Alright, so everyone who hasn't been asleep for the last forty years must have seen this one coming: Sheldon Silver, Democrat of Manhattan, Speaker of the Assembly, refused to allow the State Assembly an up-or-down vote on congestion pricing.

The New York Times:

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s far-reaching plan to ease traffic in Manhattan died here on Monday in a closed conference room on the third floor of the Capitol.

Democratic members of the State Assembly held one final meeting to debate the merits of Mr. Bloomberg’s plan and found overwhelming and persistent opposition. The plan would have charged drivers $8 to enter a congestion zone in Manhattan south of 60th Street during peak hours.

Mr. Bloomberg and his supporters, including civic, labor and environmental organizations, viewed the proposal as a bold and essential step to help manage the city’s inexorable growth.

Now, here's where it gets interesting. If the proposal didn't have the necessary votes, it could have been let to the floor and died there. Sheldon Silver didn't allow it to a vote - in the Stalinist system of Albany, only the leaders of the respective chambers, not individual legislators, in practical terms have the ability to bring legislation to a vote - because he did not want it to pass.

And there is no district in all of New York that would have benefited more from congestion pricing than Mr. Silver's own.

In normal years, residents of Silver's 62nd AD really don't have much in the way of leverage over their too-powerful Assemblyman, which is why Silver has completely escaped accountability in his marbled office in Albany. This time, however, things are different: there's a primary challenger, Paul Newell.

If the powerless voters in the 62nd Assembly District want to have a representative for their interests in Albany, this year, they have a choice.

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.

File this one under: “Predictions from the Rock”. Watch it blow up and then come back to me later. You see, this is the month that Diane Gordon goes on trial over her alleged bribery caper. Remember the video tapes, where we saw Ms. Gordon seemingly attempt to bribe a developer into building her a dream house in some gated community in Queens; well unless they postpone the trial she will be soon getting her day in court. So what are my predictions?

Firstly; I predict that Diane will be going to jail, not passing go, and not collecting the 200 dollars from passing (monopoly). This of course opens up her assembly seat in a special election. And cousins, this is where it gets sexy (politically speaking, that is).

You see, when Charles Barron announced earlier this summer that he was running for Brooklyn’s borough presidency, he also said some rather interesting things. No; I am not talking about his pledge to finally, “take care of black folks”; I am talking about his observation that no other black could win that race once he is in it. He is correct; profoundly so. Yet, Charles is also quite pragmatic when he is backed into a corner. He must know also that the corollary is just as true: if other blacks run, he too will lose. So what is a man to do here folks?

Empire Zone brings the latest piece of news from the piece of work that is our State Assembly.

ALBANY — Speaker Sheldon Silver and fellow Assembly Democrats quietly introduced legislation late last month that would grant lawmakers a raise of nearly 21 percent, increasing their base pay to the second highest in the nation among state legislators.

No, this was not announced in a press release.

Of course not.

At the urging of Gov. Eliot Spitzer, also a Democrat, Mr. Silver agreed to hold off on the legislation for the moment, pending the outcome of a fight between the governor and Senate Republicans over campaign finance reform.

Marc Landis's comment on Bouldin's survey couldn't be more on target. He and I are in complete agreement -- CMCE (which stands for "Clean Money, Clean Elections") is absolutely the best choice.

And not just in Albany.

New York City is laboring under the false impression that we have what many people, including the current Speaker, have called the best campaign finance system in the country. It is nothing of the kind.

Under the current system, campaigns in NYC have more than doubled in cost since 1989. And that's after adjusting for inflation and removing the fluke that is the last two mayoral races. Also, the disparity between winners (who raise a lot of money) and losers (who don't) is getting larger. Instead of leveling the playing field, matching funds are tilting the field even further.

Using 20/20 hindsight, we can see why any matching fund system actually makes things worse.

Read on...

One of the more hilarious arguments put forth by New York legislators during the Comptroller fight has been that by blowing off their deal with the governor, they were somehow standing up for the principle of separation of powers. For instance, here's Assemblyman Joe Lentol of Brooklyn:

"I, too, stand for reform today," Assemblyman Joe Lentol, a Brooklyn Democrat, said during the comptroller vote. "The reform I'm talking about is not abdicating my responsibility as a member of the Legislature of the state of New York and ceding that authority to the executive.

Don't flatter yourself, Mr. Lentol.

There is no such thing as the New York legislature. There's a bunch of hands that dutifully go up at the beginning of each session, and then there's Shelly Silver and Joe Bruno. Ceding that authority to the executive? Mr. Lentol clearly has a rich sense of irony - or none at all. Don't talk about ceding power to the executive when you've ceded all your power to an executive named Shelly Silver. At least Spitzer has the virtue of having been elected by 69% of the voters of New York State, as opposed to a handful of folks on the lower east side and in the capitol building.

The arrogance of so many of New York's so-called legislators is matched only by their cluelessness. One of them called Spitzer "f--ing nuts." Assembly Majority leader Canestrari said, “I don’t think tactics that impugn our integrity work.”

You. Don't. Get. It.

(more...)

Check out Merriam-Websters definition of dysfunction.

The Albany Times-Union, lead editorial, titled 'The legislature's gall':

Take that, New Yorkers.

It's what the state Legislature -- and, most insidiously, the dominant bloc known as the Assembly Democrats -- thinks is best that matters. It's what they want, mainly political reward and advancement for themselves, that comes before the public interest.

The most recent, and particularly egregious, example of that came Wednesday afternoon as Speaker Sheldon Silver of Manhattan and the rest of the Assembly Democrats saw to it that the Legislature would select one of their own, Thomas DiNapoli of Nassau County, as the state comptroller. So went a sneering rejection, not only of three recommended, and much better-qualified, candidates from outside the Legislature, but also of the very process that Mr. Silver agreed to less than a month ago and now declares was flawed.

The Daily News, lead editorial, titled 'Stunning lack of integrity':

Nothing good will come of this for the leaders - particularly for Silver, who directed a charade screening process - and the worst awaits DiNapoli. He is now the poster boy for Albany dysfunction and bears the stigma of being a third-stringer who doesn't belong in the job.

The voters, so fed up with the capital's sloth and sleaze, will remember when the time comes that DiNapoli is not their man. That he is Silver's creation, the guy who had the backing of party bosses because they felt they could work with him, the man in a small job who took advantage of a rigged process to become someone big. The someone who got sole custody of the pension fund money, though his financial acumen ends with balancing the family checkbook. A pox on him. A pox on them.

You can't improve on pure brilliance, so let me just direct our readers to BuffaloPundit's brilliant open letter to the legislature.

I would add only this: the people are watching. The people expect reform. No, we don't want some clubhouse hack as Comptroller. Choose one of the three contenders selected in the process you agreed to.

Either that, or admit that you're a bunch of irrelevant hacks who don't give two cents about the will of the people. And then, face the consequences.

[Update]: Oh, nevermind. Hackery as usual.

The legislature is engaging in brinkmanship over the choice of the new Comptroller.

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.

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.