Secretive Albany Makes it Hard to Probe Corruption: Feds

Federal prosecutors say that New York's state Senate has such secretive record keeping, it makes it difficult to investigate corruption.
    
In an interview with The New York Times, U.S. Attorney Andrew Baxter said Senate policies make it easy for lawmakers to hide conflicts of interest.
    
He says they are required to disclose very little about their personal business interests and can obscure their role in awarding lucrative state grants known as ``member items.''
    
Baxter says that with so much money at stake, it would make sense to have a more transparent system where people could see where state funds were going and why.
    
Senate ethics rules have been scrutinized following the corruption conviction of former majority leader Joseph Bruno.