -- or raising executive salaries, or legislative salaries.
There is ZERO evidence that the Legislature could not achieve pay raises for
itself or other public officers through legitimate legislative due process,
namely legislation introduced into committees, either before or after
hearings, discussion, mark-ups, votes -- then onto the full chambers for
discussion, emendation, and votes -- followed by a reconciliaton of bills,
then to be signed by the Governor, or by a vote overriding his veto. Legislative
process is not the Albany way, however, it proceeds only by "three men in a
room" deals, which have completely taken over legislative process.
POINT G.
Following
the August 29, 2011 Report of the Commission on Judicial Compensation --
whose "force of law" judicial salary raise recommendations would take
effect, in three phases, April 1, 2012, April 1, 2013, and April 1, 2014 --
the Assembly Committee on Governmental Operations never engaged in
any oversight -- even though the August 29, 2011 Report, on its face, violated the statute
pursuant to which it purported to be rendered. Likewise, the Assembly
Committee on Governmental Operations never engaged in oversight with respect
to the December 24, 2015 Report of the Commission on Legislative, Judicial
and Executive Compensation -- which also, on its face, violated the statute
pursuant to which it purported to be rendered -- and whose judicial salary
raise recommendations would take effect in four phases, April 1, 2016, April
1, 2017, April 1, 2018, and April 1, 2019. Nor did the Assembly
Committee on Governmental Operations engage in oversight over the December 10, 2018 Report of the
Committee on Legislative and Executive Compensation, although it, too, on
its face, violated the statute pursuant to which it purported to be
rendered. Nor did it or any other legislative committee or commissions
-- including the Senate Finance Committee and the Assembly Ways & Means
Committee -- have the slightest concern as to the cost of all these these
pay raises, incjjluding in increased such non-salary, salary-based benefits
as pensions.
POINT H:
On
February 25, 2019, I sent KIM, as a member of the Assembly Committee on
Governmental Operations, his Legislative Director, Rachel Safirstein, and
his Chief of Staff, Tony Cao, an e-mail, which I simultaneously sent to the
Committee's 13 other members, starting with then Assemblywoman Michele Titus, its
chair. The e-mail's message, attachment, and links furnished the
particulars and EVIDENCE of what was going on -- and that the Committee was
MIA as to both the Legislature's
OWN budget & OWN operations. In the fashion typical of the
Legislature and its sham committees, I received NO response from KIM or from
anyone else.
click here for: CJA's
webpage for the February 25, 2019 e-mail, from which ALL the evidence is
accessible
POINT I:
As a
result of this wilful nonfeasance by KIM and his fellow Committee members,
all the corruption therein particularized, including by my February 19, 2019
written statement, with its accompanying two sets of questions pertaining to
the Judiciary and Legislative budgets for FY2019-20 and the Govenor's
Legislative/Judiciary budget continued, unabated -- in that first 2019
legislative session after the pay-raises kicked in and in the second
session, in 2020.
#3 PERTAINING TO KIM's VOTES
Each year, from 2013 to the present, KIM has voted in favor the Governor's
Legislative/Judiciary appropriation bills, whose passage, in both the
Assembly and Senate, virtually without comment, consumes no more than a
couple of minutes. On what basis has he voted in favor of these bills
-- and, in so voting, has he concerned himself with what their cumulative
dollar cost is, either for the whole bill or for just the Legislative
portions. What are the cumulative dollar totals of each of the eight
Legislative/Judiciary appropriation bills he has voted on. Where can
that information be found?
NOT YET FINISHED, maybe tomorrow...
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