Statement On Reform Day From Sen. Valesky

Reform Day 2007 gives us a chance both to celebrate all that we have accomplished in recent months and to push forward ambitiously with the ongoing effort to make our state government more open, accessible and accountable. In the first four months of this year we adopted reforms in ethics and lobbying law, improved the school funding formula and passed solutions to a host of issues that had gone unresolved for too long, including workers' compensation and civil confinement.

Still, there is much more to be done when it comes to the reform agenda. Power in the legislature remains concentrated in the hands of a few, and legislative resources again have been unequally distributed based on politics instead of population. But on this Reform Day, I have hope that with continued leadership from the Governor’s office, we will push forward with real reforms that improve state government and enable us to address our state’s greatest challenges.