Voters have a clear stake in reforming New York's troubled ethics watchdog, the Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE), Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research Group said Monday in an interview with Capital Tonight. 

Horner is among the good-government advocates calling for changes at the agency a decade after JCOPE's creation. 

The panel, composed of appointees of the Legislature and the governor, has been criticized for being ineffectual and opaque while also being mired in gridlock over the direction of investigations. 

Lawmakers are now considering how to overhaul the commission, either through legislative action or the more time consuming constitutional amendment process. 

But Horner said voters should be watching what happens closely, given the millions of dollars in taxpayer money spent by the agency.