ALBANY — Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver yesterday defended his decision to be featured as the “honored guest” at a fund-raiser for the chairman of a legislative ethics panel reviewing Silver’s hush settlement of Vito Lopez’s alleged sexual harassment of young staffers.
“The speaker, as leader of the Democratic conference, routinely allows members to use his name for fund-raising purposes,” his spokesman, Michael Whyland, told The Post.
The fund-raiser next week is for Assemblyman Charles Lavine (D-LI), who notes on the invite that he chairs the Assembly Ethics Committee, one of two legislative committees weighing possible sanctions against Lopez and Silver.
NY Post: Chad Rachman
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver
The same committee must also decide whether to release a report by the Joint Commission on Public Ethics, the state’s ethics watchdog, on the case.
Staten Island DA Dan Donovan, the appointed special prosecutor for the case, has asked the committees not to release JCOPE’s report until his team concludes its criminal investigations.
Silver approved a $103,800 “confidential” Assembly payment to settle harassment claims that two female staffers had brought against Lopez.
Silver later stripped Lopez of his leadership duties and called for him to resign after a separate ethics probe concluded that Lopez groped and abused two other female staffers.
Government-watchdog groups say the timing of the fund-raiser is suspect and gives the appearance that Lavine, rather than being an independent monitor, is beholden to Silver.
“The fact that it’s just business as usual is not the standard we want applied,” said Susan Lerner of Common Cause New York. “There is a pervasive culture in Albany that upsets most New Yorkers, that their elected representatives don’t see this as a problem.”
Lerner said her group is closely watching the Lopez case to see if the creation of JCOPE was an adequate measure for enforcing government ethics.
“We have concern that it’s not sufficiently removed from [Silver’s] appointed control,” she said.
Silver’s spokesman insisted the fund-raising has nothing to do with the investigation.
“We’re confident that the commission has found no legal or ethical violation by Speaker Silver or his staff,” Whyland said.
Silver said he hadn’t seen the report. By law, it would have been released to him had he been the target of the investigation, sources told The Post.
bdefalco@nypost.com
Shel biz as usual
This article
Shel biz as usual
can be opened in url
http://livestockernews.blogspot.com/2013/03/shel-biz-as-usual.html
Shel biz as usual
