|
|
Public "Servants"
Dysfunction Junction—The Legislature
New York’s state legislature,
famous near[153] and
far[154] for “ineptitude,”[155] does little
to improve its problems and much to
worsen them. In 2005, after reform
movements seemed to be picking up
momentum around the state, legislators
tweaked a rule here and a procedure
there, and they even passed a
state budget more or less on time for
the first time in 20 years. No doubt
many state legislators were quietly
hoping that New Yorkers would
swallow the notion that Albany had
been “fixed.”
 It
wasn’t true, of course. Albany remains shrouded in secrecy, devoid of
accountability, costly and inefficient,[156] and unslowed
by debate on major issues and minutiae alike. Perhaps most importantly, Albany
is widely derided as a “gray sea of corruption, favoritism, and allegiance
to special interests,”[157] a place where “influence-peddling
[is] the hometown industry.”[158]
At the core of Albany’s fetid image
is a campaign-finance system that can
properly be called a form of legalized
bribery. As one state elections official
put it, “Unless you out-and-out stick it
in your pocket and walk away, everything’s legal.”[159] Albany abounds with stories of lawmakers shamelessly padding their personal lifestyles
with campaign money:
- Several former state legislators, including state insurance superintendent Howard Mills, used leftover campaign funds to pay for cars,
dinners, and cell phones.[160]
- Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno invested $1,300 in campaign funds in a swimming-pool cover.[161]
- State Senator Guy Velella used campaign funds to pay his legal bills when indicted on a bribery charge. In fact, 20 of Velella’s Senate
colleagues shifted $147,500 of their own contributions to his campaign war chest for that purpose.[162]
- Assemblyman Clarence Norman, the Democratic leader in Brooklyn, was convicted of charges that he concealed illegal campaign
contributions from, among others, his own campaign treasurer.[163]
Legislators can blame none of this on the pay scale. New York legislators are paid a base salary of $79,500 a year, the second-highest of any
state and well ahead of the national average of just over $31,000 for all salaried state legislators. When per-diem expenses are included, most
legislators earn at least $90,000 a year, and leadership stipends raise the figure to over $100,000 for dozens of members. New York state legislators’
lavish pensions and post-retirement health benefits are guaranteed. This was highlighted by the disclosure that former senator Velella
will collect an annual pension of $80,000—more than his final base salary, despite being forced to resign from office and serve time in jail on a
bribery conviction.[164]
With this generous compensation and support from the nation’s largest full-time state legislative staff, New York’s senators and assembly
members generate a torrent of bills—16,892 in 2002 alone, which was more than twice the amount in the next most prolific state legislature.[165]
But few of these often frivolous or duplicative proposals ever become law. New York’s “enactment rate” was 4.1 percent; the national average:
28 percent.[166]
|
|
Lobbyists Must Pay to Play
Albany has evolved into a pay-to-play arena in which New
Yorkers and their interest groups must throw ever-increasing amounts of
cash just to have a chance at influencing legislation.
Any doubt that the major parties lack meaningful philosophical differences
evaporated early in 2004 when Assembly Democrats and Senate Republicans
held fund-raisers in adjoining rooms of the same Albany hotel on the same
night. “As soon as the gathering of the New York State Senate Republican
campaign committee ended, the same top lobbyists and clients who showed
up to write $1,000 checks and to show their support walked next door to
do the same for Mr. Silver, the top Democrat in the State Assembly,”
the New York Times reported. “The fact that it was Valentine’s
Day did not keep many big names away from the two parties.”[179]
In 2004, political action committees (PACs) contributed nearly $13.6 million
to candidates for state office in New York, about 45 percent of which
came from just 16 PACs.[180] The top three spenders
were associations representing, in descending order of spending, the teachers’
union, the hospital workers’ union, and trial lawyers. The rest of
the top 16 included six other PACs representing unions.[181]
For lobbyists, this means regularly attending a never-ending series of
political fund-raisers. When lawmakers are in town for the legislative
session, there are multiple fund-raisers almost every weeknight, with
powerful majority leaders and no-name back-benchers alike shaking down
lobbyists for $1,000 a ticket or more for drinks, hors d’oeuvres,
and a little face time.
