Contact: Michael Fraser, (518) 455-3751 (office); (518) 859-8518 (cell)
"The corruption prosecution of Sheldon Silver has ended. But the corruption problem in Albany still remains.
Investigations, scandals and convictions continue to mount at the Capitol, but Albany has sat on its hands and watched the public's trust in government vanish before its eyes. Promises of change have produced nothing but rhetoric, and proposals to address the problem have been stalled or never seriously considered. Sheldon Silver will serve 12 years in prison for betraying taxpayers, but is inexplicably still eligible to receive nearly $80,000 a year in retirement paid by the very taxpayers he betrayed.
The Assembly Minority has been steadfast in its call for anti-corruption reforms including pension forfeiture, term limits for leadership positions, replacing the Joint Commission on Public Ethics with a panel free of political appointees, and enacting new crimes for those who violate the public trust.
We will continue to fight for dramatic change to a culture that enables corruption and puts too much power in the hands of too few. Failure for the rest of Albany to do so is nothing less than a complete betrayal of the taxpayers and the institution we serve."