What fine list of representatives we have….

Spitzer faces scandal-scarred state government - Newsday.com

ALBANY, N.Y. — In the week before Christmas, New York’s state comptroller pleaded guilty to a felony and resigned the office to which he had just been re-elected. A day earlier, the Republican leader of the state Senate announced he was under investigation by the FBI.

The week before that, a state senator from the Bronx, Democrat Efrain Gonzalez Jr., pleaded not guilty to charges that he was using charity groups in a scheme to steal more than $400,000 in state money.

In October, a powerful state Assembly member and major labor leader, Brian McLaughlin of Queens, was indicted on racketeering charges, accused of stealing more than $2.2 million.

In July, state Assemblywoman Diane Gordon was arraigned on bribery charges after prosecutors said they videotaped the Brooklyn Democrat demanding a developer build her a $500,000 house in return for her assistance on a land deal.

Questionable ethics, corruption and plain old thievery have become the hot topics at the state Capitol as state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer prepares to take over as New York’s 54th governor.

“It’s not a whiff, it’s a stench,” said Lee Miringoff, head of Marist College’s Institute for Public Opinion.

“Stench is the word I would use. In the last few years, it’s been unprecedented,” said government watchdog Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research Group.

Democrat Spitzer comes into office off a landslide victory fueled in large part by his successful crackdown as attorney general on mutual fund managers and other Wall Street institutions, consumer-popular initiatives that earned him the moniker “the Sheriff of Wall Street.”

Spitzer has been afforded, according to Miringoff, an excellent opportunity to push ethics reform in Albany. The governor-elect has called it a priority.

“What better time for the Sheriff of Wall Street to show up,” said Miringoff. “It’s an agenda he would like to have and now it has actually come his way. The puck is sitting right in front of the net and they’ve pulled the goalie.”

Whether Spitzer will really find it that easy to score in his attempt to reform the culture of Albany remains to be seen.

He will need the cooperation of the leaders of the state Legislature, state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, a Republican, and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Democrat. In the past, both leaders and outgoing Republican Gov. George Pataki have all come up with proposals to overhaul the state’s campaign finance laws, ethics statutes and lobbying regulations. They have all pledged their commitment and then, most often, failed to agree on the details.

Some, like Horner, have long doubted how much the powers that be are committed to altering the landscape and thus making it potentially easier to topple those very same powers that be.

“It is the rope-a-dope strategy of debating the details,” said Horner.

Added to the mix for 2007 is the fact that Bruno has said he is under federal investigation for his private business dealings. He has said he has done nothing wrong, but it has come out that he directed $500,000 in state grants to a private company linked to one of his business colleagues. Thus far, Bruno has refused to make public a list of clients who have hired his private consulting business, how much income he received from them or what services he performed for them. Such public disclosure is not legally required.

Silver, who is on the payroll of a Manhattan law firm, has also refused to make public how much he makes from that job or his client list.

Spitzer and Pataki, on the other hand, have regularly allowed the news media to look over their income tax returns. That is not legally required and does not provide a complete picture of their financial dealings. It does, however, provide the public with information about their top government leaders that has been resisted up until now by legislative leaders.

But with the problems facing Bruno and the Dec. 22 conviction-resignation of Comptroller Alan Hevesi stemming from his use of a state employee as a driver-companion for his wife, Miringoff and Horner believe the climate may be ripe for change.

“The public wants things to change and if there’s public interest, it makes it easier to get things done,” Horner said.

“It’s an opportunity for Spitzer,” said Miringoff. “It’s tailor-made for him.”