Some interesting aspects today to what would otherwise be merely a humdrum endorsement announcement (in this case, that of Senate candidate Dan Squadron by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer); Stringer, of course, was one of the main champions of the Brennan Center Reforms before he quit the Assembly in thinly veiled disgust to run for City office.

Squadron used the occasion to reveal an eleven-point plan for reform of the Senate.

1. Mandate that bills that clear committees see timely debate, of a reasonable time period, and a vote before the full chamber.
2. Ease the restrictions on discharge petitions to more easily allow legislators to force roll-call votes in committee or the entire chamber.
3. Increase transparency related to committee proceedings and require more committee participation.
4. Allow sponsors of passed legislation or the leadership of the houses to call conference committees when similar (but not identical) bills pass both houses.
5. Repeal the 2005 rule forcing rules changes to be approved by the Rules Committee.
6. Equalize the distribution of staff and office resources.
7. Implement a Clean Money, Clean Elections system of public financing for state elections, with a system mirroring New York City's as a starting point.
8. Institute a strong enforcement mechanism and strengthen regulations on personal spending and disclosure requirements.
9. Create a non-partisan independent redistricting commission, so legislators can't draw their own districts, and allow the legislature only a simple up or down vote.
10. Make voting easier by passing Election Day Voter Registration.
11. Improve ballot access by reducing petition signature requirements and reforming the vacancy-filling process.

That's of course, basically the Brennan Center plan for legislative rules reform further sexied up with Clean Money Clean Elections. It's also pretty much what New York's reform movement has been talking about since 1982, when the present system was established in both houses of the legislature. These eleven points firmly align Squadron with the reform movement.

And in a sign of why primaries are good for you, the citizen, incumbent Senator Connor also publicly embraced the idea of reform, though without specifics.

“As the Democratic Senator with the most expertise on Senate Rules and practices, I look forward to adopting extensive Rules changes that promote open and honest government next year when we are in the majority.”

Awesome. Everyone's on the same page, and meanwhile, I can't help but think that our coverage here on this blog is driving the messaging of this contest, given that we just had a huge flamewar on process reform. Behold the power of the blog.  read more »

Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco, was first out of the gate with a call for the impeachment of Eliot Spitzer over the recent unpleasantness. Specifically, from news reports, he said:

The state "cannot have this hanging over their heads," said New York Assembly Republican Minority Leader James Tedisco.

"This" being, presumably, the freshly revealed fact that Eliot Spitzer had consorted with prostitutes.

Now, if Spitzer's transgressions cannot hang over the collective head of the state and require his immediate removal via impeachment, surely, the state also can't have hanging over our head that the incoming acting lieutenant governor, Senate President Pro Tem Joe Bruno, was issued an FBI subpoena in March of 2006 in connection with a Federal investigation into his consulting company. Specifically,

The senator refused to discuss what, exactly, the FBI is looking into. He declined to say whether it has anything to do with Evident Technologies Inc. - the company to which he steered $500,000 via two state grants with no strings attached.

Bruno has personal ties to several of Evident’s directors, Jared Abbruzzese, one of the company’s founders and a former co-chair, and Wayne Barr - both of whom share the senator’s interest in horse racing.

Abbruzzese is being investigated by the state Lobbying Commission for providing his plane to Bruno for several trips, including a fund-raiser and a tour of several Kentucky horse farms that Barr arranged.

Bruno said he doesn’t believe this inquiry will affect his ability to serve as majority leader - a post to which he was recently re-elected by Senate Republicans.

It's worth pointing this out again: the FBI subpoenas issued to Bruno and others remained known only to their recipients from March of 2006 until the Senator gave a press conference on December 19th, 2006. That press conference wasn't prompted by leaks from prosecutors - it came about because someone inside the state capitol was shopping the story. Since then, the investigation has remained airtight. By contrast, the Emperor's Club investigation concluded on Thursday, March 6th; the New York Times began calling the governor's office late the next day. But that's gravy, though probably worth an investigation by (Democratic) Attorney General Cuomo.

So back to Tedisco. Joe Bruno is being investigated for, as far as we know, steering public contracts to private firms in which he has an interest. That's likely to shake public confidence in the administration of government far more severely than anything having to do with Spitzer's private, self-funded spending habits.

So when is Assemblyman Tedisco going to introduce articles of impeachment against Joe Bruno?

