Freshmen lawmakers back stripping pensions from felon colleagues
Jordan Carleo-Evangelist, Staff Writer
Every freshmen member of the Assembly — including six Capital Region lawmakers from both parties — has signed on to a bill that would strip public officials convicted of felony corruption of their pensions, the bill’s sponsor said Wednesday.
The broadening support for the bill among those who traditionally have the least amount of influence in the Legislature, while symbolic, is far from a guarantee that it will ever become law.
But the renewed push for the measure comes as yet another one of their own, Brooklyn Assemblyman William Boyland Jr., awaits a verdict in his federal corruption trial.
Dueling Senate versions of the legislation — one sponsored by Bethlehem Democrat Neil Breslin — leave its future uncertain. A similar measure was among a package of ethics reforms backed by the minority Senate Democrats that stalled in the chamber last year.
http://blog.timesunion.com/capitol/archives/207604/freshmen-lawmakers-back-stripping-pensions-from-felon-colleagues/