Assemblyman Christopher Friend’s (R,C,I-Big Flats) Public Officers Accountability Act (A.3945) was recently shot down by the Assembly Majority in the Assembly Committee on Governmental Operations. The legislation, if enacted, would impose some of the most stringent ethics and government reform laws in the country.

“It is pure cowardice that the Assembly Majority would rather allow the Public Officers Accountability Act to die in committee than allow it to come to a vote on the assembly floor. This legislation would instill some serious and meaningful ethics reforms, and one can only conclude the Majority leadership does not want those reforms applied to them,” said Friend. “Decades of misdeeds have done much to unravel the public trust and we must be doing everything we possibly can to restore it. My reform legislation would have been an important step.”