How the crooks slither in
Make room for one more in Albany’s packed rogues’ gallery, a low achiever even by the dismal standards of the crook-infested state Legislature — and a case study in how New York elections are rigged to put the undeserving in office. A federal grand jury charges that Brooklyn Assemblywoman Pamela Harris for four years vacuumed up public dollars for her personal benefit.
Harris stands indicted of stealing from the government even before winning as a Democrat in a 2015 special election, pocketing City Council funds designated for the nonprofit she ran, and still more once she sat in public office.
In fraud brazen for a representative of a district devastated by Hurricane Sandy, she’s also charged with deceiving federal relief agencies that she had been flooded out of her Coney Island home — and then submitting fake documents to the city’s Build It Back program for yet another payday.
Hold on, not done yet. She’s also facing prosecution for allegedly lying to a bankruptcy judge about her finances and instructing witnesses to lie to FBI agents investigating her schemes.
Harris, though innocent until proven guilty, is credibly charged with crimes betraying the public trust. She must immediately step down.
Fat chance of that, in an Assembly whose Democrats first urged Sheldon Silver to stay on as speaker following his 2015 corruption indictment, and even after his demotion let him linger like a bad odor until conviction (since vacated pending his retrial) compelled his departure months later.
Letting indicted crooks cling to power only invites further criminality. Just ask now-imprisoned former Assemblyman William Boyland, who survived a federal bribery trial, only to get caught on a wire plotting further graft.
It just keeps happening, doesn’t it — with the help of collaborators ushering aspiring crooks through the wide-open door of special elections.
Three years ago, Harris was as good as installed by Brooklyn party apparatchiks, handed the Democratic Party line for the seat being vacated by Alec Brook-Krasny “to take a job in the private sector” — a taxpayer-leeching Medicaid mill, as it turned out (he’s facing trial, too).
Same happens in the Senate. This cancer of criminality will keep reproducing itself until the Legislature changes how vacant seats are filled in between regularly scheduled elections.
One way: Follow the City Council’s practice, and open the ballot to all comers; the most popular win.The other way: require a primary by the district’s voters, who then have the opportunity to choose the most promising newcomer.
No more back-room deals and the stink that comes with them.