It's an inside look at how the money game is played in Albany.
Eyewitness News investigators spent weeks looking at campaign contributions to state lawmakers and found a loop-hole large enough to funnel millions of bucks through.
There's been a lot of talk among politicians at the capitol about campaign finance reform.
But it really is just talk. The money from big businesses seeking access to power still flows freely, thanks to self-serving lawmakers and their loopholes.
5 comments:
Miles Mullin
said...
The thing I do not understand is why this is acceptable?
In previous generations, there would be moral outrage.
But today, every pillar of that influence is ridiculed,
from snidely regarded little old ladies of the DAR, to churches, alleged Archie Bunkers,
to whole segments of society that want to do nothing more than make money and spend it on a gauche display on objects of poor taste.
But since we live in an age of sports and entertainment personalities who are now setting the moral code,
and an international cosmopolitanism where culture and religion is a grab bag of bits n pieces,
and popular culture is a celebration of the ignorant and lowbrow,
it might begin to explain the wasteland of politics and the abuse in the workplace and housing.
Even more distressing, it may express our aversion to acknowledging, let alone doing, anything about it.
This will not be a golden age to the future, but a shameful time.
The sum of us all is, if we can truly enjoy the gift of Heaven, let us become the virtuous people; then shall we both deserve and enjoy it. While, on the other hand, if we are universally vicious and debauched in our manners, though the form of our Constitution carries the face of the most exalted freedom, we shall in reality be the most abject slaves. - Samuel Adams
New York State's campaign finance laws are a joke! I may sound like a broken record, but the only way to begin to fix the problems in Albany is full public financing of public elections or "Clean Elections"!
I don't think you'll find much protest with that sentiment, Steve. I liken such laws to stopping a pitted leaking dike with ones fingers. Block one hole, another leak springs up. Doesn't matter how many fingers you have manning the dike, eventually water will leak through some other hole.
As a lawyer and a politician, I'd be interested in your views of the recent Citizen United vs. FEC ruling. Any thoughts you'd care to share?
5 comments:
The thing I do not understand is why this is acceptable?
In previous generations, there would be moral outrage.
But today, every pillar of that influence is ridiculed,
from snidely regarded little old ladies of the DAR, to churches, alleged Archie Bunkers,
to whole segments of society that want to do nothing more than make money and spend it on a gauche display on objects of poor taste.
But since we live in an age of sports and entertainment personalities who are now setting the moral code,
and an international cosmopolitanism where culture and religion is a grab bag of bits n pieces,
and popular culture is a celebration of the ignorant and lowbrow,
it might begin to explain the wasteland of politics and the abuse in the workplace and housing.
Even more distressing, it may express our aversion to acknowledging, let alone doing, anything about it.
This will not be a golden age to the future, but a shameful time.
One has to wonder what the real reasons are behind the pressure on Gov. Paterson to step down.
The sum of us all is, if we can truly enjoy the gift of Heaven, let us become the virtuous people; then shall we both deserve and enjoy it. While, on the other hand, if we are universally vicious and debauched in our manners, though the form of our Constitution carries the face of the most exalted freedom, we shall in reality be the most abject slaves.
- Samuel Adams
Virtue is not hereditary.
- Thomas Jefferson
New York State's campaign finance laws are a joke! I may sound like a broken record, but the only way to begin to fix the problems in Albany is full public financing of public elections or "Clean Elections"!
http://www.beharfornewyork.com/eliminate-special-interests-in-elections.html
I don't think you'll find much protest with that sentiment, Steve. I liken such laws to stopping a pitted leaking dike with ones fingers. Block one hole, another leak springs up. Doesn't matter how many fingers you have manning the dike, eventually water will leak through some other hole.
As a lawyer and a politician, I'd be interested in your views of the recent Citizen United vs. FEC ruling. Any thoughts you'd care to share?
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