GOOD GOVERNANCE
Vittoria is not a career politician. She doesn’t owe anything to anyone in Albany. Our government's lack of transparency and accessibility allows for the outsized influence of powerful interests and big money. Our communities' needs are ignored in favor of profiteering and political favoritism. Vittoria has fought corruption throughout her legal career, and she will bring that fight to Albany.
As she has done since she became a Democratic District Leader, Vittoria will continue to hold her own Democratic party leaders to the highest standards of fairness and oppose back room deals. In 2017, Vittoria lead the charge to change the rules that allowed the New York (Manhattan) County party leader to hand a special election nomination to our current State Senator. Now, due to her leadership, the majority vote of Democratic County Committee members is binding on the County Leader in a special election nomination.
Two years later, Vittoria won a lawsuit against a County Leader to stop another attempt at disenfranchisement of its newly elected members. Subsequently, Vittoria represented Kings County Committee members whose own party bosses attempted to illegally pack the County Committee, thereby diluting reformers’ votes.
Vittoria also helped rewrite the ethics rules for both the New York State and County Democratic Committees that were woefully inadequate and lacked the necessary independence for an effective ethics review process. The new rules provide for independence from the leadership in the organizations, inclusion of all forms of sexual harassment and a fair process to determine potential violations.
Vittoria supports replacing the current Joint Commission on Public Ethics with a new ethics enforcement body that is truly independent from the Governor and political parties in the Legislature and has simplified rules and subpoena power to investigate misconduct.
Vittoria also supports reforming the New York election administration to limit the power of political parties to appoint and control election boards. She would ban political contributions from lobbyists and people who do business with the state.
Vittoria believes that the government should work for the people. She knows that strengthening our democratic systems gives our communities more power to determine what happens to us. In Albany, Vittoria will continue to fight for a government that is honest, fair and accountable to the people it is supposed to serve.