Governor Cuomo ran on a mandate to "clean up Albany." But everyone knows that cleaning is hard, and those little Swiffer pads get dirty really quick, and there's supposed to be a really good Game of Thrones on tonight and ovens clean themselves anyway so that's practically done. Plus your girlfriend keeps things relatively tidy. Why clean when you can just spruce up a little? That seems to be Governor Cuomo's MO after the passage of a seriously watered-down ethics bill. And now come revelations that Cuomo is packing his judicial appointment committees with attorneys who just happen to be major campaign donors. more ›

A spoonful of loopholes makes the medicine go down. A new ethics bill drafted in the New York state legislature will require elected officials to disclose their annual income in greater detail. Currently, lawmakers fall into one of six heavily redacted income brackets, the largest being "$250,000 or more." The new bill would include "109 narrow bands of income topping out at $10 million," the Times Union reports. But buried beyond the disclosure hype is a curious new ethics board whose members can dismiss ethics charges with a mere two votes. more ›

After Gov. Paterson announced his plan to implement far-reaching ethics reforms in Albany, the state Senate released its own pared down ethics reform proposal yesterday. The lawmakers' plan would create a new office for investigating ethics violations in legislature and would require elected officials to disclose how much money they earn from outside jobs, according to NY1. But the proposal wouldn't institute statewide campaign finance reform or initiate term limits, like Paterson had suggested. more ›

Governor Paterson proposed a reform of the state's ethics commission. While State Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith, not to mention a number of watchdog groups, backs Paterson's plan for a single commission, combining the executive branch's and legislative branch's commissions, the third man in the room, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, "expressed unease" about Paterson's plan in an interview with the NY Times, which points out, "Mr. Silver, speaker for the last 15 years, is seen by many as a guardian of the state’s traditionally insular approach to government." The Daily News describes Silver's own ethics plan proposal as one that "keeps lawmakers in charge of enforcing their own conduct" with "several committees doing the policing." Related: Smith also said that lawmakers should disclose their income, adding, "I think leadership should not have a second income. I think anybody in leadership, I would rather see just devote their full time to the job," which might be a poke at Silver, who has never disclosed what he makes at law firm Weitz & Luxenberg. more ›