Legislative leaders were so furious that they went to court to try to stop the panel’s inquiry, quoting from the Federalist Papers and arguing that the governor had embarked upon a witch hunt that trampled upon a separate branch of government.
Mr. Cuomo pressed on: In January he proposed strict new rules requiring lawmakers to disclose their firm’s clients that have business before the state.
But his proposal did not survive negotiations with legislative leaders. And with Mr. Cuomo’s much-questioned decision last month to disband the anticorruption commission, the inquiry into lawmakers’ outside employment is coming to an abrupt halt.
“The right questions were being asked,” said Susan Lerner, the executive director of Common Cause New York, a government watchdog group. “They were being relatively aggressively pursued. And then the plug was pulled overnight.”
Outside jobs held by New York legislators have been the source of several scandals, and government watchdog groups worry that the jobs can present a means for lawmakers to profit improperly from their public offices. Often, the positions are at influential law firms, and the job responsibilities are not particularly clear.
New York legislators earn a base salary of $79,500 for what is considered a part-time job. Some treat elective office as a full-time role, but others earn large salaries from outside jobs. Their earnings were made public for the first time last year under a disclosure measure won by Mr. Cuomo in 2011.
In fact, all three of the legislative leaders who negotiated the latest ethics deal with Mr. Cuomo are lawyers who have earned substantial money outside the Legislature.
