By Assemblyman Al Stirpe

For far too long, public corruption in Albany has eroded the public’s trust and faith in government and in their elected representatives. We must have meaningful ethics reform in order to fix Albany’s culture of corruption; and during this year’s legislative session, we passed several measures that will help move us toward that goal.

I helped pass an amendment to the New York State Constitution to strip pensions from public officials convicted of corruption because your hard-earned tax dollars should never go to anyone who has violated the public trust (A.10739-A). This measure sends a clear message that politicians who abuse their power have no place in our great state.

Both houses of the state legislature must pass the bill again during the upcoming legislative term before the measure is put before the voters in the form of ballot referendum. Common-sense reform measures like this will go a long way toward restoring the public trust.

We also need to reduce the influence of big money in politics. That’s why I also sponsored legislation to close the LLC loophole, which currently allows wealthy interests to funnel an almost unlimited amount of money into politics, drowning out the interests of ordinary citizens (A.6975). This bill will increase transparency and ensure that contribution limits are enforced across the board. This common-sense measure, however, did not pass the Senate. I will keep working to close the LLC loophole to bring fairness and accountability back to Albany politics.

These measures are a good first step, but there is still much work to be done. With hard work, I am confident we can continue to bring integrity back to government and people will see that their elected officials are there to serve them, not themselves.

As always if you have any questions or concerns about this or any other issue, please do not hesitate to contact me at 452-1115 or at [email protected].