Assemblyman Ken Blankenbush, who represents much of southern St. Lawrence County, is calling on the next speaker to adhere to meaningful legislative ethics reforms.

Democrats were expected to name Carl Heastie, of the Bronx, as the new speaker at morning vote today. He would replace long-time Speaker Sheldon Silver, who resigned Monday after being charged with extortion and fraud.

“New Yorkers have been waiting far too long for reforms, their trust in government has been violated over and over again by elected officials who break our laws and take advantage of their positions of power,” said Blankenbush in a prepared statement.

“When the Democrats select a new speaker, that person must take advantage of this opportunity to hit the restart button and adopt strong ethics reforms that take a no-tolerance stance on politicians engaging in criminal activities, set term limits for leadership positions such as speaker, and fairly distribute resources among legislators so residents, especially upstate, are fairly represented.”

Blankenbush is a sponsor of several reform measures, including the Public Officers Accountability Act and a pension forfeiture bill.

These pieces of legislation would create new crimes and stronger punishments for breaking public officers’ laws, felon politicians would lose their pensions, set term limits of leadership positions in the legislature, and stronger campaign finance reforms among others.

Blankenbush represents the 117th assembly district, which includes the St. Lawrence County towns of DeKalb, Gouverneur, Hermon, Russell, Edwards, Fowler and Pitcairn.