Again, Albany?
Eastern Long Island’s own State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle came out of a closed-door meeting on Monday night to express the Republican conference’s confidence in Dean Skelos following the Senate leader’s arrest on extortion and bribery charges. By one measure, Mr. LaValle was just doing his job as the conference chairman, but by another, his business-as-usual statement is an indication of just how inured to tales of corruption the New York State capital has become.
The allegations against Senator Skelos paint a picture of graft intended to benefit Adam B. Skelos, the senator’s son, though, if convicted, both could serve time in prison. According to a Federal Bureau of Investigation complaint, the men obtained payments from two related companies with an understanding that Senator Skelos would use his position on their behalf.
But Mr. LaValle’s G.O.P. should by no means be singled out. One of the companies named in the complaint is known in Albany for making large campaign contributions to both Republican and Democratic legislators, including Sheldon Silver, the former Democratic Assembly leader, who was arrested in February on fraud and abuse of office charges, leading to his resignation from the powerful speaker’s post. According to federal prosecutors, Mr. Silver, one of the state’s most powerful officials, whose influence was only surpassed by the governor’s, received at least $4 million in kickbacks from real estate developers. In recent campaign filings, Mr. LaValle acknowledged receiving $62,500 in contributions from the companies implicated with Mr. Skelos.
It should not be overlooked that the recent allegations come from matters that had begun to draw attention from the Moreland Commission, an anticorruption probe shut down abruptly by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, apparently as it began to draw near his allies. The United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara, has picked up the threads of the commission’s work.
Related and also troubling is that the man who replaced Mr. Silver, Assemblyman Carl E. Heastie, has been implicated in inappropriately enriching himself in the sale of a Bronx apartment that his mother bought using money embezzled from a charity where she had worked. In Mr. Heastie’s case, The New York Times reporters who broke the story said the “carelessness of those involved could be to blame, or something more questionable could have occurred given the Bronx Democratic Party’s influence on the court system and its long history of back-room deal-making.” It is, frankly, surprising that this has not had greater effect. Mr. Heastie has not been charged with any wrongdoing, but the matter calls his fitness to lead the State Assembly, if not continue to be a public servant, into sharp question.
As to Mr. Skelos’s future, Mr. LaValle, according to The Times, said Monday that he should be allowed a “presumption of innocence” and stay on as Senate leader. We disagree. If he is exonerated, Mr. Skelos could seek to return to the post, but while the charges are pending, he should step aside. Mr. LaValle and the Republican conference only bring suspicion and embarrassment upon themselves by refusing to accept the obvious.