When I heard the news on the radio earlier today, I have to admit I was actually quite conflicted.

The State Senate was rocked today when two Democratic renegade senators broke from the party ranks and joined a surprise — and successful — move by Republicans to retake control of the 62-member chamber.

As 30 Democrats streamed out of the chamber, 30 Republicans and the two renegades remained and — despite lights being turned off, Internet service being shut down and a brief attempt by guards to clear the ornate chamber — wrestled control from the Democrats who took over the Senate in January after seven decades of GOP dominance.

The 32 lawmakers immediately elected Sen. Pedro Espada, a Bronx Democrat, as president of the body and Sen. Dean Skelos, a Nassau County Republican, as majority leader. Skelos had been majority leader when the Senate flipped to Democratic control six months ago.

“This is a coalition,” Espada said, insisting he remains a Democrat. He predicted more Democrats will join their cause in the coming days.

As a former Massachusetts resident, i’ve seen firsthand how one-party rule can damage a state. So, in the short term, I do see the short term benefit to giving Republicans control of the senate again, and particularly ending Malcolm Smith’s brief moment in the leadership. I believe in checks and balances, so in that respect, I can say “this is good.”

But, I don’t like deals like this that swing control back and forth. I didn’t like it when Jim Jeffords bailed on the Republican Party in 2001 by becoming an independent and giving Democrats an unelected majority status in the U.S. Senate. New York voters chose to give Democrats control of the Senate last year, they see it through, and decide in the next election if it was really worth it. I think they were starting to see that the Democrats aren’t the party of the people, and now that message may get muddled.

Also, I wonder if this will actually hurt the Republican Party in the long run, particularly in the next election. I suspect that most won’t look favorably on this switch of power by parliamentary coup and the Republican Party opened itself up to being the scapegoat of what will likely been seen as an unpopular power grab.

It may have been more beneficial to the Republican Party to leave things be, and let the state Democratic Party implode on account of its own corruption, lack of leadership, and disunity.

David Paterson’s popularity — or more accurately, lack thereof — already put him at odds with his party. The typical one-party-rule rubber stamp situation doesn’t quite apply here. But, that being said, the presence of one-party rule with an unpopular governor would have been a better situation for Senate Republicans to paint an effective election-year narrative for change and accountability. Before this switch, Democrats effectively owned every hot button issue out of Albany, especially high taxes, and wasteful spending.

Senator Bill Stachowski, undeniably on the Republicans’ hit list in the next election, was an easier target with Democrats in power, and had been making a habit of abusing taxpayer dollars as a result of newfound powers granted by majority status.

Then there’s the fact the Democratic Party, which was reportedly “on the brink of an all- out civil war,” now has something to unite them, as all of their internal struggles are forgotten. I think they strategy of divide and conquer would have been far more effective at producing electoral victories to not only bring Republicans back in power, but to keep them in power, and bring balance back to state government.

So, I can’t say this Republican is jumping for joy right now.  The Democrats were doing fine being their own worst enemy, this power switch has given them a rallying point.

UPDATE: Paterson is outraged…

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It is quite disturbing that Governor Paterson would sign legislation that lets drug offenders’ criminal records remain sealed, protecting them from background checks, which means that these offenders could get hired as school teachers, without the school, or parents, ever knowing. But, what is even more disturbing is that Paterson doesn’t seem to care about that concern.

At the weekly open leaders meeting called by David Paterson, Minority Leader Dean Skelos spent over 15 minutes raging about a proposal that would make it easier to seal the records of some drug offenders, but David Paterson held firm
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“Just so you’re aware, Senator, I can only speak for myself: I signed the bill, I read the bill, and I’m aware of the section of the bill,” Paterson said. “There was no unintended consequence on my part.”

He said that the idea was to allow people fighting drug addictions to get back into the work force in places where a drug offense would be a hindrance. Paterson pointed out that no violent offenders are eligible to have their records sealed.

Republicans object to the provision because it would permit drug offenders to get jobs they previously wouldn’t have been able to get because of background checks, like in schools.

