Meanwhile, back in Albany ...

Let me take a brief break from One Sunset-email-health insurance-gate to revisit another favorite depressing topic.

State government.

After a lot of spin from the Golisano-Pigeon camp over the past week proclaiming that the month-long paralysis of the State Senate resulted in a win for upstate, Tom Precious sets the record straight:

Things are supposed to be different, if everyone from the likes of new Senate Majority Leader Pedro Espada to Florida businessman and Buffalo Sabres owner B. Thomas Golisano are to be believed. The “new” Senate is about empowering rank-and-file lawmakers — Democrats and Republicans alike — to make it easier, for instance, to get bills to the floor.

The focus for this week’s session, however, is not unlike what Albany witnessed the previous six months: downstate-centric and with the usual Capitol secrecy surrounding what is on the agenda.

Asked Monday for the bills the Senate will be considering, a Senate Democratic spokesman could name only one: Legislation affecting an expired law that had the mayor in control of the New York City schools will be a “high priority” Wednesday.

Another hot-button issue being pushed by some senators: pro-tenant legislation affecting rent-control laws in New York City.

What’s not high on the priority list of the Senate Democratic leadership? Bills dealing with lowering property taxes, or cutting state mandates to help localities cut costs, or improving how industrial development agencies are run, or making technical changes many lawmakers say are needed to the Empire Zone program that gives tax breaks to companies.

Senator Antoine Thompson, in his own spin session last week, unwittingly drove home the point that WNY remains not in the back seat, but in the trunk, of the car driven by downstate interests when he proclaimed:

“In a leadership meeting of the Senate, we have two of the 18 in the room who are from Western New York,” Thompson said.

Um, Senator Thompson, having two of 18 seats at the table is nothing to boast about. It means the other 16 are from someplace else.

Thompson opened his mouth to insert his foot in another story about a big fund-raiser Senate leaders are holding here Friday. Sen. Pedro Espada won't be attending, but Thompson said not to worry, he's trying to get him here for an event in September.

What, Rod Blagojevich isn't available?

Of course, this all flows from the top. Consider the stunt pulled by Senate President Pro Tempore Malcolm Smith and Democratic Conference Leader John Sampson, as reported by the Albany Times Union.

Eleven of the State Senate's highest-paid staffers received raises of up to $32,000 when it appeared likely Democrats would lose control of the chamber during the five-week leadership fight. The combined increases will cost taxpayers $200,000 annually ...

One day after the coup, Senate Majority Deputy Secretaries Meredith Henderson and Patricia Rubens each received nearly $23,000 in raises. Both staffers received an additional raise on June 23, for a total of nearly $32,000 each, backdated to Jan. 1, 2009. Both staffers are paid $140,382.

Smith and Sampson, by the way, are the headliners for the aforementioned fund-raiser in Buffalo this weekend. It will be interesting to see who shows up and forks over.

Friends of "reform," no doubt.

Comments

[Mark]

Between the lawsuits and leaving the lights on for another month with no one home, let's use this as an example. It supposedly would cost $2.7 million to fund the Empire State Games as reported in the News on Sunday. That is a small fraction of the cost of this fiasco for the last month, not including the lawsuits. I will keep saying this, if we send the same hollow suits to Albany year after year expecting a different result, we are the stupid ones. Vote change in 2010!

[JohnWesleyHarding]

Um, Mr Heaney, until millions of people move to Western New York from elsewhere in the state, or WNY secedes and starts its own state, it will ALWAYS only have a fraction of the seats at the leadership table.

And by the way, when the upstate-heavy Republican conference controlled the Senate for 40 years, how many seats did WNY have at the table then?

And not to put too fine a point on it, the era of Republican control which ended on January 1st was not one of unparalleled propserity for our region.

As you rightly point out, the Maziarz spin - whether it's about the coup he helped engineer, the unravelling of the coup, or his latest press release or go-nowhere bill - is always the same:
"This is GREAT news for UPSTATE!!!"

But no one ever aks him why when his cronies ran the show upstate went down the tubes.

[Barton Keyes]

The "reform" created in the Albany Senate has much more to do with evenly allocating money (Senate operating money as well as Lulus that individual Senators can spend in their district at their discretion) and staff positions (no wholesale purging of members of the now minority party)between the majority party and the minority party. No doubt that is important to Semators.
But that is hardly empowering individual senators or giving more power to committe chairman or deminishing the concentration of power in the Senate Majority Leader and President.
Absent a major change in the Senate's operating rules, power is still centered in the Senate Leadership with individual members remaining as little more than a means to provide constituent services.
At most, three men in a room have been turned into four men in a room, with two people now holding the reins of power in the Senate.

[Jim Cox]

Significant and vital changes are obviously needed in the way our state government does business. Unfortunately, there are only two ways this can occur. 1) Downstate politicians have to be willing to abandon their political gravy train, stop wasting time, money, and energy on localized special-interest issues, and start giving critical state-wide issues their due. Unfortunately this has NEVER happened before and we have no reason to expect this will EVER happen. 2) Upstate politicians have to find ways to make their regions attractive to domestic and foreign businesses. Population follows commerce, and representation is tied to population. There are three roadblocks preventing this from happening. A) Albany has screwed up so badly for so long that it is very difficult to overcome our many obstacles to economic development. B) Historically, there just hasn't been much in the way of creative, effective, charismatic leadership in Upstate NY. C) The cure requires a sustained effort over a prolonged period of time. Since politicians in a two-party system are, in effect, employees of the political party and not true public servants, no one is willing to risk political capital in the short term to achieve long-term goals.

[liferocks]

Pigeon is a tool...them him inn shackles.

[HapKLein]

You must admit that our Senate blithely moving along with staff salaries higher than the top executives and representatives of every other state and members frozen in postures of inaction New York has got to top even California in spectacular edifices to ruin. Imagine we have paid more for this disaster than every other state.
By reducing the education capability New York can now chase marvelous centers of capability like Florida and Texas in very faster downward cycles. and all before our very eyes.
What I really marvel at is the fact that most of the worst parts of this were engineered by unelected well meaning screwballs who deem whatever their results as "reform." What we end up with is business as usual with New York City running the show and a month of memorable scandalous behavior by all concerned.
Keep in mind that barring a miracle, everyone of those jerks will probably be re-elected and their stafffs will get even more money.

[Barton Keyes]

I have now read reports of the self-proclaimed
"reforms" signed onto by the Senate leadership.
A good number have to do with spreading the money and staff to minority members: Minority members will now get at least 33.3% of the earmarks allocated to individual members to spend in their districts as they choose; and the minority will now get at least 33.3% of the Senate's central staffing budget for their members' offices; and all 63 Senators will have more equal acces to mail and printing resources.
And their are even some reforms that MIGHT serve the public: regular members will have a greater ability to force bills to a vote on the Senate floor IF they can get 37 other Senators to sign onto a petition for such a move; officers and leaders in the Senate will only be able to hold onto their leadership positions for eight years; now for the first time transcripts of debates, floor proceedings and attendance reports as well as votes and payroll and expenditure information will be available online to the public; committees will for the first time be required to produce annual reports about the business they have conducted; and for the first time committees will be required to actually conduct oversight hearings of the agencies they have jurisdiction over.
These are small but potentially good steps. More needs to be done, including dispersing power among more people and opening up the way the legislature really works to public examination.