Gov's Ethics Reform Kaput

ALBANY -- Legislative leaders were privately calling Gov. Paterson's hastily prepared ethics-reform proposal dead on arrival yesterday after the Democratic governor failed to consult with them on the plan.

Most contentious was a provision that would give a single ethics panel jurisdiction over the Legislature as well as the executive branch.

Sources said Paterson made no attempt to get lawmakers on board with the plan before announcing it.

The proposed ethics overhaul follows an inspector general's report on May 13 that accused the chief of the Commission on Public Integrity of leaking details about the probe into former Gov. Eliot Spitzer's misuse of the State Police.

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