So, this ought to have you asking yourself, if you’d be okay with a former drug offender being in a job, like a teacher, that allows him or her to be in regular contact with your kids? Paterson doesn’t think you have the right to know What if you own a business, don’t you think you have the right to know if the person you are about to hire has such a record?

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…happen to be mostly Democrats.

As Brooklyn Sen. Kevin Parker joins the growing list of indicted state lawmakers, it’s time to face a disturbing fact.

The vast majority of Albany’s crime wave can be traced to one group: New York City Democrats.

Of the 18 elected officials in state government charged with crimes since 2003, no fewer than 16 have hailed from the five boroughs, and 15 carry a “D” after their names in the newspaper.

Those appalling numbers get even more lopsided when you factor in the most infamous perp of all, Eliot (Love Gov) Spitzer. He was never formally accused of patronizing prostitutes but resigned in disgrace anyway.

The rap sheet is especially disturbing at this juncture in the state’s history, because this same crime-prone group happens to monopolize the three major levers of power:

Gov. Paterson and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver are from Manhattan, and Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith is from Queens.

According to Bill Hammond, the author of the editorial, Republicans need to “start connecting dots for voters, paint Democrats as the party of corruption and start winning elections again.” I agree that the state GOP needs to do a better job connecting the dots, but I am far less convinced that the Democrat voters care all that much about corruption to boot out the bad apples.

Across the country, Democrats have been elected and reelected despite their corruption. Some of the most infamous include Rep. Gerry Studds (D-MA) back in the 1980s, who was revealed to have had an affair with an underage male congressional page. HE was reelected six times afterwards until he retired. Rep. Mel Reynolds (D-IL) had an affair with an underage campaign worker, and was still reelected with 90% of his district standing behind him. He was later convicted on a number of charges, and his sentence was commuted by Bill Clinton. Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) who was finally defeated last year, had been previously reelected despite on ongoing bribery scandal, which had already seen several of his colleagues and aides go down.

These are just a few examples of a party that more than willing declare Republicans guilty until proven innocent (and still guilty anyway) but willingly turn a blind eye to corruption in their party.

So, as much as I’d like to believe the Democrat voters of New York would ever vote out the corrupt Democrats in Albany they’ve been reelecting for years, I won’t hold my breath waiting for it to happen.

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I couldn’t help noticing that Tom Golisano, in explaining why he is leaving New York, said that his tax dollars “will not continue to fund Albany’s bloated bureaucracy, corrupt politicians or regular handouts to the special interests.” I just find it a bit ironic since his own organization, Responsible New York, endorsed Joe Mesi for state senate last year. Mesi, after losing that election, accepted a $70,000/year patronage job in the state senate.

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If you thought Joe Mesi’s $70,000/year Senate job wasn’t bad enough…

A Democrat who was ousted by Amherst voters in the 2005 supervisor’s race has landed on her feet with a job in the Democratic-controlled State Senate.

Susan Grelick, who served nine years as Amherst supervisor, started Monday as counsel to the Senate’s Local Government Committee, headed by Westchester Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins.

A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith deferred questions about her background and salary to Grelick, who said she will be making about $90,000 a year.

I guess second place no longer means you’re the first loser…
 
 

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With dismal poll numbers and a majority of New Yorkers saying they don’t even want him to run again, Governor David Paterson desperately needs an issue to distract the voters and get them to think about something besides the economy and the budget. 

And it appears that issue is gay marriage.

 Gov. David Paterson said Wednesday he plans to re-introduce legislation to make same-sex marriages legal in New York.

The legislation is expected to mirror a gay-marriage bill introduced in 2007 by former Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who - with Paterson as his running mate - campaigned in 2006 on a platform that included marriage equality.

“We’ll put a bill out and let the people decide one way or the other,” Paterson said Wednesday morning on WHCU-AM (870) in Ithaca.

But even with legislation from Paterson, the state Legislature has not signaled the bill would pass both houses. In 2007, the state Assembly passed Spitzer’s marriage bill, but it stalled in the Republican-controlled Senate and remains that way now under Democratic control.

