Following the conviction of yet another state lawmaker – this time former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver – Bay Ridge Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis proposed concrete steps for ethics reform in New York State government.
Additionally, the GOP lawmaker called on Gov. Cuomo and both the Democratic controlled assembly and Republican controlled senate to adopt meaningful and effective ethics reform measures as their first order of business in the 2016 Legislative Session.
While Silver is a Democrat, the Senate’s former Republican Majority leader, Dean Skelos, is currently on trial on corruption charges.
“Speaker Silver is the 15th legislator convicted or forced to resign in my five years in Albany. And every time a member of New York State government is indicted or convicted, we hear the calls to clean up Albany, but little gets done,” said Malliotakis. “One-and-thirty years ago, Teddy Roosevelt walked the halls of New York’s Capitol as a member of the State Assembly, speaking out against the control and corruption of the notorious Tammany Hall. And here we are 13 decades later still having the same conversation. We need to put a stop to this continuous cycle of corruption and adopt real, meaningful reforms once and for all.”
Malliotakis is calling for changes to the Assembly rules that would limit the speaker’s ability to:
- Secretly dole out grants without legislative approval;
- Unilaterally maintain a slush fund of taxpayer money to spend;
- Unilaterally stop legislation from coming to the floor despite overwhelming bi-partisan support; and
- Unilaterally strip members of leadership positions, stipends or staff allocation if they simply disagree with him or her.
In order to eradicate scandal from the Capitol, Malliotakis and her colleagues in the Assembly Minority Conference are also calling on the legislature to adopt measures that would:
- Implement eight-year term limits for legislative leaders and committee chairs;
- Require every appropriation to be specifically identified in the state budget with notification to the attorney general that no conflict of interest exists;
- Prohibit any appropriation to organizations that employ or compensate the governor, a legislator or family member;
- Establish new crimes and increased penalties for those who act against the public trust or fail to report corruption;
- Strip pensions from those convicted of betraying public trust; and
- Ensure transparency and easier public access to committee meetings and votes.
Among the most egregious assaults on the public trust that must be addressed is that New York taxpayers continue to foot the bill for the pensions of elected officials convicted of felonies, said Malliotakis.
“No public official should collect taxpayer money while they are sitting behind bars for betraying the public’s trust,” said Malliotakis. “It is insulting and a slap in the face to taxpayers that the Assembly backtracked from its agreement to join the Senate and governor in enacting legislation that would strip pensions from those who have been convicted of a felony related to their public duty. This is why the public does not trust Albany.”
