Albany, NY – In response to the end of this year’s legislative session, Karen Scharff, Executive Director of Citizen Action of New York, said:
“This legislative session ended the same way it began – with billionaire campaign donors running the show. Despite the arrests of the top two legislative leaders, our elected officials in Albany missed their opportunity to finally reform our campaign finance system and check the influence of money at the Capitol. Instead, Governor Cuomo and Senate Republicans caved to the same billionaire donors involved in the biggest bribery schemes in recent history.
“Fortunately, Speaker Heastie and the Assembly Democratic Conference stood strongly in support of New York public schools. With a movement of parents and students behind them, the Assembly fought back against a giveaway to billionaire private school donors and won.
“But inaction in the face of a housing crisis that’s forcing working New Yorkers to face the impossible situation of not being able to afford the most basic of needs – a roof over their heads – is inexcusable. The failure to strengthen rent control laws, while at the same time renewing massive tax breaks to luxury real estate developers, exposes whose interests Senate Republicans and the Governor are really representing in Albany.
“New Yorkers can’t afford another year of government by and for the wealthy and well connected. We won’t have a government that works for all of us until the leaders in Albany face the problem of money in politics head on and fundamentally change the rules.”
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