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by Eric Schneiderman
It has been an honor serving the people of the Upper West Side, Hamilton Heights, Washington Heights, Inwood, Marble Hill and Riverdale as a lawmaker for the last 12 years.
Despite many challenges, we have been able to accomplish a lot. I’m proud to have fought for smart crime policies to keep our streets safe and our communities whole. I led the charge to expel a corrupt state senator for the first time in modern history, wrote the most sweeping ethics reform legislation in a generation, and fought to protect our tax dollars by passing the toughest enforcement legislation in the nation to target waste, fraud and abuse in government.
Throughout my career, I've always sought to fight crime and corruption wherever it exists. I've done so as an attorney and as a lawmaker, and now I hope to continue this work as Attorney General.
Investor scams, mortgage fraud and insurance industry abuses are ripping off New Yorkers and devastating communities in every corner of our state.
New Yorkers have been fortunate to have Andrew Cuomo as our Attorney General – protecting working New Yorkers against the banks, insurance companies and big corporations.
I will build on his work, and take on corrupt businesses when they engage in crooked practices. I will also fight to achieve systemic reforms.
If you have faith in the public sector, as I do, you must be the harshest critic of corruption, waste and fraud in government. As Attorney General, I will fight to restore transparency, honesty and accountability to the public sector to give New Yorkers the government they deserve.
Let's start by putting public integrity officers in every regional office across the state to prosecute corruption in state institutions, and serve as watchdogs for local governments as well.
Communities all across New York, from here to Buffalo, from Albany to Newburgh, from the Rochester to Brooklyn have been plagued by the epidemic of gun violence. Recently, I toured Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo to talk about my plan to keep our streets safe and our communities whole. That includes a high-tech, multi-state plan to fight illegal guns and gangs – an "I-95" coalition of state attorneys general, and state and local law enforcement agencies, to share and track data on gun crimes and illegal gun sales among states.
I understand why people are frustrated. People are sick of a political system that is driven by well-connected special interests, disillusioned by an economic system that has one set of rules for the powerful and another for everyone else and anxious due to a financial crisis that has devastated communities upstate and down, leaving confidence in our institutions at an all time low.
This is not the time for small ideas, sitting on the sidelines or going along to get along; it's time to think big.
I look forward to zealously representing the people of the 31st Senate district as Attorney General. I won't rest in the effort to make these big ideas a reality for our community.
Eric Schneiderman
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