Good Government & the Rule of Law | 2026 NYS Legislative Agenda
The City Bar’s “good government” focused advocacy reflects its longstanding commitment to transparency, accountability, and the rule of law. In the current environment, challenges to the rule of law at the federal level can have significant downstream effects on New York State institutions, courts, and residents. While this Agenda focuses on State legislative matters, the City Bar remains attentive to how federal actions intersect with State authority, civil liberties, and democratic governance, and may engage on State legislation that responds to or mitigates those impacts where appropriate during the legislative session.
Raise and Reset Expectations about State Ethics Enforcement in New York
The City Bar supports continued evaluation and strengthening of New York’s ethics enforcement framework to ensure it is effective, independent, and transparent. The creation of the Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government (COELIG) to replace the Joint Commission on Public Ethics provided an opportunity to reset expectations for ethics oversight of public officials and employees. That opportunity should be reinforced through ongoing legislative and operational reforms.
The City Bar urges the Legislature to continue to examine ethics oversight in New York and consider additional reforms as needed to ensure COELIG is operating in a manner that is effective, transparent, and faithful to its statutory mission. Such reforms could include prohibiting ex parte communications between Commissioners and the elected officials (or their representatives) who appointed them; requiring additional reporting on the campaign activity of lobbyists; and releasing financial disclosure statements as open data.
The City Bar also supports efforts to modernize ethics compliance through the use of technology. Legislation requiring electronic filing of lobbying reports and financial disclosure statements would reduce administrative burden, improve accuracy, conserve state resources, and significantly enhance public access to information. Transitioning from paper-based systems to electronic filing is a commonsense reform that promotes transparency and accountability.