But, what do the people of New York say about gay marriage? Only 41% of New Yorkers support it.

Quinnipiac University polled 1,528 registered voters this month. Participants were given three choices: gay marriage, civil unions or no legal recognition.

One-third said gay couples should be allowed to form civil unions but not marry; 19 percent believed there should be no legal recognition.

Democrats, Independents, whites and women were the strongest supporters; opposition was strongest among Republicans, men and blacks.

A June 2007 poll showed 35 percent of voters supported gay marriage; 22 percent were against any legal recognition.

The poll’s margin of error is 2.5 percentage points

With only minority support fromthe electorate, and without enough votes for it to pass in the state senate, Paterson’s reintroducing the gay marriage is only serving one purpose: get the voters to stop talking about the budget, which, as I wrote in an article for the American Issues Project, an overwhelming majority of New Yorkers disapprove of.

Paterson is fighting for political survival. The gay marriage issue is dead-on-arrival and thus a waste of time. If Paterson thinks the voters are going to forget how his budget is screwing them over, he is greatly mistaken.

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State Senator Bill Stachowski, who was just barely reelected last year, has been having to answer for some questionable actions lately, namely his giving raises to his staffers despite the state budget crisis.

Despite the budget crisis, during which state leaders are angling to pull more money from taxpayers and perhaps lay off thousands of state workers, the Democrats who captured the state Senate have lavished raises on their staffs.

Take Western New York’s two Democratic senators, for example.

Key aides to Sen. William T. Stachowski of Lake View are collecting raises of 40 to 55 percent, while some aides to Sen. Antoine M. Thompson of Buffalo are seeing raises of 20 percent or better. And a couple of Thompson’s aides have doubled their salaries because they reached full-time status.

Senate Democrats argue that they are merely giving staffers “fair” compensation that had previously been denied by the Republican majority, though minority leader Dean Skelos said Democrats are spending more on salaries than Republicans did.

The scandal did force one of Stachowski’s aides to resign.

The pay raises that Democratic senators doled out to their staffs in recent weeks included a bump for Raymond F. Gallagher, who appeared on State Sen. William T. Stachowski’s payroll even though he holds a full-time job elsewhere.

Gallagher, a longtime political hand, also draws a state pension and serves as executive director of a company that, among other things, serves senior citizens through a county government contract.

Gallagher was serving as Stachowski’s part-time “special assistant.”

Until Thursday. That’s when Gallagher resigned from his state job as The Buffalo News inquired about what he does for Stachowski’s office.

Stachowski claimed Gallagher resigned because he couldn’t handle the extra workload, but that seems to contradict the earlier explanation for the raises.

Not only are Democrats like Stachowski giving their staffers questionable raises, they are also still managing to find millions of dollars for pet projects. Donn Esmonde wrote about this last week:

Not only did legislators not cut their own fat, but Stachowski (stachows@senate.state.ny.us) and Thompson (athompso@senate.state.ny.us)—as a perk of Democrats taking over the Senate—siphoned extra money into staff raises. Stachowski defended the upticks as a reward for extra work. Yet even gradeschoolers know that legislators are near-useless appendages, subservient to the “three men in a room”—the governor, Senate leader Smith and Assembly Speaker Shelly Silver—who hold power.

Stachowski reportedly pays $70,000 to a “scheduler” and another $70,000 to a “communications specialist.” Can’t the guy keep his own schedule, or find somebody to write his news releases for less than 70 grand?

Is this the “positive change” Stachowski was supposed to bring for New York and Upstate in particular?

Of course, as Esmonde noted in his column, this isn’t just about Stachowski alone. It’s the Albany culture that is the problem, and Stachowski, a career politician (now enjoying the spoils of victory with majority party power) will always be a part of the problem, not the solution. Democrats rushed passage of the state budget without adequate debate, and now, no one really knows exactly what is in it.

The people of New York have to put party loyalty aside and start electing people who will represent the people. We need to bring balance to the state government.

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Another Democrat paying his “fair share” of taxes:

Gov. David Paterson’s chief of staff blames depression for failing to file income taxes for five years.

