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State Residents Shouldn’t Expect Ethics Reform During This Legislative Session

Like Pinocchio’s nose, the list of New York state legislators to face legal or ethical corruption charges just keeps getting longer.

The latest charges were levied last week against Sen. Robert Ortt of Niagara County and former state Sen. George Maziarz, Ortt’s predecessor who retired in 2014. Ortt is charged with three felony counts of filing a false instrument for allegedly arranging a no-show job for his wife and funneling payments to her through a pass-through entity. Maziarz faces five felony counts of filing a false instrument after allegedly hiding nearly $100,000 in campaign payments to a former state Senate staff member who resigned over sexual harassment charges. Both men have pleaded innocent to the charges.

State residents shouldn’t expect ethics reform during this legislative session. Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the state Assembly and the state Senate each have their own ethics reforms proposals, but there are vat differences between each of them. It doesn’t appear many of the ethics proposals would have applied to Maziarz or Ortt anyway.

Perhaps fighting over outside income or public campaign is the wrong approach. Like Pinnochio, previous ethics reforms haven’t stopped the state government’s nose from growing. Instead, reforms have led to better and more elaborate lies. At this point, Pinnochio’s nose will stretch all the way from Albany to Ripley if we keep waiting for agreement on large-scale ethics reform.

As we have seen with the success of former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, strong and independent enforcement is needed to enforce existing laws and probe fishy behavior. New York has tried that route with the Joint Commission on Public Ethics; an organization with the right mission but which is unfortunately neither strong nor independent. If state legislators are truly serious about reigning in corruption and bad behavior, it should create an enforcement agency that is independent of the state’s vicious political process, which has the power necessary to make the state Legislature behave and ensure the organization has adequate funding each year.

Maybe then, Pinnochio will turn into a real boy intent on helping New Yorkers rather than helping himself.

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