Pols are cool to Gov. Paterson's plan on tightening Albany ethics laws

ALBANY - State lawmakers are giving Gov. Paterson's proposal to toughen enforcement of ethics laws a chilly reception.

Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith (D-Queens) and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) Tuesday offered to do little more than review the plan and hold hearings.

"He must be smoking again," a Senate Democrat quipped after the governor unveiled his plan.

Silver was noncommittal on the plan, particularly on a proposal to have one agency oversee the executive and legislative branches, a concept he has rejected.

"We're open to change," Silver said. "We will examine all of those issues as we go forward."

Smith welcomed the governor to make a "presentation" at one of three planned Senate hearings on ethics reform.

Yet he noted the Senate was moving ahead with its version of reforms.

Paterson's plan would scrap the much-maligned Public Integrity Commission and the Legislative Ethics Commission. It would create a Government Ethics Commission, whose five members would be picked by an independent committee, rather than the governor and lawmakers.

"This perception that we are reviewing ourselves just doesn't work," Paterson said.

Paterson's proposal comes two weeks after state Inspector General Joseph Fisch blasted the Public Integrity Commission's handling of the Troopergate scandal.

Fisch accused its then-executive director, Herbert Teitelbaum, of leaking information to members of the Spitzer administration. Troopergate was a Spitzer administration plot to use the state police to smear a political opponent.

Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research Group applauded Paterson's proposal but cautioned that he still needed to review the legislation.

A proposed Senate plan would also create a single agency to police the legislative and executive branches, but the governor and lawmakers would pick the members.

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