WPCNR CAMPAIGN 2017. From the Office of State Senator George Latimer. July 14, 2017:
After former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s corruption conviction was overturned yesterday, Senator George Latimer (D-Rye) demanded that Albany take up the ethics reform package that he has been sponsoring in Albany during his tenure in the State Senate.
“Sheldon Silver’s true crime was violating the public’s trust in its elected leaders, and the court’s decision doesn’t change this one bit,” said State Senator George Latimer.
“He used his position of authority to profit himself and for this he deserves punishment to the fullest extent of the law. More importantly, the climate of influence peddling and backroom deals that Silver, Dean Skelos and others, Democrat and Republican, relied on still needs to be addressed in Albany. So long as Republicans refuse to even hold meetings of the Senate Ethics Committee and block meaningful reforms that I and others have proposed, this will not be the last scandal to rock state government.”
Latimer currently sponsors legislation to crack down on the kind of behavior Silver was originally convicted of, including:
limiting state legislators’ outside income to 15% of their annual state salary, as is the rule for Members of Congress (S.25 – Sen. Hoylman); and requiring annual ethics training for all members of the state legislature and the executive branch, and all of their employees (S.919 – Senator Croci).