As early as April 2005—a full 19 months before the next legislative
election—Albany had already hosted 131 fund-raisers. More than a
third of these events took place in a single government-owned complex
connected by tunnel to the Capitol, making it that much easier for legislators
to move directly from passing laws sought by lobbyists to accepting checks
from some of the same lobbyists.[182]
No one doubts that this giving buys the donors improved access to key
legislators, and sometimes the results speak for themselves. In 2004,
trial lawyers targeted 42 percent of all their contributions to Assembly
Democrats—who are led by Speaker Silver, a trial lawyer.[183]
Each year, Silver has buried efforts at tort reform that are popular with
average New Yorkers—and, in some cases, even other members of the
Assembly.[184]
While well-established interest groups like the trial bar exert influence
largely on the strength of their heavy membership lists and PAC contributions,
others pay exorbitant fees to a select few lobbyists with special political
connections:
- Ken Bruno, son of the Senate majority leader, was until recently
a lobbyist whose fledgling firm picked up a reported $600,000 in retainers
within a few months of opening.[185] Clients included
the operators of “ambulette” transportation firms, who saw $4.4
million in funding for their services restored to the state’s Medicaid
budget by Joe Bruno’s Senate in 2005 soon after agreeing to pay Ken
Bruno $60,000 to represent them in Albany.[186]
- Patricia Lynch, Silver’s spokeswoman until the end of 2000,
heads another of Albany’s most influential lobbying firms,[187]
and it is “whispered in lobbying circles” that she gets many
referrals from the Assembly Speaker.[188]
- Yet another well-wired firm is headed by Kieran Mahoney, Pataki’s
political consultant for nearly a dozen years, and includes among its
principals Michael McKeon and Tom Doherty, Pataki’s former press
secretary and appointments secretary, respectively. (To underscore his
influence, Doherty boasted on the firm’s website that he had had
a role in appointing some of the commissioners he was now lobbying.)
- Ironically, when enough influential members of Albany, Inc. get
their hefty retainers tied to the same issue, their efforts can cancel
one another out. For example, the 2005 debate over state funding for a
proposed new football stadium in Manhattan was enlivened by powerful lobbyists
on all sides, including former U.S. Senator Alfonse D’Amato, Ken
Bruno, Lynch, and Mahoney.[189]
Perhaps not surprisingly, the proposal ended in deal-killing deadlock.
Just a few months later, Cablevision—which owns Madison Square Garden
and strenuously opposed the football stadium—made an enormous $500,000
contribution to the campaign in favor of Proposal One, a ballot initiative
designed to strengthen the legislative leaders’ power over the state
budget. Given Senator Joseph Bruno’s crucial role in killing the
stadium, critics immediately questioned whether Cablevision’s move
was simply a “quid pro Joe.”[190]
|
|
|
A 2004 report that called New York’s legislature the nation’s “most
dysfunctional”[167] highlighted legislators’
lack of influence and input—even on those few bills that pass. From 1997
through 2001, less than 1 percent of bills passed by both houses were the subject
of any legislative hearings;[168] virtually none of the
major bills passed by either house was the subject of a committee report by
that house.[169] The legislative leaders tightly control
legislative calendars to determine whether, when, and how a bill will be considered.
From 1997 through 2001, the Senate voted on 7,109 bills, and from 1997 through
1999, the Assembly voted on 4,365 bills—and not one of these bills
failed in its respective chamber.[170] Most passed
with no debate.[171] None was amended on the floor of either
chamber,[172] and none of the amendments agreed to off
the floor was ever debated on the floor.[173]
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
"In 1997–2001, the Senate voted on 7,109 bills, and in 1997 –1999,
the Assembly voted on 4,365 bills–and not one bill failed to pass."
