To the Editor:

Pay-to-play refers to individuals, businesses, or organizations making campaign contributions to public officials and receiving paybacks in return. These paybacks include lucrative county contracts, influence over legislation, and political appointments.

I, along with my fellow Albany County Legislator Christine Benedict, a Republican from Colonie, have introduced a local law proposal that we hope will eliminate pay-to-play activities in county government. It’s the first of several initiatives we will be bringing forth to make county government more transparent and responsive.

Our proposal limits the amount of contributions that can be made to elected officials within county government by individuals, businesses, or organizations doing business with Albany County. These limits are $150 to legislators and $250 to the county executive, coroner, clerk, district attorney, sheriff, and comptroller as well as candidates for these positions.

Under penalty of perjury, those seeking to do business with the county must submit a statement that they haven’t violated this law, and haven’t made contributions through third parties or relatives for the purpose of concealing a contribution’s source.

Anyone filing a false sworn statement will have their contract with Albany County void and will be disqualified from being awarded any contract for four years.

We must clean up government at all levels. My fellow legislators and I have submitted this as a first step in Albany County government reform. We are fortunate that we are receiving support from both Republican and Democrat legislators in this initiative.

We want our citizens and businesses to know that they do not have to write big checks to certain individuals holding public office in order to receive jobs or contracts. Our nation was founded on fairness and equality for all our citizens. It’s now time to bring that philosophy back to Albany County government.

Deborah Busch

Berne

Editor’s note: Deborah Busch, a Republican representing a portion of the Hilltowns in the Albany County Legislature, is a sponsor of a proposed local law dealing with contributions. The proposal is in the Law Committee.