Senate Control in Doubt
As 3 Recounts Continue.
Chief Judge Sets Dec. 20
Deadline For Litigation.
"Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water..." - Jaws 2 (1980)
Just when you thought the State Senate's inability to function could be resolved, seventeen days after the Nov. 2 election, we do not even know which party will organize the chamber.
So far, the Republicans have won 30 seats and the Democrats 29. Three seats remain undecided because the margin of the leader is very small, and absentee, military and emergency ballots have not been completely tallied.
In the State of Alaska, a count of write in ballots has been concluded and a United States Senator Lisa Murkowski declared elected. In the State of New York, we have no conclusive results in three separate senatorial districts, in Long Island, Westchester, and on the Niagara frontier.
In the Nassau district, Jack Martins, the Republican mayor of Mineola, declared victory for the second time since Election Day over Democratic incumbent Craig Johnson after the County Board of Elections concluded its count of all the absentee ballots with Martins ahead by 403 votes. Johnson, however, has complained of discrepancies in the ballots and has not conceded. The rivals are due back in State Supreme Court on November 29th.
In Westchester, 13-term incumbent Democrat Suzi Oppenheimer is currently in court against her Republican challenger Bob Cohen, a developer and contractor. According to the most recent count, Oppenheimer leads Cohen by 626 votes, as officials at the Board of Elections continue to count the 2400 emergency, absentee, and affidavit ballots.
Upstate, in an Erie-Niagara district, incumbent two-term Democrat Antoine Thompson trails Republican challenger Mark Grisanti, a lawyer. As of Wednesday, Grisanti's lead was 579 votes. When we called for today's numbers, Erie County Board of Elections Commissioner Dennis E. Ward informed us that he was at the very moment with representatives of the two candidates counting ballots and he didn't anticipate the counting to be completed for a week.
The First Congressional district race in Suffolk County between four-term Democrat incumbent Tim Bishop and challenger Randy Altschuler is similarly undecided and too close to call. The East Hampton Star reported on its website today that the lead changed hands twice with Bishop leading in the morning and Altschuler pulling ahead by 85 votes at the end of the afternoon's count. The contentious count will continue. Of over 180,000 total votes were cast, Bishop has contested 342 ballots and Altschuler has challenged 535, including those of Bishop's elderly parents who cast absentee ballots from Florida.
But that contest will not affect control of The House of Representatives. Imagine the angst!
Once the votes are counted, the lawyers for each side will proceed with the tedious business of challenging voters for the other candidate. Some handwritten votes are difficult to decipher, others may be marked outside the box, or otherwise be vulnerable to disqualification.
Some people who voted were probably not properly registered, or otherwise ineligible to vote in that place at that time. Although the standard may be to implement the intent of the voter, that intent may be difficult to determine. When a person has voted who was not entitled to do so, we are likely not to know for whom that person voted, or what effect the disqualification of such persons' votes would have on the result of the election.
Even where irregularities are discovered, they may or may not have been intentional. If they are unintentional, which is most often the case, it is difficult to find a remedy. To hold another election is expensive and time consuming. It is likely that the number of voters will be much lower in a special election, and the result less representative of the district. It is more practical to determine that the candidate who has received the most valid votes is the winner.
This process takes a lot of time, especially when many individual ballots are in dispute. The Senate was originally supposed to meet November 15, but a legislature cannot meet if its leadership is still undetermined. The next date suggested was November 29, the Monday after Thanksgiving Day, but it appears unlikely at this date (Nov. 19) that the winners in all three seats will have been determined by then.
After the various Commissioners of Elections determine the winners in the three disputed Senate contests, the losers have the right to appeal to the state courts, which will grant expedited hearings because of the immediacy of the disputes. Nonetheless, the judicial process is likely to take weeks.
Yesterday, Justice Jonathan Lippman, chief judge of the state Court of Appeals, set December 20 as the deadline to conclude all appeals, so that the contests will all be resolved before the Legislature convenes, with its new members, on January 5, four days after the inauguration of Governor Cuomo.
At this moment, the odds favor the Republicans in their effort to regain control of the State Senate. However, the process is definitely fluid and the outcome is by no means assured.
