Home Page > Editorial and Op-Ed
Time To Fill In The Empty Reforms
Forethought
Mon, 24 Aug 2009 09:14:00
After so many years of reflexively deriding Albany as the most dysfunctional legislature in the country, the phrase can seem like journalistic hyperbole. Laughing at some of the foibles of New York’s elected officials can be easy, especially when the people involved seem as if they belong to an earlier era when government served more as a patronage mill for the loyal than an honest broker for the citizenry.
Now, all New Yorkers can do is cringe and hope their friends around the country do not notice how meaningless the supposed reforms touted as the justification for the absurd coup have been revealed to be, and how quickly. The hiring of Majority Leader Pedro Espada’s son to a $120,000-per-year job created and given to the younger Espada only after his father agreed to end the chaos that he started was the easiest for the public imagination to latch onto, and with good reason. The sad thing, though, is how narrow a tip of the iceberg this was.
The instigators of the coup were awarded rich lulus. Another $200,000 was awarded in raises to various staffers. In a time when most New Yorkers are pinching pennies to make ends meet, legislators have beaten the state treasury like a piñata, sweeping every dollar into their pockets. Of course, Albany has been doing this for years, lavishing taxpayer dollars on member items and personal perks that benefit the public little. The difference here is that New Yorkers were promised reform over and over again.
There was no open and transparent budget process in the spring. There was no equal and fair distribution of member items. There was no implementation of the reforms presented by the committed that were belatedly recommended to the Senate majority.
Then came the coup. None of that was about power, said the revolutionaries. They were out for the reforms. Yet still, despite the leadership changes and new titles, little has been done.
They could not even hold to the promise of having legislation move fairly through the floor, as they vowed would come from Espada’s return to the fold. A bill could now pass if a majority of members supported it, like a real, grown-up legislative body. So of course, when the Assembly’s mayoral control for New York City schools bill came before the Senate, New Yorkers were right to assume that its prospects were good, given that all of the Republicans and a majority of the Democrats had indicated their support.
Instead, the bill got bottled up by a few members of the Senate leadership, who opposed it. The message was both winking and clear at the same time: Meet the new reform regime. Same as the old.
Since then, the hits have kept on coming. Foreheads across the state are sore from the inevitable slapping of hands that comes with each day’s headlines. No wonder a recent poll showed close to a majority of New Yorkers think the entire Senate should be replaced with new members, and more than a majority want their own senator replaced.
Indeed, 50 percent of New Yorkers now say that the state Senate, the upper body in the Legislature, has left them “embarrassed to be New Yorkers.”
In less serious times, such behavior could be tolerated. But not now. The situation the state of New York finds itself in is too dire for one single moment more of this chicanery, one more thumb in the eye of the good people of this state who deserve better than their government is giving them right now.
The time has come to live within a state government that has actually been reformed, where the way business is done has actually been reworked. If the Senate Democrats are really committed to being servants of the public and not of their own self-aggrandizement, they need to move in the direction of making this happen. If they are looking for good ideas to follow, there are more than enough out there already: They just have to start listening to all the things they have spent the last months, and years, promising that they would do.
Now, all New Yorkers can do is cringe and hope their friends around the country do not notice how meaningless the supposed reforms touted as the justification for the absurd coup have been revealed to be, and how quickly. The hiring of Majority Leader Pedro Espada’s son to a $120,000-per-year job created and given to the younger Espada only after his father agreed to end the chaos that he started was the easiest for the public imagination to latch onto, and with good reason. The sad thing, though, is how narrow a tip of the iceberg this was.
The instigators of the coup were awarded rich lulus. Another $200,000 was awarded in raises to various staffers. In a time when most New Yorkers are pinching pennies to make ends meet, legislators have beaten the state treasury like a piñata, sweeping every dollar into their pockets. Of course, Albany has been doing this for years, lavishing taxpayer dollars on member items and personal perks that benefit the public little. The difference here is that New Yorkers were promised reform over and over again.
There was no open and transparent budget process in the spring. There was no equal and fair distribution of member items. There was no implementation of the reforms presented by the committed that were belatedly recommended to the Senate majority.
Then came the coup. None of that was about power, said the revolutionaries. They were out for the reforms. Yet still, despite the leadership changes and new titles, little has been done.
They could not even hold to the promise of having legislation move fairly through the floor, as they vowed would come from Espada’s return to the fold. A bill could now pass if a majority of members supported it, like a real, grown-up legislative body. So of course, when the Assembly’s mayoral control for New York City schools bill came before the Senate, New Yorkers were right to assume that its prospects were good, given that all of the Republicans and a majority of the Democrats had indicated their support.
Instead, the bill got bottled up by a few members of the Senate leadership, who opposed it. The message was both winking and clear at the same time: Meet the new reform regime. Same as the old.
Since then, the hits have kept on coming. Foreheads across the state are sore from the inevitable slapping of hands that comes with each day’s headlines. No wonder a recent poll showed close to a majority of New Yorkers think the entire Senate should be replaced with new members, and more than a majority want their own senator replaced.
Indeed, 50 percent of New Yorkers now say that the state Senate, the upper body in the Legislature, has left them “embarrassed to be New Yorkers.”
In less serious times, such behavior could be tolerated. But not now. The situation the state of New York finds itself in is too dire for one single moment more of this chicanery, one more thumb in the eye of the good people of this state who deserve better than their government is giving them right now.
The time has come to live within a state government that has actually been reformed, where the way business is done has actually been reworked. If the Senate Democrats are really committed to being servants of the public and not of their own self-aggrandizement, they need to move in the direction of making this happen. If they are looking for good ideas to follow, there are more than enough out there already: They just have to start listening to all the things they have spent the last months, and years, promising that they would do.