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
In fact, New York’s legislators often pass bills that they have not read
and do not understand. Legislative leaders routinely sidestep a threeday “aging”
requirement (designed to give legislators time to read bills and citizens time
to comment on them) by requesting a “message of necessity” from
the governor. This allows bills to be passed without debate. From 1997 through
2001, a message of necessity was requested and granted on more than a quarter
of all major bills for one or both chambers’ votes.[174]
In one particularly notorious abuse of process, state lawmakers approved a politically motivated giveaway of taxpayer dollars without
having debated—or, in all likelihood, read—the bill that did it. The 2002 renewal of the Health Care Reform Act (HCRA) doled out $1.8
billion in raises for health-care workers in SEIU Local 1199. The law
was passed after closed-door negotiations between Albany, Inc.’s Big
Three: the governor, the Speaker of the Assembly, and the majority
leader of the Senate. The bill passed in the dark of night after neither
debate nor committee hearings and before legislators had a chance to
review it in any detail.
Soon thereafter, Local 1199 endorsed Governor Pataki’s reelection
bid and funneled $281,200 to Silver’s Assembly campaign committee
and $230,350 to Bruno’s.[175]
Seeking to make matters worse, state legislators pushed a constitutional
amendment that would give sole budgetary power to the legislature
if they couldn’t agree to the governor’s budget by an annual
May 1 deadline. Such a change, of course, would only have encouraged
legislators not to make the deadline; and, since legislators inevitably
seek more spending than the executive, the change would have
driven New York’s high spending even higher. Derided as “a sham reform,”
[176] “cynical [and] dangerous,”[177] and “a naked power grab,”[178] the
Proposal One ballot initiative was wisely defeated by New York voters
this past November.
|
|
Albany's Gerrymander Menagerie
Albany remains dysfunctional in part because legislators
seldom face the strongest incentive to improve: competitive elections.
That's because legislative districts in New York State are so thoroughly
gerrymandered that few majority legislators-whether Republican senators
or Democratic assembly members-ever fear a tough challenge from a fast-closing
opponent.[191]
It
works like this: state lawmakers slice and dice New York's political map
once every ten years based on new Census Bureau population figures.[192]
In practice, Republicans and Democrats generally agree on Assembly districts
that favor Democrats and Senate districts that give protections to Republicans.[193]
New York is not alone in gerrymandering, but there may be no other state
in which the two parties work more closely to draw district lines that
will solidify their divided control of the legislature.[194]
The tradition of cooperation between putatively adversarial parties is
well established. For example, after a Republican state senator and a
Democratic assembly member from New York City both faced relatively close
reelection battles in 2000, their district lines were redrawn to prevent
their opponents from staging a rematch.[195] Considering
the cross-party collusion to protect incumbents, it's little wonder that
the Center for Voting and Democracy lists New York as the least democratic
state.[196]
This gerrymandering often results in districts contorted according to
political realities, not geographic or demographic ones. One district,
stretching clear across central New York to the banks of the Hudson, has
been compared to Abraham Lincoln riding a vacuum cleaner.[197]
And a Bronx Senate district gerrymandered to protect an incumbent has
been dubbed a "dismembered lobster."[198]
Both
Senate Republicans and Assembly Democrats have reasons to resist redistricting
reform. The former have kept power for three decades despite being outnumbered
nearly two to one in party enrollments. While Assembly Democrats have
a huge majority, they want to keep it big enough to preserve a veto-proof
majority.[199]
Several legislative proposals for redistricting reform have surfaced in
recent years,[200] and reform advocates typically
put it high on their list of priorities.[201] What
remains unclear is whether the legislative leadership will change a system
that for decades has been integral to maintaining their separate spheres
of influence.[202]
|
|
|
<<previous section | next section>>
153. Jeremy M. Creelan and Laura M. Moulton, The New York
State Legislative Process: An Evaluation and Blueprint for Reform (Brennan
Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, 2004), pp. vii
and passim.
154. Josh Getlin, “Dudley Do-Right in the Valley of Death,” Los
Angeles Times, May 8, 2005. The profile of New York State attorney general
and gubernatorial candidate Eliot Spitzer says New York has “one of the
nation’s most atrophied and dysfunctionalstate governments.”