Democratic partisans will certainly be distressed to lose the Senate after finally regaining control in 2009 after 43 years in the wilderness of a legislative minority. However, the party should not be too surprised with the probable outcome of this election after two disastrous years in the majority that began with the "Four Amigos", continued through the Espada coup and Monserrate slashing and explusion, and ended with the Aqueduct racing scandal.
Not every Democrat is likely to mind a Republican Senate. In some ways, a Republican victory would be helpful to Governor-elect Andrew Cuomo, because he will have a foil in negotiations with Dean Skelos as Senate Majority Leader, while being freed of the burden of dealing with John Sampson, who, along with Senator Malcolm Smith, has been touched by the unfolding Aqueduct mess.
Of course, Cuomo must profess to desire Democratic control, but some political observers believe the GOP legislators' views may be closer to Cuomo's than those of the Working Family Democrats who support substantial tax increases. The new governor is aware of the reality of the state's fiscal situation and the 9 billion dollar deficit for FY 2012, with the budget due on March 31.
How he meets these challenges will determine the success of the new administration. Spitzer blew it in his first month by his intemperate language and his pursuit of Bruno. Paterson acknowledged ancient extramarital affairs on his first day in office. Cuomo will do better, but his task has been made more difficult by the failure of his predecessors to deal with the imminent financial crisis.
Showing posts with label John Sampson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Sampson. Show all posts
Friday, November 19, 2010
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
The People Speak
What We Learned
From The Primary
In an initial take on yesterday's primary, we offer some nuggets of fact, surmise and opinion.
1. The Democratic and Republican party organizations continue to weaken. They are most influential in races where no one knows who the candidates are, usually for judgeships or at the bottom of the ticket. For more important offices, where voters have familiarity with the candidates, they make their own decisions as to whom they will support, guided to some extent by the campaigns and the media.
The generally low Democratic turnout placed a premium on machine support. Percentage wise, more Republicans cast ballots.
2. Tuesday was a good night for incumbents. As far as we know, only two state senators were defeated. Pedro Espada, Jr., in the Bronx, against whom the entire civilized world had combined lost 62-33 to Gustavo Rivera; and Bill Stachowski of Buffalo, lost, 63-26, to Tim Kennedy.
Stachowski, a state senator for 28 years, was a target of environmental groups for his opposition to clean up of toxic wastes, and gay organizations objected to his hostility to marriage equality. Stachowski was supported by the Working Families and the Independence Party. He held up the state budget because he insisted on greater autonomy for SUNY Buffalo. However, in the end he caved and disappointed his constituents.
Tim Kennedy is an Erie County legislator, who linked Stachowski to the dysfunction in Albany. We also suspect there were demographic changes in the district since the Polish-American solon, a former football star at Holy Cross, was first elected a generation ago. Both candidates signed the Koch pledge.
3. The only two Assemblymembers to be denied renomination were Ginny Fields in Suffolk County, who lost to Ken Mangan, 53-47, and Francine DelMonte of Niagara County, who lost to John Accardo, 52-48. Reform was not a particular issue in these races, all four candidates having signed the pledge.
Fields originally attacked Mangan on TV for not signing, but then he signed and mooted the issue. The state teachers union supported Mangan.
4. The majority of incumbent state legislators were not challenged by other aspirants. Therefore, primary elections were not held for those positions.
Fifteen incumbent senators were challenged. For the remaining 47 seats (out of a total of 62), the incumbents were unchallenged.
Twenty-seven assembly members were challenged. For the remaining 123 seats (out of 150) the incumbents were not challenged in a primary.
5. According to Jerry Skurnik, who is an expert in these matters, the reason there are proportionally more contested city than state elections is that the city's campaign finance system provides for matching funds on a 6-to-1 basis for contributions of $175 or less. The maximum public subsidy for a city council race was $88,550 in 2009, and it will rise in 2013. The expenditure limit was $161,000; it too will rise.
There is no provision for matching funds in state elections, so the candidate must raise all the funds he spends. This discourages candidacies, because to attain a minimal level of exposure in an assembly race against an incumbent, spending close to $100,000 is a requirement. Double that sum for a state senate race. Since people are usually unlikely to give large sums to local candidates, there is a great advantage to aspirants who can fund their own races.
