For IMMEDIATE Release: May 24, 2016Contact: Michael Krogh, 518-455-5502

COMMITTEE FAILS TO ADVANCE PENSION FORFEITURE BILL

Assemblyman Dan Stec (R,C,I-Queensbury) has championed ethics reform since taking office in 2012. This week, Stec’s legislation to strip pension and retirement benefits from corrupt officials, Assembly Bill 4643, failed to advance in the Governmental Employees Committee. With only 10 days of session remaining, this meeting represented the first opportunity that any ethics reform bill was voted on this year.

“In 2015, hardworking New York taxpayers paid over a million dollars toward the pensions of corrupt officials,” said Stec. “The distrust of government officials is embarrassing, and nothing is being done about it.”

In the past, Stec has introduced legislation to replace the Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE) with an independent oversight panel and create a new crime for failure to report corruption. Stec also cosponsored legislation with Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin (R,C,I-Troy) to limit political contributions from companies bidding on government contracts, reduce maximum contributions to candidates and political committees, and impose eight-year term limits on legislative leaders

Stec works hard, using multiple mediums to communicate with his constituents, and time and again, the number one issue on their minds is ethics reform. In person and on social media, people are engaged and angry that Albany hasn’t delivered on this issue.

“Corruption in Albany has become a larger issue than jobs, economy, affordable housing and taxation, but there seems to be no sense of urgency among legislative leaders here in Albany,” said Stec. “My ethics reform legislation does not benefit Republicans or Democrats; it benefits the public for whom we work.”

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