Wall Street Journal
By Erica Orden
December 14, 2015
A
slight majority of New York registered voters oppose allowing Syrian
refugees into the country at this time, according to a poll due out
Monday.
That
position puts them on the side of several GOP presidential candidates
and some Republican governors who have opposed allowing such migrants
into the U.S. since the
terror attacks in San Bernardino, Calif., but at odds with New York
Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
Fifty-two
percent of respondents to the Siena College poll said they oppose
allowing in Syrian refugees right now, while 39% said they support
allowing Syrian migrants
to enter the country. Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, has said that rejecting
such refugees would be akin to “conceding defeat of the American dream.”
The
poll also found that nearly 90% of New Yorkers are at least somewhat
concerned that another terrorist attack will take place in New York in
the near future.
New Yorkers also have another concern on their minds: public corruption.
Nearly
50% of poll respondents followed the federal trials of former New York
state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and former state Senate Majority
Leader Dean Skelos,
both recently prosecuted by the office of Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet
Bharara, at least somewhat closely.
And
a large majority of voters, 83%, said they agreed with the guilty
verdict on all seven counts, including honest-services fraud, extortion
and money laundering, for
Mr. Silver. The poll was conducted Dec. 6-10, after the conviction Mr.
Silver and before the conviction—but during the trial—of Mr. Skelos and
his son.
Eighty-nine
percent of New Yorkers believe public corruption is a serious problem
in the state, the poll found, and while 83% of respondents said they
believe Mr. Silver’s
conviction is an important step toward cleaning up Albany, few believe
that verdict or the convictions of other elected officials will persuade
lawmakers to behave ethically.
Rather,
61% believe that though Mr. Silver was prosecuted for and found guilty
of such crimes, “the next guy will do the same just more carefully.” And
64% of voters said
Albany must pass new ethics laws to prevent public officials from
abusing their office for private gain.
Over
the years, Albany lawmakers have passed numerous revisions to the
ethics laws, and in the wake of the convictions of Messrs. Silver and
Skelos, many elected officials,
including Mr. Cuomo, have called for additional, stricter controls on
lawmakers.
Still,
there is significant skepticism about whether the Legislature and Mr.
Cuomo, who took office pledging to clean up Albany, will go far enough
in their efforts.
“We
must have zero tolerance for any violations of the public trust,” Mr.
Cuomo said Sunday. “I think we need an ambitious reform agenda that is
dramatic and relevant,”
he said, pinpointing the potential conflicts of interest that arise as a
result of the legislators’ outside employment as “the root of a lot of
this.”
Even so, Mr. Cuomo has declined to call for a full-time Legislature, saying lawmakers wouldn’t approve such a proposal.
The Siena poll surveyed 822 registered voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.
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