6. The roll out of the new electronic voting machines was flawed, drawing the ire of the public and spurring elected officials to berate the Board of Elections. Now we must find out how accurate the electoral counts tabulated by the machines are. Today, the Board is conducting a lottery to randomly select 3% of the election districts in the five boroughs for a hand recount of the paper ballots processed by the machines. We will keep you posted on how the two sets of figures match up. Theoretically, they should be identical.
7. The 2011 legislature will be very much like the 2010 legislature, except that the coup conspirators Espada and Monserrate will be gone. We cannot predict which party will control the state senate next year, and what the effect of the Paladino candidacy will be on Republican legislative candidates. Will the GOP be energized by its standard bearer, or will frightened moderates desert the elephant line?
Democratic senate leader John Sampson of Brooklyn will presumably succeed Pedro Espada as majority leader, if the Democrats retain their senate majority. Sampson has written a letter signing on to the Koch reforms, as has Dean Skelos, the Republican leader, and all his troops.
8. If the senators keep their written pledges, substantial legislative reform would be a strong possibility in the areas of redistricting by an independent commission, ethics reform identifying and limiting the private employment of elected public servants in the legislature, and requiring a state budget to be balanced budget pursuant to generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). This is the law in New York City, but not in New York State.
The Assembly will be a harder sell. Speaker Silver says that he would allow some reforms, but he has balked at an independent redistricting commission.
An important element of the Speaker's power to enforce his will is the ability to punish refractory (from his viewpoint) legislators by abolishing their districts, merging them with others, or removing their homes from their districts. An independent commission would presumably not be congenial to spot redistricting on the basis of a legislator's independence or submission to the Speaker.
The leadership has many other powers over individual members, including committee assignments, lulus (pensionable payments to committee chairs and miscellaneous favored designees), the use of the Rules Committee to advance or to bottle up bills, the assignment of office space and other facilities, etc. The Speaker's power was likened many years ago, with regard to the City Council, to the authority of a Mother Superior in a convent. The power to terminate a political career by reapportionment is a superfluous award of authority to the most powerful man in state government (with the occasional, but not recent, exception of the governor.
It is now 48 days to the election. We will be following the race.
TODAY’S PUZZLE
Rule 9-I is simple: “I’ll be back.” Who said it, and when? We will list the winners. Hint: The answer is not Amelia Earhart, or some other tragic figure.
CONTEST WINNERS
Last week, in our article “Sleeper Candidate?”, we challenged our readers to explain the names and numbering of Rule 8-F (“Do not bite the hand that feeds you”), Rule 8-M: ("He who pays the piper calls the tune") and Rule 8-FM: "Whose bread I eat, his song I sing." Congratulations to Janos Marton and Eldon Reiley, who correctly pointed out that all three rules are 8 words long and that “F” refers to food and “M” to music. Naturally, “FM” refers to both food and music.
Today’s puzzle is easier to solve. We look forward to receiving your answers. There is no entry fee. Winners will be listed in order of the receipt of their entries. No cheating. Try not to use Wikipedia.
From The Primary
In an initial take on yesterday's primary, we offer some nuggets of fact, surmise and opinion.
1. The Democratic and Republican party organizations continue to weaken. They are most influential in races where no one knows who the candidates are, usually for judgeships or at the bottom of the ticket. For more important offices, where voters have familiarity with the candidates, they make their own decisions as to whom they will support, guided to some extent by the campaigns and the media.
The generally low Democratic turnout placed a premium on machine support. Percentage wise, more Republicans cast ballots.
2. Tuesday was a good night for incumbents. As far as we know, only two state senators were defeated. Pedro Espada, Jr., in the Bronx, against whom the entire civilized world had combined lost 62-33 to Gustavo Rivera; and Bill Stachowski of Buffalo, lost, 63-26, to Tim Kennedy.
Stachowski, a state senator for 28 years, was a target of environmental groups for his opposition to clean up of toxic wastes, and gay organizations objected to his hostility to marriage equality. Stachowski was supported by the Working Families and the Independence Party. He held up the state budget because he insisted on greater autonomy for SUNY Buffalo. However, in the end he caved and disappointed his constituents.
Tim Kennedy is an Erie County legislator, who linked Stachowski to the dysfunction in Albany. We also suspect there were demographic changes in the district since the Polish-American solon, a former football star at Holy Cross, was first elected a generation ago. Both candidates signed the Koch pledge.