Charles O’Byrne, who earns $178,500, has paid more than $200,000 in back taxes.

The tax debt came to light when New York’s Department of State filed an outstanding warrant against O’Byrne last year.

He says he’s ashamed, but told the New York Post he’s aware that his failure to pay taxes was a consequence of an illness over which he had no control.

UPDATE: Senate GOP calls for an investigation:

The Senate’s Republican majority, fighting to keep its slim, decades-old control, is calling for an investigation into Democratic Gov. David Paterson’s top aide who repaid $200,000 in back taxes and penalties but didn’t include the debt on his ethics disclosure report.

Over the weekend, Paterson Chief of Staff Charles O’Byrne said he has paid the taxes and penalties he owed from 2001 to 2005. During that time, O’Byrne said he was clinically depressed and had informed Paterson, then the Senate Democratic leader, of his debts and medical condition.

In that five years, records show O’Byrne contributed $3,500 to the Democratic National Committee and Sen. John Kerry’s presidential campaign. In New York, he contributed just $5 during that time, but $750 the following year.

The New York Post first reported the story Saturday based on public tax records portraying O’Byrne as a deadbeat whose excuse, according to the front-page headline, was, “HE’S CRAZY.”

On Monday, Senate Republicans seized the issue to fight back against a Democratic governor who, riding high in polls, has sought to get the Legislature to agree to spending cuts to stave off billions of dollars in deficits. In recent weeks, Paterson irked Senate Republican leaders when he endorsed and raised funds for Democrats.

The office of Senate Republican leader Dean Skelos of Long Island said Monday that “serious questions are being raised here.”

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Buffalo 14228 makes this weak argument against Mike Ranzenhofer:

He’ll do what Mary Lou Rath, the current Republican state senator for 14 years, was unable or unwilling to do…get something done. No sense going through the list of all the previous ineffectve Republican predecessors. All you need to know is that the State Senate has been controlled by Ranzenhofer’s Republican Party for the last 75 years. Electing him won’t correct what amounts to a Republican institutional problem.

The fallacy of this argument is that the New York state government is by no means a Republican institution. If Republicans lose control of the state senate, then the Democrats will have control of the Assembly, the Senate, and the governorship. That, my friends, would mean the Democrats would have an unfettered rubber stamp to impose more regulations and higher taxes, which ultimately leads to driving out the population and driving out businesses. You don’t have to take my word for it… it’s happening right now in Massachusetts.

If that’s what the netroots want, then by all means they can vote for Baby Joe. But, I think this state deserves better than a dysfunctional one-party government.

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A sad, but amusing article in the Buffalo News today says that with New York’s capital city, with its fair share of sex scandals, has earned the label of “Sin City.”

A former legislative aide accuses an assemblyman of sexually harassing her.

An underage intern accuses an assemblyman of raping her in a hotel room, then recants and says it was consensual, although he gave her alcohol.

An aide to the Assembly’s top leader is accused of raping two women, and the assemblyman stands by him until very recently.

The governor resigns as a federal investigation uncovers he had been seeking the services of high-price prostitutes. His successor admits that he and his wife had had affairs.

And now a Buffalo assemblyman admits he had been unfaithful to his wife several years ago but says his conduct did not violate any laws or State Legislature rules.

What is going on in Albany? According to longtime Albany insiders, the state capital has more than earned its nickname “Sin City.”

“Albany is a conducive environment to this kind of thing,” said Barbara Bartoletti, legislative director of the League of Women Voters of New York State, who has spent 28 years in Albany. “That may be true of every capital in the nation. You have a lot of powerful people, and young people tend to be attracted to powerful men.”

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I moved to Buffalo the day before Eliot Spitzer resigned in disgrace. As much as I despised the man, it was unfortunate to be welcomed to New York when its top executive was forced to resign. It’s just really unfortunate Albany is more of a city of elected officials doing monkey business rather than the people’s business.

But, I guess they’re all private matters, right? 

UPDATE: More at Albany’s Insanity.

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