The dysfunctional government in Albany: You guys are a disgrace!
BY Kenneth Lovett
DAILY NEWS ALBANY BUREAU CHIEF
Updated Sunday, March 29th 2009
It's time to clean up the mess in Albany!
New York’s state government — dubbed the most dysfunctional in the nation — is living up to its reputation now more than ever.
In the last two weeks alone, a massive corruption scandal in the controller's office was highlighted in an indictment, the governor and Legislature were finalizing a budget deal containing massive tax hikes in complete secrecy and a state senator was indicted on charges of beating his girlfriend.
A lack of public input and accountability has locked citizens out of their government and made the Capitol ripe for corruption and favoritism.
"If the average person saw what's going on, they'd descend on Albany with torches and pitchforks like in the old Frankenstein movies," said former Assemblyman Thomas Kirwan, a Newburgh Republican.
Reformers have been raising the alarm for years.
In 2004, New York University Law School's Brennan Center for Justice issued a scathing report calling the Legislature "dysfunctional" and saying three men - the governor, the
Senate majority leader and the Assembly speaker - controlled legislation and made all the key decisions.
In 2006, the center issued a followup report noting small changes but concluding most of the so-called reforms simply "codified the status quo."
Last year, the center issued a third report, "Still Broken: New York State Legislative Reform," which found that despite some changes, there is still a long way to go.
"The main structural problems are all still there," report author Lawrence Norden said.
Still, reformers hoped change would come this year because one party, the Democrats, controls both houses and the governor's office.
That hope, critics say, has not turned into reality.
How bad is it?
• There have been a string of high-profile scandals, indictments and convictions - including a governor caught frolicking with hookers, a controller forced out for using state employees to chauffeur his wife, and a Senate majority leader indicted for shady business dealings.
• The executive director of the state Public Integrity Commission, which is supposed to keep the executive branch honest, is under investigation.
• Lobbyists have a stranglehold on the Legislature. Relying on buttonholing and campaign contributions to legislative leaders, the lobbying industry, which raked in $171 million in 2007, can block good-government legislation for years.
• That stranglehold helps speed through dead-of-night laws favoring special interests, like insurance companies or labor unions, with little notice, no debate and virtually no dissent.
