Curing Albany’s Corruption Epidemic: It’s Time for a Conflict-Free Legislature

In 2015, two of the three most powerful politicians in New York State government stood trial for corruption charges at the same time in the federal courthouse in Manhattan. The sentencings this month of former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to 12 years in prison, and of former Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos to five years in prison, have once again laid bare what has increasingly been described as Albany’s pervasive and persistent epidemic of corruption.