Opinion

Albany corruption: Groundhog Day

It’s Groundhog Day in Albany. Yet again, we see state lawmakers hauled before a court on corruption charges; yet again, we hear talk of ethics reform — and yet again, it’s far from clear the Legislature is prepared to do anything about it.

Sen. Carl Kruger and Assembly Member William Boyland stand accused of taking bribes from special interests, in return for special favors. These allegations are just the latest wave in a seemingly endless tide of graft and corruption, reinforcing the perception that all lawmakers are crooks or clowns.

And until we finally step up and pass real, comprehensive ethics reform, we’ll deserve every ounce of the public’s scorn.

This may be our last chance: Gov. Cuomo has announced that if we don’t pass an ethics bill into law by June, he’ll use his power to force a more severe solution — a Moreland Act commission that will probe every aspect of legislators’ lives.

As a member of the state Assembly, I believe the vast majority of my colleagues work tirelessly and honestly on behalf of the people of New York. But a Moreland Act investigation could result in honest legislators’ being treated like criminals.

If my colleagues don’t like the sound of that, it would behoove them to take action now. And cosmetic changes and half-hearted compromises won’t cut it.

We can start by requiring lawmakers to fully disclose their outside income. As it stands, the clients that legislators represent in private practice are hidden from public view. While this makes sense in a few instances — such as when the clients are involved in family court cases, where they have a reasonable expectation of privacy — there’s no reason why most of lawmakers’ private clients shouldn’t be disclosed, just as they are in other states.

We also need to enshrine a duty of faithful public service into state law. Incredibly, there’s no such duty on the books today. The Joe Bruno scandal showed what a glaring hole this is. If we want to eliminate the culture of corruption, we need a law that makes clear that public officials must serve the public first and foremost.

Other scandals have demonstrated the need for reforming the process by which legislators dole out community-project grants, more commonly known as “member items.” We’ve seen too many lawmakers funnel taxpayer money into shady nonprofits that don’t even provide real services, but in which they or their relatives have a financial interest. This has to stop.

It’s long past time to toughen our state’s bribery laws. Most New Yorkers would be aghast to learn that the punishments for bribery of a public official are weaker than those for bribery in the private sector. We must also ensure that attempted bribes are punished as severely as completed ones.

I am the sponsor of the Public Corruption Prevention and Enforcement Act, the most comprehensive anti-corruption bill in state history, which includes all of these reforms and more. If my colleagues are serious about cleaning up Albany — and avoiding a date with a Moreland Act Commission — these are the kinds of changes we will have to make.

(Ultimately, we should ask why our system encourages lawmakers to have outside income. New York state’s budget is the nation’s third largest, after the federal government and California, and yet being a member of our Legislature is still considered only a part-time position. Most of us don’t, in fact, have any other employment — but if we want to remove this enticement, we should make representing New Yorkers a full-time job. Then there will no longer even be a perception of outside influence.)

Some will try to find ways around the tough measures we’ll have to take if we actually want to solve the problems exposed again by the latest scandals. They may seek to float an ethics “compromise” that leaves out key elements.

But if we pass anything less than full and comprehensive reform, we might as well send an engraved invitation to the governor for a Moreland Act investigation.

Micah Z. Kellner represents the Upper East Side, Yorkville and Roosevelt Island in the state Assembly.