Westchester County lawmakers consider legislation requiring candidates to file a truthful resume
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. - The George Santos controversy is inspiring a lot of jokes on the late night talk shows.
It's also inspiring legislation in Westchester County to hold candidates to a truthful standard.
Santos has been hounded by the media, and is facing calls to resign after being caught in a web of lies about virtually every facet of his life.
"For those of us who take the business of government seriously, it is pretty awful," said Westchester County Board Chair Catherine Borgia. "People have the right to know who they are voting for."
The Westchester County Board of Legislators will soon consider a law requiring candidates for county board and county executive to file a resume about their education, work history and military service, then sign a paper attesting to its veracity.
"And then you certify that these things are true and you swear under penalty of filing a false public document," said Westchester County Executive George Latimer.
Latimer says the goal is to create a baseline of truth about the experience of candidates for county office, while acknowledging it would not have caught all of Santos's mistruths.
"He asserted his ethnicity. We wouldn't expect anyone to state what their ethnicity is, or their religion, or whether or not their mom passed away on 9/11, or whether or not they were on a volleyball team. That would not normally come up on a standard resume. But obviously where there's a significant amount of smoke, there's fire," Latimer said.
"It is intended to raise the standard for people telling the truth about their experiences," Borgia said.
As the legislation's being developed, the county is looking into whether the resume filing requirement can be applied to other offices, including county clerk and district attorney.