3. The only two Assemblymembers to be denied renomination were Ginny Fields in Suffolk County, who lost to Ken Mangan, 53-47, and Francine DelMonte of Niagara County, who lost to John Accardo, 52-48. Reform was not a particular issue in these races, all four candidates having signed the pledge.
Fields originally attacked Mangan on TV for not signing, but then he signed and mooted the issue. The state teachers union supported Mangan.
4. The majority of incumbent state legislators were not challenged by other aspirants. Therefore, primary elections were not held for those positions.
Fifteen incumbent senators were challenged. For the remaining 47 seats (out of a total of 62), the incumbents were unchallenged.
Twenty-seven assembly members were challenged. For the remaining 123 seats (out of 150) the incumbents were not challenged in a primary.
5. According to Jerry Skurnik, who is an expert in these matters, the reason there are proportionally more contested city than state elections is that the city's campaign finance system provides for matching funds on a 6-to-1 basis for contributions of $175 or less. The maximum public subsidy for a city council race was $88,550 in 2009, and it will rise in 2013. The expenditure limit was $161,000; it too will rise.
There is no provision for matching funds in state elections, so the candidate must raise all the funds he spends. This discourages candidacies, because to attain a minimal level of exposure in an assembly race against an incumbent, spending close to $100,000 is a requirement. Double that sum for a state senate race. Since people are usually unlikely to give large sums to local candidates, there is a great advantage to aspirants who can fund their own races.
6. The roll out of the new electronic voting machines was flawed, drawing the ire of the public and spurring elected officials to berate the Board of Elections. Now we must find out how accurate the electoral counts tabulated by the machines are. Today, the Board is conducting a lottery to randomly select 3% of the election districts in the five boroughs for a hand recount of the paper ballots processed by the machines. We will keep you posted on how the two sets of figures match up. Theoretically, they should be identical.
7. The 2011 legislature will be very much like the 2010 legislature, except that the coup conspirators Espada and Monserrate will be gone. We cannot predict which party will control the state senate next year, and what the effect of the Paladino candidacy will be on Republican legislative candidates. Will the GOP be energized by its standard bearer, or will frightened moderates desert the elephant line?
Democratic senate leader John Sampson of Brooklyn will presumably succeed Pedro Espada as majority leader, if the Democrats retain their senate majority. Sampson has written a letter signing on to the Koch reforms, as has Dean Skelos, the Republican leader, and all his troops.
8. If the senators keep their written pledges, substantial legislative reform would be a strong possibility in the areas of redistricting by an independent commission, ethics reform identifying and limiting the private employment of elected public servants in the legislature, and requiring a state budget to be balanced budget pursuant to generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). This is the law in New York City, but not in New York State.
The Assembly will be a harder sell. Speaker Silver says that he would allow some reforms, but he has balked at an independent redistricting commission.
An important element of the Speaker's power to enforce his will is the ability to punish refractory (from his viewpoint) legislators by abolishing their districts, merging them with others, or removing their homes from their districts. An independent commission would presumably not be congenial to spot redistricting on the basis of a legislator's independence or submission to the Speaker.
The leadership has many other powers over individual members, including committee assignments, lulus (pensionable payments to committee chairs and miscellaneous favored designees), the use of the Rules Committee to advance or to bottle up bills, the assignment of office space and other facilities, etc. The Speaker's power was likened many years ago, with regard to the City Council, to the authority of a Mother Superior in a convent. The power to terminate a political career by reapportionment is a superfluous award of authority to the most powerful man in state government (with the occasional, but not recent, exception of the governor.
It is now 48 days to the election. We will be following the race.
TODAY’S PUZZLE
Rule 9-I is simple: “I’ll be back.” Who said it, and when? We will list the winners. Hint: The answer is not Amelia Earhart, or some other tragic figure.
CONTEST WINNERS
Last week, in our article “Sleeper Candidate?”, we challenged our readers to explain the names and numbering of Rule 8-F (“Do not bite the hand that feeds you”), Rule 8-M: ("He who pays the piper calls the tune") and Rule 8-FM: "Whose bread I eat, his song I sing." Congratulations to Janos Marton and Eldon Reiley, who correctly pointed out that all three rules are 8 words long and that “F” refers to food and “M” to music. Naturally, “FM” refers to both food and music.
