NY's 40th Assembly District
representing approx. 126,000 residents
encompassing part of Queens County

*  *  *

Assemblyman Ron Kim 
(elected 2012)
Member: Committee on Governmental Operations

What he knew ... and when

2019

CJA's February 25, 2019 e-mail to Assemblyman Kim
& his 13 fellow members of the Assembly Committee on Governmental Operations
& also sent to his Legislative Director, Rachel Safirstein, and his Chief of Staff, Tony Cao
"Resent/Revised: The Budget
& the M.I.A. Assembly Committee on Governmental Operations
in the Legislature's Own Operations"

click here for:
CJA's Jan. 24, 2019 e-mail to Legislative Leaders --
RE: HOW THE LEGISLATURE's JOINT COMMISSIONS OPERATE --

2020

cc: CJA's September 21, 2020 e-mail to NYT, etc --
"Queens Elections 2020 -- Informing the Voters with EVIDENCE:
public corruption/grand jury complaint vs Queen's 25 state legislators --
21 running for re-election -- which Queens D.A. Katz is "sitting on"

CJA's June 9, 2020 grand jury/public corruption complaint vs Assemblyman Kim & his fellow Queens County state legislators, filed with filed with Queens County D.A. 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:
AS A MEMBER OF
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, including 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, a February 25, 2019 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, attached February 19, 2019 written statement, 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.

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 -- and in the 2021 legislative session.   

#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?