Preet Bharara has put his share of New York pols in handcuffs.
Even so, the US attorney has always insisted we can’t prosecute our way to honest government. In a speech to business leaders this week, Bharara endorsed a reform The Post has been pushing for years: forcing legislators to disclose not only their outside income but who’s paying them.
Bharara says the problem of “outside money” is murky in New York because politicians “can be associated with outside firms in a way that makes it very difficult to figure out what they’re getting for that pay when they’re otherwise legislators and supposed to be answering only to the people of their district and their state.”
The poster child for murkiness is Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. He serves “of counsel” to Weitz and Luxenberg, the state’s biggest trial-lawyer firm.
In 2013, he made between $650,000 and $750,000. But we don’t know who was paying him, because he’s not required to disclose his specific clients.
It may be the only bipartisan consensus in Albany. Senate Republican leader Dean Skelos also earns big bucks from a law firm without disclosing his clients.
Not surprisingly, both men bitterly resisted when the Moreland Commission moved to require legislators to make public this information. Alas, by shutting down Moreland before its work was finished, Gov. Cuomo killed this reform.
Bharara concluded with a call for a “no-tolerance policy” when it comes to insisting on these disclosures. We’re not likely to see it any time soon, but we’re sure glad to have the US attorney making our point.