Two key insiders are acknowl edging a long-suppressed, ex plosive truth: Many top lawyer/legislators are paid huge sums of money by special-interest clients who are interested only in buying influence at the Legislature.
“That’s why many of the legislators really don’t want an ethics law, even as they claim they do,” one insider, with more than 10 years’ experience dealing with the Legislature’s leadership, told The Post.
“The truth is that many of the lawyers/legislators do virtually nothing for their money and are only hired so the clients can gain access to their influence with their committees and their leaders.
“If those lawyer/legislators have to disclose who their clients are and how much they’re being paid, the media will ask, ‘OK, Senator, OK, Assemblyman, what kind of work have you done to deserve that kind of money?’ And they don’t want to answer that,” the insider continued.
A second highly knowledgeable insider with strong Senate ties said Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Nassau), whose party holds a slim, one-vote majority, was resisting the comprehensive ethics law backed by Gov. Cuomo out of fear that several GOP senators won’t seek re-election if the size of their legal fees becomes public.
“Skelos worries that some will leave the Senate rather than disclose, and that that will cost him his majority,” said the second source.
Cuomo is gearing up for what may be his biggest battle yet with the Legislature, whose two leaders, Skelos and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan), are paid unspecified sums for unspecified work by two highly influential law firms.
Skelos works for Ruskin Moscou Faltischek on Long Island, which represents clients before public agencies and has a lobbying arm. Silver works for Weitz & Luxenberg, a massive personal-injury firm.
Among the prominent upstate Republicans with lucrative law practices are Senate Finance Chairman John DeFrancisco and Crime Victims, Crime and Corrections Chairman Michael Nozzolio.