More than 30 state legislators have been removed or forced from office on corruption charges in the last 10 years.
In November, then state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Democrat from Manhattan, was convicted in federal court of seven charges of honest services fraud, extortion and money laundering.
In December, then state Majority Leader Dean Skelos, a Republican from Rockville Centre, and his son, Adam, were convicted in federal court of eight counts of bribery, extortion and conspiracy.
This was actually not out of the ordinary for state Senate Majority leaders.
Four out of the five people who have held the title of state Senate majority leader for any period in the past eight years have been convicted of federal crimes — not including current Majority Leader John Flanagan. Which probably places state Senate majority leaders above gang members and members of organized crime in likelihood of being convicted of a crime.
And what did the state Legislature do in response to the conviction of their latest two leaders at the end of the last legislative session?
Nothing. As in zero, zilch, nada.
The man whose office prosecuted both Skelos and Silver, Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District, said during a talk at the New York Press Association’s spring convention on Saturday that you can judge any institution by how its members respond to corruption found in its midst.
Just imagine the reaction if four of the last five leaders of any corporation or college were convicted of federal crimes.
As he has in recent months, Bharara went on to hammer the complacency and implicit collaboration of other lawmakers, who he has called in the past “enablers” in the “rancid” culture of Albany.
“What’s been going on in New York State government lately is simultaneously heartbreaking, head-scratching and almost comic,” he said last month in front of the Kentucky Legislature.
Political corruption erodes the public’s confidence in government and eliminating it should be at the very top of every legislator’s list.
This is not a partisan issue. It is just a matter of good government, something which members of both parties should want.
To do otherwise is to make the legislators complicit in the wrongdoing.
As we have said before, the rot in Albany should not be just another issue in the next election, it should be the defining issue of the next election.
New York State’s Legislature is a national laughingstock and the joke has been on taxpayers.
Any person running for the state Assembly, the state Senate or governor — whether incumbent or challenger, Republican, Democrat or a third party — should be asked what they would do about political corruption in Albany.
And anyone unwilling to reform the Legislature should be rejected from serving in it.