There's a thoroughly remarkable piece in today's Albany Times-Union that New Yorkers interested in the reform of our notoriously un-small-D-democratic state government should read.

When Paul Newell and Luke Henry were toddlers just learning to talk 31 years ago, a young trial lawyer from the Lower East Side of Manhattan named Sheldon Silver was cutting his political teeth as a freshman assemblyman.

This year, Newell and Henry are challenging Assembly Speaker Silver, now one of state government's three most powerful politicians. It marks the first time in more than two decades that Silver has faced opposition in a primary.

Beautiful, but here's the real meat:

While Newell and Henry admit they're at a financial disadvantage, they think there's a desire for change in the district that will benefit them.

"I feel like change is in the air," Henry said. "I feel like I'm part of a citizenry that is saying to ourselves that we need more from our government, and we actually have the means to effect it."

Both argue Silver has been in Albany too long. They say he's lost touch with his electorate.

Newell believes the Legislature needs a 12-year term limit. This would give legislators enough time to develop expertise but not enough to become entrenched, he said.

Nothing, one can imagine, sends as chilly an air of discomfort through the enbalming chamber that is the state legislature than that horrific idea of term limits, implying as it does that seats in that body should not be lifetime sinecures. Blasphemy.  read more »

As the dust settles from Super Tuesday, leaving the Democratic race in an unsettled state - who's the frontrunner today? - it's worthwhile to take a look at what's happening sub rosa in our own state.

The biggest political question for New Yorkers, if not necessarily top of mind, is not whether Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama secure the Democratic nomination, or how either of them will take on John McCain or, haha, Mittens Romney. It is, rather, the scandalizing condition of our own state government, run by a bi-partisan legislative incumbency whose last interest is in the wishes of New Yorkers themselves. The dividing line between reactionary rot and the will of the people in New York is not a partisan one. It runs, rather, between meticulously protected incumbents and everyone else, including you.

And on that front as well, we finally see change, with a welcome convergence between the national and the state narrative of change. As Barack Obama said, "the world as it is is not the world as it has to be."

Consider this: Sheldon Silver, iron-fisted Albany patriarch of things as they are, elected to his seat in 1976, finally has a challenger in the Democratic primary. That challenger is Paul Newell, who made what can and should be considered a first major foray into the electoral arena yesterday, reaching out to core Democratic primary voters at polling places; Shelly, meanwhile, was presumably as always absent in Albany, polishing the levers of the machine that keeps him in power and the State Assembly a joke that ceased being funny a generation ago.  read more »

The Democrats are entering the 2008 election cycle in New York with the wind at their backs, aided in no small part by the collapse of the republican party both nationally and at the state level. All of New York's statewide elected officials are Democrats, including the governor, the attorney general, both U.S. Senators and even the comptroller, a race won by a Democrat under the shadow of indictment. To properly gauge the catatonic state of the republican party in this state, look no further than the re-election of Alan Hevesi.

The goals for the 2008 cycle are clear: knock off a few more republican Members of Congress, carry the state's electoral votes for a Democratic Presidential nominee - more of a challenge if the matchup turns out to be Hillary versus Rudy, but still winnable even in that scenario - and, lastly, wiping out the last bastion of republican power in the state, the two-seat Senate majority that enables Joe Bruno, obstructionist in chief in the Albany drama of dysfunction.

Once the Senate falls, New York will be a deep blue state without a real, functioning republican party in practical terms.

So then what?

Conventional wisdom says that, once the Democrats attain the majority in the Senate, they will reform the way that body does business, enacting real rules reform along the lines of the Brennan Center Report. This assumption is key to the quasi-alliance between Democratic partisans and reformers, and is based on a simple observation: that New York's sclerotic legislature, branded with cause the worst in the nation, can only be changed when a majority changes. It is hoped that this turnover, coupled with reform, will then shame the lower house, the Assembly, currently a medieval fiefdom run like a manor house with so many vassals by Sheldon Silver, into becoming an acceptable semblance of an actual legislature; this despite the observable fact that shame is a concept foreign to the Assembly as a body.

The leverage to bring this change about is two-fold: for one thing, the people of New York demand it, as evidenced by the deep disdain in which the legislature is held, for another, Democrats need the help of reformers to achieve their partisan goals.

With a view to what party monocracy looks like in practice - Brooklyn, The Bronx and Queens come immediately to mind - reformers would do well to insist on iron-clad guarantees before they commit to assisting the Democrats in this effort.  read more »