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Voters Must Change The Legislature

State Assemblyman Andrew Goodell, R-C-I-Jamestown, was quoted in The Post-Journal saying it is “particularly galling” to taxpayers when an elected official is convicted of a felony in connection with his office, but gets to keep a generous pension.

A word of caution for those who fear they missed an important story. Rummaging through this week’s newspapers won’t help. Goodell’s quotes on pension forfeiture were in the paper on June 15, 2011, after the state Assembly’s passage of the Public Integrity Reform Act of 2011. Goodell said he voted for the 2011 Assembly bill because it increased the disclosure requirements for public officials, provided for the forfeiture of a public pension for a person convicted of a felony related to their official duties, and increased the regulation of lobbyists. Goodell also noted there was more work to be done. The 2011 legislation, Goodell said, was incomplete because it did not contain “the overarching restrictions on campaign donations that are critical to ending the ‘pay-to-play’ culture in Albany, where lobbyists and special interests make generous campaign contributions to key legislators in order to ‘grease the wheels’ and help ensure the passage of their pet legislation. I strongly support ethics reform to prohibit campaign contributions from special interests that have legislation pending before the Legislature. We need to put a stop to this corrupt, conflict-of-interest situation. I look forward to building on the framework of the new ethics law to bring true accountability to all New Yorkers.”

Those are all good points that should have been law long before the corruption convictions of longtime Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and longtime state Senate leader Dean Skelos – convictions, we might add, that were the epitome of a pay-to-play culture and which highlighted the incestuous and profitable relationship between those who do business with government and the legislators who administer government.

How is it, then, that we find ourselves fighting the same losing battle with public ethics in New York state a long five years later?

Goodell was right five years ago. New Yorkers do indeed find it galling that those convicted in public ethics scandals get to keep their pensions. They also find it galling that state legislators keep covering the same ground year after year. There is one more thing that should be galling to the public. This is our fault. Precious few seats in the state Legislature have changed hands since 2011, and a portion of the seats that have changed hands did so only because the legislator was convicted of abusing their office.

If the state Legislature can’t change ethics laws, voters need to change the Legislature.

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