Green Party of New York State
www.gpny.org

For immediate release: March 18, 2015
For More Info: Howie Hawkins, hhawkins@igc.org, 315 425-1019
Peter LaVenia, mactyler42@yahoo.com, (518) 495-8001

Green Party Slams Democrats’ Ethics Deal as a “Bandaid”

The Green Party said today that the Democrats deal on ethics reform is too little too late and will not end the culture of corruption that dominates Albany.

“We want to end the various forms of legalized bribery in Albany, not require more disclosure of it. We need to prohibit those lobbying politicians or getting state contracts from making campaign donations. We should end donations all together with a full public campaign finance system. And we need to prohibit state legislators from getting outside income,” said Howie Hawkins, the recent Green Party candidate for Governor.

“At the core of this is New York politics and its pay to play culture. We need a system of full public campaign financing alongside reforms to eliminate private donations that are the source of much government corruption. Alongside this we need a legislature whose members focus on legislating, not steering money and contracts to campaign donors and clients. Let those who prefer money to the public good remain outside politics,” added Hawkins.

Governor Cuomo and Assembly speaker Carl Heastie announced today that the Democrats have struck a deal on ethics reform. The deal does not include the Senate Republicans.

“Having a website devoted to outside income won’t stop corruption any more than the BOE website for campaign donations does. Clients can also funnel money through party and leadership PACs,” said Peter LaVenia, chair of the Green Party’s legislative committee.

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