State AG Proposes Another Round of Ethics Reforms

With just 11 days left in New York State's legislative session, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has proposed a set of reforms he said would change Albany's culture of corruption.

Schneiderman announced his plan in a news conference at the Tweed Courthouse in Manhattan — a symbol of New York's corruption during the Tammany Hall era. He said his plan borrows from proposals that legislators have made through the years — some of which even passed the Assembly, but none of which garnered enough support from both chambers to become law.

His plan calls for:

• prohibiting legislators from holding second jobs;
• replacing the daily allowances lawmakers receive for spending time in Albany with reimbursements for documented travel expenses;
• and increasing salaries in order to treat legislators as professionals.

While the Assembly and Senate adopted some ethics reforms when they approved the state budget earlier this year, Schneiderman said the measures did not go far enough.

His proposal comes at the end of a session that has been mired in scandal. In January, former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was arrested on corruption charges. Former Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos was arrested on corruption charges earlier this month.

Both have said they are innocent.