Cuomo watch: Lopez will test ethics panel

The Vito Lopez scandal apparently isn't the first matter involving a state legislator that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's new ethics panel will handle. But it's the biggest test to date for the Joint Commission on Public Ethics.

Before Cuomo got lawmakers to agree to create the commission in 2011, the legislature was policed by its own ethics committees. With the commission, an ethics agency led by the governor's appointees has -- for the first time -- jurisdiction to investigate legislators.

The panel is led by former Cuomo aides.-- Yancey Roy