Published: July 24, 2008 03:48 pm            

CHRISTY: You thought you’d seen it all

It was revealed this week that Governor Paterson — a democrat who took over only after Governor Spitzer resigned in what I’m now terming a hypocrisy scandal — has offered former State Senate republican Majority Leader Joe Bruno a job in his administration. His title would be “special adviser” and you can bet his salary would have topped the $130,000 he made as Majority Leader.

Are you kidding me? There are so many things wrong with this news that its difficult to begin to analyze it.

I’m well aware that there are two sides to every story and you should carefully consider things before being critical, so here are the “benefits” or good points to consider:

n Clearly, Governor Paterson wants republican’s to retain control of the State Senate. Who is he to determine who controls the Senate?

n Governor Paterson is widely known to dislike Malcolm Smith, the top democrat in the Senate who would become Majority Leader in January. Who is Paterson to micro-manage and determine who the Majority Leader of 30+ Senators is? Isn’t it their choice who their leader is?

n With a divided Senate and Assembly, Albany is in complete gridlock. No new idea’s, no fresh air, no agenda for change even has a chance without fresh faces in the state capital. Why in the world would Governor Paterson want the status quo to continue?

Who cares who controls the New York State Senate. The point to focus on is that NYS continues to spiral out of control and unless we let someone else — anyone else — have their shot at it, nothing will change. Think of the Bills with a bad starting quarterback. They keep changing until they find someone capable to lead them. They don’t make excuses to stick with the same failed game plan. Governor Paterson hiring Joe Bruno shows how absolutely twisted the logic is in Albany.

Let’s give a quick re-cap of who Joe Bruno is. He’s been an elected official for 32 years, in which time he’s amassed a great fortune of personal wealth. He’s under FBI investigation for steering taxpayer money to dubious operations run by close friends, and for running a home business which received state taxpayer contracts. During the time he has been Majority Leader he presided over the “three-men-in-a-room” form of government which has bankrupted the state and, on a deeply close issue to each of us, driven the WNY economy into being termed “Appalachia.” It’s actually worse then that, and we should apologize to the people of Appalachia for denigrating their reputation.

Joe Bruno would have you believe that Governor Spitzer was the root of all of this evil — as would every State Senate republican — but in fact the Governor for most of Joe Bruno’s embarrassing career as Majority Leader was republican George Pataki, who’s greatest crowning achievement seems to have been authorizing a political dirty tricks department to be created and operated out of the state Power Authority.

Finally, let’s never forget the ultimate crowning act of this proud politician. Joe Bruno quit his job as Majority Leader with two days to go in the legislative session. Those of you not familiar with the State Legislature, imagine Jim Kelly retiring immediately BEFORE a Super Bowl, not after. So much happens in the last 48 hours of a legislative session that it’s impossible to quantify. And Joe Bruno quit his job at that crucial moment.

There’s an old saying that you should watch what people do, not what they say they do. It should be on everyone’s refrigerator to remind them every morning how our state government functions. Because no matter what gets said, the performance of our Albany politicians is anything but stellar. You cannot take a once-great state like New York and drive it into the worst state to do business in without actually working hard to do it. Neglect cannot produce the results we’ve gotten. We have not fallen to this position, we have actively dug our hole and apparently are still digging deeper.

In one of those cute public relations tricks politicians use to get their names in print, it was reported that the Governor called Joe Bruno on his last day in office to thank him for his 32 years of service to the people of New York. Joe Bruno’s response? As reported in the New York Post Bruno said “Thanks for your friendship. And I’m going to test you next week. I’m going to call and see if you remember who Joe Bruno is, governor. OK?”

How prophetic was that? Apparently the Governor not only remembered him, but offered him a job.

Tom Christy is the founder of FAIR Government, a non-political and non-editorial educational foundation dealing with local government issues. www.fair-government.org. He encourages communication and can be reached via e-mail at aim1986@mac.com.

        

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