Today’s puzzle is easier to solve. We look forward to receiving your answers. There is no entry fee. Winners will be listed in order of the receipt of their entries. No cheating. Try not to use Wikipedia.
Friday, July 09, 2010
Can't Anybody Here Play This Game?
Budget Deadlock -Day 98
Buffalonian Senator
Stachowski Objects
To Paying Sales Tax
On Cheap Clothing
The state budget - or the lack of it - is as unpleasant a subject as the heat wave, and we had hoped that by now both issues would have been resolved.
Unfortunately, the parties in Albany are still far apart. Today we are 98 days behind the legal deadline, which means the new state fiscal year, 2011, is now more than one-quarter over. During the Pataki era (1995-2006) a couple of budgets were not approved until August, but we were promised that when the governorship and both houses of the legislature come under one party (the Democrats) that issues would be settled promptly and amicably.
Though there are many disputes simmering in Albany, the current deadlock is about adopting the budget. Whatever else the executive and legislative branches are supposed to accomplish this year remains in limbo, partly because there is a lame-duck governor, partly because the Democrats have a bare majority of 32 senators, which means every one of them must vote for a bill to pass it, for if any member objects, the bill is lost. A senator may raise objections because of unrelated grievances against the leadership or concerns over other legislation.
In the current standoff, both houses have passed bills specifying appropriations. As might be expected, they differ. However, only the Assembly has passed a revenue bill, which is needed to pay for the expenditures, or at least some of them. The Senate cannot muster 32 votes to pass a tax bill because Senator William Stachowski of Buffalo will not approve any measure which does not provide increased status and authority for the State University at Buffalo. To insist on this expansion of SUNY-Buffalo, Stachowski is withholding support for an agreed upon re-instatement of the state's portion of sales tax on clothing under $110, which the Assembly and Senate are depending upon to balance the budget. The Democrats oppose the expansion of power for SUNY-Buffalo (and Stony Brook) because potentially all 64 state colleges could seek independence and operate autonomously, raising tuition at will and leaving some institutions far stronger than others. We have no idea at this time how or when this issue will be resolved.
Senator Stachowski is also reported to be displeased because, as a leading Democrat on the Finance Committee, he expected to chair the committee when the Democrats regained control of the Senate (after 43 years in the wilderness). However, that plum went to Senator Carl Kruger, who with the 'three amigos', Espada, Monserrate and Diaz, Sr., effectively controlled the organization of the DINO (Democratic in name only) senate.
In fact, it was former Majority Leader Malcolm Smith's refusal of Espada's demand for millions of state dollars to subsidize the Soundview Health Center that he and his three sons operate, that triggered the Espada-Monserrate revolt that led to Smith's unseating as majority leader and Sampson's installation as conference chair, with benefits.
Public confidence in the State Senate was not enhanced by the resulting June 8 coup, in which Senator Pedro Espada and former Senator Hiram Monserrate voted with the 30 Republicans to displace the Democratic leaders and form a new Republican majority. After a month of anarchy, Espada returned to the fold, and was rewarded with the majority leadership, formerly held by Malcolm Smith, who was kicked upstairs to president pro tempore of the senate, making him third in line to become governor, if the worst should happen.
As a by-product of this successful piracy, Richard Ravitch was appointed Lieutenant Governor by Governor Paterson and Judge Jonathan Lippman persuaded three judges on the Court of Appeals to join him in finding the appointment constitutional, although it was historically unprecedented in the 233-year history of the State of New York. Paterson now says he regrets the appointment because he feels Ravitch is too close to Speaker Silver and to establishment figures in New York City.
Much of what remains of authority in Albany is concentrated in the Assembly Speaker, who is clearly master of his own house. However, prospective governor Andrew Cuomo is already making his own judgments on issues in which the speaker may have an interest, professional or personal. The de facto Democratic senate leader, John Sampson of Brooklyn, does not have enough votes to override a governor's veto. (Silver does, but both houses must concur in order to override.)
The result so far is deadlock, which can theoretically continue until the State runs out of money. Since its finances have been so manipulated, no one can predict with certainty when that will be. But as with Bernie Madoff, the day is certain to come.
