The New York Times Editorial Board has declined to endorse Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the New York gubernatorial primary election. Citing Cuomo’s failure to eliminate political corruption in Albany and throughout the state, despite campaign promises to do so, the editorial board wrote, “The state government remains as subservient to big money as ever.”

The board further declined to endorse any candidate in the Democratic primary, because the other candidate, Fordham law professor Zephyr Teachout, “does not have the breadth of interests and experience needed to govern a big and diverse state.”

Cuomo is heavily favored in the primary as he is the incumbent and has amassed vastly greater resources than his opponent. The New York state primary election will take place on September 9, 2014.

Photo of Gov. Andrew Cuomo by Diana Robinson on Wikimedia Commons.

William Pound, the President of the National Conference of State Legislatures, wrote a letter to the editor in The New York Times. It is a response to a recent editorial “The States Get a Poor Report Card,” which disparages the ethics oversight of the states and their ability to perform other vital government functions. The editorial comes after the Center for Public Integrity gave many states a poor or failing grade in the area of ethics.

Pound responds: “In the tradition of our founding fathers, most state lawmakers are citizen-legislators. You cite a study that graded states poorly on ethics issues, yet you did not acknowledge that the overwhelming majority of the 7,382 state legislators are honorable public servants.”

Pound also compares the record of ethics agencies in state governments with the public’s current lack of trust regarding the performance of the U.S. Congress. Be sure to read the full letter here.

Thank you to Elizabeth Bartz for bringing this article to our attention.

The Times Developer Network is now offering data from reports received by the Federal Election Commission through its Campaign Finance API (application programming interface). What was once a set of reports updated weekly, or in some cases daily, is now updated every 15 minutes.

You can find campaign finance information for the presidential and congressional candidates, PACs and super PACs, electronic filings by date and type, independent expenditures, and electioneering communications.

For the full story, be sure to read “Campaign Finance Data in Real Time” by Derek Willis in The New York Times.

You’ll be interested to also see “Campaign finance updates in real time? There’s an API for that” by Meranda Watling in 10,000 Words.

In the New York Times, Nicholas Confessore examines the dilemma of reporting about presidential candidate filings and campaign finance figures minus the “super-PAC” dollars in the third quarter.

Here is the article on NYTimes.com: “Without ‘Super PAC’ Numbers, Campaign Filings Present an Incomplete Picture”