155. “Lobby Reform Is Needed Now,” Poughkeepsie Journal editorial,
June 10, 2005.
156. See McMahon, “Albany Has Plenty Left to Repair.”
157. Henry Stern, “While New York Sleeps,” New York Sun,
February 23, 2005.
158. “Crunch Time for Albany Reform,” New York Daily News editorial,
June 15, 2005.
159. “Laughable Rules,” Albany Times Union editorial, May
16, 2005.
160. Michael Cooper, “Some Former Candidates Are Still Using Campaign
Funds to Pay Their Bills,” New York Times, August 8, 2005.
161. Jay Jochnowitz and James M. Odato, “Bruno’s House Prompts Inquiry,”
Albany Times Union, May 13, 2000.
162. “Guy Velella’s Crooked Gang,” New York Daily News
editorial, May 15, 2004.
163. “Norman Convicted,” New York Daily News, September 28,
2005.
164. David Seifman, “Velella Will Be Free to Tap 130G Fund,” New
York Post, January 23, 2005.
165. McMahon, “Albany Has Plenty Left to Repair.”
166. Creelan and Moulton, The New York State Legislative Process, p.
28.
167. Ibid.
168. Ibid., p. 11.
169. Ibid., p. 35.
170. Ibid., p. 23.
171. Ibid.
172. Ibid.
173. Ibid.
174. Ibid., p. 27.
175. Ibid., pp. 47–48.
176. “A Sham Reform,” Albany Times Union editorial, May 2,
2005.
177. “Albany’s Budget Deform,” New York Post editorial,
May 6, 2005.
178. “Albany Pols Peddle Bogus Reform,” New York Daily News
editorial, May 7, 2005.
179. “In Albany, the Two Parties Land in Adjoining Ballrooms,” New
York Times, February 18, 2005, p. 41.
180. “PAC-ing It In supra n.14
181. Ibid.
182. Bill Hammond, “Stealth Tax Keeps Us in the Dark,” New York
Daily News, April 27, 2005.
183. “PAC-ing It In,” supra, n. 14.
184. See, for example, William F. Hammond Jr., “Assembly Members Must
Choose Sides on Tort Reform,” New York Sun, May 12, 2004.
185. “Bruno’s Son Terrorized Me with Handgun: Ex,” New
York Post, May 25, 2005.
186.“Gov, Bruno Snipe over Son’s Deal,” New York Post,
April 27, 2005.
187. Jay Gallagher, “Lobbying Costs Set Record,” Gannett News Service/Utica
Observer-Dispatch, March 27, 2003.
188. Erik Kriss, “How to Become a Highly Paid New York Lobbyist,”
Syracuse Post-Standard, March 13, 2005.
189. “Sweepstakes of Squalor,” New York Post editorial, June
8, 2005.
190. “Quid Pro Joe,” New York Post editorial, November 3,
2005.
191. McMahon, “Albany Has Plenty Left to Repair.”
192. Brad Heath, “State Government Watchdog Groups Criticize the Shape
of Things to Come,” Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin, April
18, 2002.
193. Michael Cooper, “Civic Groups Back a Bill to Stop Gerrymandering,”
New York Times, March 11, 2005.
194. Joel Stashenko, “Many Incumbents Face No Major-Party Opponents
This Fall,” Associated Press, August 14, 2004.
195. Cooper, “Civic Groups Back a Bill to Stop Gerrymandering.”
196. New York ranked 45th among the states in 2005, and dead
last in 2002; rankings available at http://www.fairvote.org.
197. Cooper, op.cit.
198. William F. Hammond Jr., “Gerrymandering Back in New York,”
New York Sun, October 20, 2003.
199. Cooper, op.cit.
200. Ibid.
201. Joel Stashenko, “Don’t Expect Big Shifts Nov. 2, Despite
Reform Talk,” Associated Press, October 20, 2004.
202. Cooper, op.cit.
|
|