UPDATE ON THE AQUEDUCT GAMING SCANDAL:
MALAYSIAN IS LAST MAN STANDING (AS OF TODAY)
Senator Sampson was criticized last month for leaking the details of a bid, including two internal Senate documents, on the Aqueduct racino to a lobbyist (former Senator Carl Andrews) for the Aqueduct Entertainment Group (AEG), the firm that won the contract, which has since been cancelled after the State Lottery Division deemed the Aqueduct Entertainment Group to be "unlicensable". Sampson denied any wrongdoing in connection with furnishing the documents to AEG, one of whose investors was former Congressman Floyd Flake, who has since withdrawn from participation in the group.
Yesterday's Post reported, in a story by Brendan Scott, headlined "2 OF 3 AQUEDUCT BIDDERS SCRATCHED" that "Now there's only one horse in the race for the multibillion-dollar casino contract at Aqueduct Racetrack.
"The state Lottery Division yesterday abruptly tossed two of the three bids it received last week to build and run a video slots parlor at the faded Queens track, leaving only Malaysian gaming giant Genting in the running.
"The cash-strapped state is counting on the winner to pay a $300 million licensing fee.
"Lottery officials decided that the two disqualified bidders - Penn National Gaming and the powerful SL Green-Hard Rock partnership - 'did not conform with the requirements of the competition.'"
The Acqueduct situation has been a public embarrassment since Governor Paterson first attempted to award the sole-source contract to the politically wired Aqueduct Entertainment Group on January 29th. This took place close to the time that he was soliciting the support of Reverend (and former Congressman) Floyd Flake's support in his projected gubernatorial race against Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. Flake was a minor participant in AEG.
Six months later, no final decision has been made. There has been no independent review of whether the racino is a good idea, or simply a desperate attempt to pump $300 million into a chasmic state budget hole that now exceeds $9 billion.
Why would any rational person seek to govern this state at this time, unless it were the family business?
STARQUEST IN THE NEWS
"The architecture of Central Park, like the United States Constitution, must evolve with the times." StarQuest weighs in on the future of Tavern on the Green in yesterday's New York Times. Read all about it here.
StarQuest reminisces about Parks Department alum, Bradley Tusk (a.k.a. Ivory), in this week's Observer profile of Tusk entitled "Mayor Bloomberg's Secret Weapon". Click here to read the entire article.
Buffalonian Senator
Stachowski Objects
To Paying Sales Tax
On Cheap Clothing
The state budget - or the lack of it - is as unpleasant a subject as the heat wave, and we had hoped that by now both issues would have been resolved.
Unfortunately, the parties in Albany are still far apart. Today we are 98 days behind the legal deadline, which means the new state fiscal year, 2011, is now more than one-quarter over. During the Pataki era (1995-2006) a couple of budgets were not approved until August, but we were promised that when the governorship and both houses of the legislature come under one party (the Democrats) that issues would be settled promptly and amicably.
Though there are many disputes simmering in Albany, the current deadlock is about adopting the budget. Whatever else the executive and legislative branches are supposed to accomplish this year remains in limbo, partly because there is a lame-duck governor, partly because the Democrats have a bare majority of 32 senators, which means every one of them must vote for a bill to pass it, for if any member objects, the bill is lost. A senator may raise objections because of unrelated grievances against the leadership or concerns over other legislation.
In the current standoff, both houses have passed bills specifying appropriations. As might be expected, they differ. However, only the Assembly has passed a revenue bill, which is needed to pay for the expenditures, or at least some of them. The Senate cannot muster 32 votes to pass a tax bill because Senator William Stachowski of Buffalo will not approve any measure which does not provide increased status and authority for the State University at Buffalo. To insist on this expansion of SUNY-Buffalo, Stachowski is withholding support for an agreed upon re-instatement of the state's portion of sales tax on clothing under $110, which the Assembly and Senate are depending upon to balance the budget. The Democrats oppose the expansion of power for SUNY-Buffalo (and Stony Brook) because potentially all 64 state colleges could seek independence and operate autonomously, raising tuition at will and leaving some institutions far stronger than others. We have no idea at this time how or when this issue will be resolved.
