New Ethics Rules for New York Lawmakers Said to be Riddled with Loopholes

Efforts to clean up the New York State legislature through new ethics rules adopted this week have fallen seriously short of what reformers had hoped, leaving loopholes that could still allow ethical violations.

The changes were prompted by the arrest on corruption charges earlier this year of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. He’s charged with steering real estate developers to a law firm that paid him kickbacks and of funneling state money to a doctor who referred asbestos victims to a second law firm he worked for.

Silver is only the latest New York legislator to be in trouble with the law. In 2013, some legislators were wearing Federal Bureau of Investigation wires while dealing with their colleagues.

Governor Andrew Cuomo had promised the new ethics measures would clean up the state legislature. But the state’s top law enforcement official, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, told The New York Times: “It is hard to see how these changes in the law will have any meaningful effect on public corruption.”

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