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Corruption in Queens: No one seems to care
As someone who has been accused of being too obsessed over complaining about corruption in Brooklyn politics, I sometimes forget that the Queens Democratic machine is also quite corrupt. I just don't have the same ties with Queens reformers that I do in Brooklyn. Today the Brooklyn Optimist takes a peek over the border in Queens and has a good rundown on the sleaze going on over there and the near silence from both the Working Families Party and the Democratic mainstream about this sleaze. Some excerpts:
Brian McLaughlin...is the former Queens Assemblyman and New York City AFL-CIO Central Labor Council President, who plead guilty on March 7th to federal racketeering charges, so that instead of facing 30+ years in prison, he'll likely only end up with 8 to 10...
[Randi] Weingarten makes it sound like McLaughlin was a good person who somehow lost his way and carelessly fell into bilking Little Leaguers...She is merely representative of a political power structure that hardly ever breaks rank to criticize its members, even when they are deserving of our utmost scorn and contempt...
Take Congressman Joe Crowley, the head of the Queens Democratic Party...What was Crowley's comment on McLaughlin's crimes? Over two weeks after McLaughlin's guilty plea, he still hasn't made one. (And why hasn't the press demanded one?)...
Not one politician stood up to condemn disgraced Queens Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio either when he was arrested last September for allegedly using a dummy consulting firm to take $500,000 in payoffs from people seeking his favor in Albany...
Even State Senator Hiram Monserrate has escaped public reproach from his colleagues. Monserrate, who recently leapt from the City Council to the Senate, made the front page of every paper in the city in December when he was arrested for allegedly slashing his girlfriend with a broken glass during a fight. The incident wasn't the first blow to the beleaguered State Senator from Queens. Monserrate was already embroiled in an investigation into a highly dubious nonprofit he directed $250,000 in City money to called Libre, which was run by Julissa Ferreras, his former chief of staff and successor to his Council seat.
How did Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith punish Monserrate, who was indicted this morning on felony assault charges? By throwing him a fundraiser last week!
What did the Working Families Party do to chastise Ferreras for her role in Libre? They endorsed her bid for City Council.
More at the Brooklyn Optimist.
About the only other place I have seen coverage of the Queens sleaze is at True News from Change NYC. Although the format is sometimes hard to navagate, True News has kept quite an eye on this issue and expressed the outrage that is missing elsewhere.
It's worse than that
The blogpiece doesn't even touch on the way the Queens County Democratic Party tries to destroy anyone with the cojones to challenge the party's anointed choice. Some of their methods are completely legal, if rotten, but much of what they do is blatantly illegal. They get away with it for two reasons. First, the folks running the party machine know every in and out of the law -- and how it is (and isn't) enforced. Second, they appoint the judges, as well as many, many other patronage jobs.
As a result of this crookedness, many who are an anointed pick actually get angry at the thought of having to campaign for office (seriously!). Even though they are virtually certain to win (in most cases), the idea that they have to earn their elected position is hideous to them.
I'm not talking about lazy people, nor do I mean the obvious crooks like McLaughlin. I'm talking about good representatives who are spending long hours trying to make government work and make things better for their district, their city, and their state.
That's the worst of it -- good people get corrupted by the machine. They don't take "pay to play" money, or anything like that, but their mindset gets corrupted. We were all brought up with the idea that open elections are the best way to get good representative government, but these good people seem to have forgotten that.
So how can we change things? Money! It takes close to $100,000 to run for City Council. Running for state office can run well over $250,000. The trick is to find good people who would not only make great representatives, but can also raise the money they need to defeat the party machine and run a solid campaign. Perhaps if enough insurgents win, we can change the system.
Perhaps.
Sozdat' Sait Besplatno
Could you help me. That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.
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