Bronx politicians vow to reform Albany

Local elected officials are helping lead the debate on reforming ethics in Albany following the January arrest of Assemblyman Sheldon Silver, a development that rocked the state political establishment as it prompted Mr. Silver to resign as speaker.

The debate will be academic if Democrats cannot persuade Senate Republicans, who have voiced opposition to proposals like curbing lawmakers’ outside income, to budge.

Nevertheless, Bronx state Senators Jeff Klein and Gustavo Rivera recently proposed ethics reforms that have drawn applause from good government groups even while putting the officials at odds with one another. They disagree on the issue of legislators’ outside income.

On Feb. 9, the Democratic Conference announced 12 bills with reforms ranging from creating a public campaign finance system for state elections to a requirement to identify people who organize and “bundle” campaign donations from multiple sources. Mr. Rivera authored the latter bill. He also supports his conference’s call to limit lawmakers’ outside income to 15 percent of their total salaries.

“The idea here is we want to make sure we know who our elected officials are working for,” Mr. Rivera said of his bill to disclose bundles of campaign funds.

On Feb. 10, Mr. Klein’s group of breakaway Democrats, which have a coalition with majority Republicans, released four proposals — including a complete ban on outside income for legislators. The senator, whose 34th district includes Riverdale, said he is leaving his own law practice in order to “lead by example.”

Mr. Rivera, whose 33rd district includes part of Kingsbridge, said outside income is a problem when the identities of people paying legislators are unknown. In 2013, Mr. Klein, Republican state Sen. Majority Leader Dean Skelos and Mr. Silver fought subpoenas from the Moreland Commission on Public Corruption for the client lists of law offices that employed lawmakers, saying the subpoenas marked overreach by the executive branch.