Albany Money Flows to Clients of Firms Employing Legislators
15th June 2011
Over the past five years, New York State has awarded more than $7.4 billion in contracts to clients of law firms that employ state legislators, according to a review of court filings and other records.
The surprise here is that the New York Times bothered to mention it, since it’s universal knowledge and since the overwhelming majority of corrupt legislators are Democrats, beloved of the New York Times.
This may also be marked down as further evidence that lawyers ought to be disabled from serving as legislators. The classic argument for preferring lawyers as legislators is that it promotes well-formed laws, but recent history shows that, on the contrary, having lawyers as legislators tends to facilitate overly complex and virtually opaque laws, making more work for … wait for it … lawyers.