The legislature is engaging in brinkmanship over the choice of the new Comptroller [1].
Let's review: Eliot Spitzer was elected in November with 69% of the vote. The freshly elected governor and the legislature agreed on a procedure to select a new Comptroller to replace Alan Hevesi. Now, Speaker Silver is threatening to ignore that procedure and install his own choice.
This because, presumably, elections don't matter in the Albany Sewer [2].
Or because, presumably, what the voters demanded in November wasn't change or anything so upsetting as that. No, we voted to prolong the process games and feudal legislative fiefdoms that got us in trouble in the first place. We voted, I guess, to extend further the system of three men in a room. We voted for cronyism, because overall, it seems, we're happy with the way things are done.
The Daily News, linked above, has more:
Spitzer wants a seasoned money manager with few ties to the Albany power structure - but the Legislature has the constitutional power to pick a successor to former Controller Alan Hevesi. Hevesi resigned after he was caught using state drivers to chauffeur his ailing wife.
"Breaking the agreement [to honor the panel's choices] and ignoring the people's call for reform will have consequences," warned Spitzer spokesman Darren Dopp.
The appointment should come down to "experience, not cronyism," Dopp said.
Spitzer did succeed in enlisting Senate Democratic leader Malcolm Smith and Assembly Republican leader Jim Tedisco to back him in tapping one of the three picks of the screening panel: City Finance Commissioner Martha Stark, Nassau County Controller Howard Weitzman and financier William Mulrow.
Let's be really clear here: this is not about preserving the constitutional prerogatives of the legislature. It is about preserving the status quo. Thing is, we voted against that. We'll see just how much respect for our will our elected representatives have.
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