Western New York lawmaker settles into key ethics role in Albany

ALBANY – When newly elected Assembly Member Karen McMahon arrived at the State Capitol in January 2019, years of notorious corruption cases involving New York State legislators had just begun to subside.

As the Amherst Democrat settles into a new role chairing two ethics panels, she says the corruptionless trend has only continued – even if the stigma from that sordid history remains. In an interview with The Buffalo News, McMahon said she has not encountered the corruption-related issues that less than a decade ago made ethical reform in Albany sound like a punchline.

“Everybody knows that there’s this kind of checkered history in Albany and still people think. ‘Oh, it’s so corrupt.’ I don’t find it to be that way,” said McMahon, who worked as a federal law clerk and in private practice