HALLOWEEN: TRICKS NOT TREATS FROM THE ASSEMBLY MAJORITY

This Halloween, instead of yelling Boo, I suggest New Yorkers yell something scarier –Corruption.

While residents of New York are decorating with ghosts, goblins and gremlins, Albany should be gearing up to pass sweeping ethics reform to remove the skeletons from the capitol’s closets.

There has been a horde of politicians indicted over the past year, many of whom were within our chamber. Soon after the high-profile scandal involving Assembly leadership was exposed, the Assembly Minority proposed 17 amendments to our ethics code. These proposals would have created transparency, accountability and helped restore the public’s trust in state government. However, the Assembly Majority struck each one along partisan lines.

The charade is over, Assembly Majority. The people of New York State are fed up with disgraceful wrongdoing by elected officials, which discredit the very offices they hold. A real independent ethics commission, term limits for leadership positions, pension forfeiture, and increased penalties for those who violate the public’s trust may startle the status quo in Albany, but that is exactly what we must do.

I renew my demand for state ethics reform; it is time for Albany to get out of the dark. The shameful unwillingness of the Assembly Majority to address the necessity of ethics reform should not be New Yorker’s biggest scare this Halloween.

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