CHRISTY: Remove the children from Albany

May 01, 2008 03:50 pm

— You aren’t going to believe this. Even though it was reported in the NY Times this past weekend; even though it has become so common no one even disputes these things anymore.
The way in which the New York State Senate dictates terms in Albany is still going to sound like someone made it up. Like it’s some fantasy story spread during the silly-season when campaigns outdo each other with outrageous lies.
But this isn’t the silly season. This isn’t something spread by a campaign. It’s a window into how one-third of our state government runs its operations.
Space prevents me from relaying most of the story here, and you really should read it for yourself. The article appeared in the April 27th edition of the Times; Google to read the entire story. It will be a valuable use of your time. But the first two paragraphs of the story are so crucial I’ll repeat them here. Keep in mind, the State Senate has a major say in how $200 billion of our money is spent each year.
“It was on a quiet Friday last October that the Democrats’ cell phones stopped working.”
“The bills had not gone unpaid. The phone company had not gone bankrupt. But Joseph L. Bruno, the State Senate majority leader and New York’s top Republican, had become furious that week when he learned that Democratic aides in the Senate were drafting a letter to the Internal Revenue Service suggesting that it investigate his income taxes.”
— Nicholas Confessore, New York Times
Keep in mind Joe Bruno is already under FBI investigation for steering state money to some friends, and for basically running a consulting business out of his basement. Ordinarily, suggesting the IRS look into someone’s taxes is a horrible, nasty, political dirty trick. But maybe in this instance there was something credible behind the request.
Either way, it’s nearly laughable that the man who is currently the acting Lt. Governor of the state, and is actually the Governor whenever David Patterson is out of the state, would organize the cancellation of the cell phones of all Democratic Senators and staff assigned to Democrats.
Where do we start with how bad this is? Do I even need to create an argument that we shouldn’t want to live in a state where this is considered a day’s work by our elected state leadership?
But it gets worse, and this is where the article came eerily close to home.
Those “informational” newsletters that clog your mailbox and are printed and paid for by tax dollars is another way Republican’s in the State Senate feel the need to protect us. Apparently the Republican State Senators get their mailings printed in full-color while Democrats elected to the State Senate get their mailings printed in black and white. Furthermore, the Democratic newsletters must go through a content-approval process whereby any objectionable writing can cause the newsletter to be censored. Either change the story in your newsletter or it will not be mailed. “I can challenge it, said Democratic State Senator Liz Krueger, “but they can solve that by refusing to print and mail it.”
Taken to its logical conclusion, anything that is to be mailed by State Senator Antoine Thompson into his Buffalo/Niagara Falls district must first be approved by State Senator George Maziarz or Dale Volker, who represent completely different districts. This is the level of “safety” that the State Senate feels we need.
If you think this is absurd, and could never happen, read the entire NY Times article and start paying more attention. This is what our state government thinks is crucial to the safety and rejuvenation of our state.
In the past few months we’ve learned that the State Police have had a secret political dirty-tricks department created by former Governor George Pataki, where they built files on people deemed unfavorable to the cause. And the temptation is to think these things only happen far away in Albany, and nothing like this can happen locally.
Now we learn of censorship in the State Senate printing department, while the case concerning undue political influence at a television studio, LCTV, is being investigated by the IRS here in Niagara County.
Can it be this simple to connect all the dots?
It’s ridiculous to paint this as a republican or democrat problem. Neither party stands tall in our state. We have so many problems we can’t afford to focus on petty political party affiliation. We need to demand more of those that are, in effect, our employees, regardless of political affiliation. We need to focus on hiring people who are less concerned about party politics and more concerned with the state of our infrastructure, our ranking as the highest taxed municipality in the entire nation, our sorry state of economic development and our hazardous waste situation.
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 reach via email at aim1986@mac.com.

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