While the federal corruption trial of former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver took a pause today in honor of Veterans Day, good government groups seized the opportunity to call for ethics reform in Albany. As State House Reporter Zack Fink tells us, critics are trying to use the trials of the two former state leaders as a platform for change.

Standing in the shadow of the federal courthouse where former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is on trial for corruption, good government groups called for immediate action on ethics reform in Albany.

"We await a verdict as to whether what Sheldon Silver did was illegal," said Dick Dadey of the Citizen's Union. "But what we do know in seeing the details going forth is that what he did was at the very least questionable and at the worst criminal. And no doubt unethical."

Next week, a second federal corruption trial for former Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos is set to get underway across the street from Silver.

This week, the national Center for Public Integrity gave New York State a grade of D-minus for its susceptibility to corruption and lack of meaningful reform.

Reformers say a good place to start is making the legislators full time, forbidding them to make any outside income. That bad is something Republicans in the state Senate have long opposed.

"The issues in which are legislators must deal with are complex," said Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York. "The budget in New York State is bigger than the budget of many independent countries. And we think that they should be full time, fully focused on the work of the people of New York."

In 2011, Cuomo's first year in office, the legislature established the Joint Commission on Public Ethics or JCOPE. The commission has since been panned by critics as ineffective.

"They just need to be given more authority," Dadey said. "A bigger budget. And a changed structure in order to do their job effectively. Let's not lose sight of the fact that both Dean Skelos and Shelly Silver were two of the thre architects that created JCOPE."

Last month, Cuomo ruled out a special legsilative session later this year to tackle ethics reform.

"I've never heard anyone put it in to rule it out," Cuomo said.

In the last 15 years, 31 elected officials in New York State have been driven from office due to corruption. If Silver and Skelos are convicted in their respective trials that number jumps to 33.