The City Council’s Ethics Committee has begun an investigation into allegations that council member Ydanis Rodriguez inappropriately touched a female staffer after chewing her out for not keeping him up to date about CUNY funding. As the chair of the Higher Education Committee, he said he wasn't informed about $470,000 in cuts from CUNY’s Dominican and Puerto Rican Studies program. When asked by the Manhattan Times if he laid hands on the staffer he said, "Never in my life as a teacher...not as a human being." more ›

After what had been a scandal-plagued year for House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel, the local congressman must have been looking to turn over a new leaf in 2009. But it only took three days into the new year to find his name making headlines for murky dealings—this time with a potential conflict of interest in soliciting charitable donations from the recently bailed out insurance giant AIG. And this time it's not even the Post breathing down Rangel's neck as usual, but an investigative cover story in today's New York Times. more ›

The scandal around emails that Assemblyman Sam Hoyt (D-Buffalo) reportedly sent a colleague's teen intern is currently out of Assembly Leader Sheldon Silver's hands, as the Ethics Committee looks it over. However, the NY Times notes that accusations of sexual misconduct by lawmakers or staffers is "especially sensitive for Mr. Silver, who has faced criticism that he mishandled a 2001 complaint that his former chief of staff sexually assaulted an Assembly employee." more ›