Politics & Elections

Governor Cuomo is calling on Assemblyman Vito Lopez, the subject of a scathing ethics commission report on sexual harassment, to resign from office or be expelled.
 
Cuomo, calling Lopez’s sexual harassment of at least four women, as portrayed in the state ethics report, “disturbing” and “ugly” and he says the Assemblyman should immediately resign, or the rest of the Assembly should move to get rid of him.
 
“The reaction form the legislature should be zero tolerance,” Cuomo said. “If he doesn’t resign, he should be expelled.”
 

The state ethics commission report on the Assemblyman Vito Lopez sexual harassment scandal might finally be made public later this month.
 
The Joint Commission on Public Ethics, or JCOPE, issued a report on its investigation into sexual harassment charges against Brooklyn Assemblyman Vito Lopez back in February. The report was also to address how Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and his aides handled the matter.
 

Nine more names of State Senators and others potentially involved in corruption were made public Wednesday, when a judge ordered prosecutors in the case of convicted ex- Senator Shirley Huntley to make public the names of  her colleagues that she had secretly recorded.
 

The state’s Attorney General and Assembly Speaker have proposed an early voting system for New York that they say can improve voter participation and democracy.
 
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman teamed up to press for New York to join 32 other states and allow early voting.  
 

Recent bribery scandals involving state legislators have fueled discussion on campaign finance reform at the Capitol, with several politicians and advocacy groups pressing for publicly financed campaigns.  But a key faction in the legislature, Republicans in the State Senate, remains opposed.