Senator Stachowski is also reported to be displeased because, as a leading Democrat on the Finance Committee, he expected to chair the committee when the Democrats regained control of the Senate (after 43 years in the wilderness). However, that plum went to Senator Carl Kruger, who with the 'three amigos', Espada, Monserrate and Diaz, Sr., effectively controlled the organization of the DINO (Democratic in name only) senate.
In fact, it was former Majority Leader Malcolm Smith's refusal of Espada's demand for millions of state dollars to subsidize the Soundview Health Center that he and his three sons operate, that triggered the Espada-Monserrate revolt that led to Smith's unseating as majority leader and Sampson's installation as conference chair, with benefits.
Public confidence in the State Senate was not enhanced by the resulting June 8 coup, in which Senator Pedro Espada and former Senator Hiram Monserrate voted with the 30 Republicans to displace the Democratic leaders and form a new Republican majority. After a month of anarchy, Espada returned to the fold, and was rewarded with the majority leadership, formerly held by Malcolm Smith, who was kicked upstairs to president pro tempore of the senate, making him third in line to become governor, if the worst should happen.
As a by-product of this successful piracy, Richard Ravitch was appointed Lieutenant Governor by Governor Paterson and Judge Jonathan Lippman persuaded three judges on the Court of Appeals to join him in finding the appointment constitutional, although it was historically unprecedented in the 233-year history of the State of New York. Paterson now says he regrets the appointment because he feels Ravitch is too close to Speaker Silver and to establishment figures in New York City.
Much of what remains of authority in Albany is concentrated in the Assembly Speaker, who is clearly master of his own house. However, prospective governor Andrew Cuomo is already making his own judgments on issues in which the speaker may have an interest, professional or personal. The de facto Democratic senate leader, John Sampson of Brooklyn, does not have enough votes to override a governor's veto. (Silver does, but both houses must concur in order to override.)
The result so far is deadlock, which can theoretically continue until the State runs out of money. Since its finances have been so manipulated, no one can predict with certainty when that will be. But as with Bernie Madoff, the day is certain to come.
UPDATE ON THE AQUEDUCT GAMING SCANDAL:
MALAYSIAN IS LAST MAN STANDING (AS OF TODAY)
Senator Sampson was criticized last month for leaking the details of a bid, including two internal Senate documents, on the Aqueduct racino to a lobbyist (former Senator Carl Andrews) for the Aqueduct Entertainment Group (AEG), the firm that won the contract, which has since been cancelled after the State Lottery Division deemed the Aqueduct Entertainment Group to be "unlicensable". Sampson denied any wrongdoing in connection with furnishing the documents to AEG, one of whose investors was former Congressman Floyd Flake, who has since withdrawn from participation in the group.
Yesterday's Post reported, in a story by Brendan Scott, headlined "2 OF 3 AQUEDUCT BIDDERS SCRATCHED" that "Now there's only one horse in the race for the multibillion-dollar casino contract at Aqueduct Racetrack.
"The state Lottery Division yesterday abruptly tossed two of the three bids it received last week to build and run a video slots parlor at the faded Queens track, leaving only Malaysian gaming giant Genting in the running.
"The cash-strapped state is counting on the winner to pay a $300 million licensing fee.
"Lottery officials decided that the two disqualified bidders - Penn National Gaming and the powerful SL Green-Hard Rock partnership - 'did not conform with the requirements of the competition.'"
The Acqueduct situation has been a public embarrassment since Governor Paterson first attempted to award the sole-source contract to the politically wired Aqueduct Entertainment Group on January 29th. This took place close to the time that he was soliciting the support of Reverend (and former Congressman) Floyd Flake's support in his projected gubernatorial race against Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. Flake was a minor participant in AEG.
Six months later, no final decision has been made. There has been no independent review of whether the racino is a good idea, or simply a desperate attempt to pump $300 million into a chasmic state budget hole that now exceeds $9 billion.
Why would any rational person seek to govern this state at this time, unless it were the family business?
STARQUEST IN THE NEWS
"The architecture of Central Park, like the United States Constitution, must evolve with the times." StarQuest weighs in on the future of Tavern on the Green in yesterday's New York Times. Read all about it here.
StarQuest reminisces about Parks Department alum, Bradley Tusk (a.k.a. Ivory), in this week's Observer profile of Tusk entitled "Mayor Bloomberg's Secret Weapon". Click here to read the entire article.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
