Originally Published: February 3, 2015
Good government group pleased to hear his public interest in ethics and compensation reform
Statement By Dick Dadey, Executive Director
Citizens Union congratulates Assemblymember Carl Heastie in securing the support of his Assembly colleagues and being elected as the first person of color to serve as Speaker of the New York State Assembly. It is an important milestone in New York’s history that is to be embraced and celebrated. The challenges ahead of him and his Assembly colleagues are many as they try to rebuild some measure of public trust given the crime wave of corruption that defines our state government today.
We are pleased to hear Speaker Heastie address the problems plaguing the Assembly and pledge to reform legislative compensation, tackle outside income, and bring a welcomed level of new transparency and power sharing to the operation of the NYS Assembly.
We look forward to working with him to strengthen state government ethics. We share his desire to more appropriately compensate our state legislators – many of whom work very hard in only serving the public interest – as we reform the per diem system and the earning of outside income.