Lovett: Health Committee pol raises eyebrows with investments in drug firms

[proverbialwisdom]

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/lovett-heath-pol-big-money-drug-firms-article-1.2449907

Lovett: Health Committee pol raises eyebrows with investments in drug firms
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

by Kenneth Lovett
Monday, November 30, 2015, 2:30 AM

ALBANY — The head of the powerful Senate Health Committee has up to $130,000 in investments in pharmaceutical and other health-related companies, state records show.

Sen. Kemp Hannon (R-Nassau County) in 2014 invested in 14 companies that would fall under his committee’s purview.

By comparison, Assembly Health Committee Chairman Richard Gottfried (D-Manhattan) did not report owning any stock in health-related companies. In addition to his investments, Hannon over the past four years also received more than $420,000 from pharmaceutical and other medical interests, records show.

Hannon’s office had no comment. On the part of his 2014 state financial disclosure form dealing with investments, he wrote that sales and purchases were “at sole discretion of the broker.”

While seemingly legal, the senator’s investments and the campaign contributions he received from the medical community have raised eyebrows at a time when how Albany does business is under legal scrutiny.

Two former top legislative leaders, Assemblyman Sheldon Silver and Sen. Dean Skelos, are facing prison after being charged separately with using their offices for personal gain.

“Given the attention placed on the self-dealing that exists in Albany with these trials, it would be best if Sen. Hannon would divest from these companies,” said Dick Dadey, executive director of Citizens Union, a reform group.

Dadey argued that lawmakers should operate without even an appearance of impropriety.

“These investments show that he has a personal stake in how the state handles health care policy,” he said. “He’s an important player that should not be seen as benefiting personally from the decisions he’s a part of.”

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http://www.wnyc.org/people/dick-dadey/
http://www.nydailynews.com/authors?author=Dick-Dadey

Related: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141245200

[mpcamb]

1. There's an option for a Constitutional Covention in New York State every 10 years.

It a ballot vote that gets turned down every decade in New York despite having this Swiss cheese of a state government that's riddled with rats.
It's time to change the "3 men in a room" program and make some reforms.
(2 of the 3 are mentioned in the article- Sheldon Silver and Dean Skelos, are hopefully headed for prison terms. The third is Andrew Cuomo who scuttled the Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption when it began investigating HIM. So he disbanded the commision back in 2014, claiming it as part of the Executive and consequently his to do as he pleased with.
He might be next in that line.)


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moreland_Commission_to_Investigate_Public_Corruption