"���hw��f" <
snuhwo...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:kn8l0v$kip$1...@news.datemas.de...--
--
Unforgivable Conduct in Albany
The degrading abuse of at least eight women, as outlined in a harrowing
ethics report released on Wednesday, should enrage members of the Assembly
enough to expel Mr. Lopez from public office immediately, not wait for his
promised resignation in June. Assembly Democrats should also seize the
opportunity to remove Mr. Silver from a leadership post he has occupied
since 1994 and is clearly no longer fit to hold. It should not be beyond
their capacities to find an honorable leader who cares more about the public
than about Albany's seedy status quo.
We know that Democratic Assembly members are scared witless by the thought
of challenging Mr. Silver. After a challenger failed in 2000, Mr. Silver
made certain that the rival and his followers also lost power, money and
office space. But the Lopez case demands a response, even from timid
Democrats. It demonstrates not only Mr. Silver's customary imperiousness but
a long-standing moral blindness to the way powerful men around him
intimidate and sexually harass young women working in the Capitol.
In 2006, after two women had accused one of Mr. Silver's staff members of
sexual assault, Mr. Silver and the Assembly leadership authorized a $500,000
payment to settle a lawsuit accusing the speaker of tolerating a culture of
sexual harassment. The aide later pleaded guilty.
Since then, Mr. Silver has toughened the sexual harassment policy
considerably. But the report this week from the state's Joint Commission on
Public Ethics and a more limited investigation by the Staten Island district
attorney, Daniel Donovan Jr., show the same kind of protective instincts at
play. After two of the women made their accusations about Mr. Lopez, Mr.
Silver agreed to a confidential payment of $100,000 in taxpayer funds - an
act he now says he regrets.
When word of the deal leaked out, Mr. Silver's staff said everything had
been kept confidential to protect the women's privacy. The real reason, the
report says, was to keep the women quiet and protect the institution. After
the Assembly moved the women to other jobs, Mr. Lopez found two new
attractive young women to replace them. Those women then filed complaints a
few months later, charging that Mr. Lopez had ordered them to wear no bras
and shorter skirts and pressured them to go on trips, even asking "one bed -
yes or no?" He threatened to demote one of them if she resisted.
What is truly infuriating is that Mr. Silver certainly knew of Mr. Lopez's
abuse of women when the settlement was paid and should have demanded his
resignation at that time. It was not until the second wave of complaints
last July that Mr. Silver's staff did the right thing and forwarded them to
the Assembly's ethics committee. Mr. Lopez was eventually censured and
stripped of his committee chairmanship, perks and staff.
Given the latest report, that is not good enough. Mr. Lopez should be
expelled from the Assembly now. And Mr. Silver - whose colleagues made
last-minute efforts to redact critical details from the report - should be
replaced as speaker. Enough.