One Hypocrite From Rochester Has Tremendous Pull Over NYC

Our state legislature is one screwed up piece of work. While a few things good things are enacted (like the solar energy bill mentioned earlier this morning) many more items are bottled up and the process stinks to high hell. Take David Gantt for example, a Democrat from Rochester. Mr. Gantt recently approved of red light cameras in his town, allowing the city to collect fines without the time wasted by a cop to pull the traffic violator over. Yet when New York City wants to reduce congestion and get cars out of bus lanes by using cameras on the buses as a method of enforcement, he isn't having it. Even though most members in his committee wanted the legislation, to him that is just too bad. What do you think our legislature is, a democracy or something?

From The NY Times:

ALBANY — Once again, Michael R. Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City, has been frustrated by the mysterious ways of the capital.

The latest indignity came on Tuesday, when Assembly Democrats refused to advance a city proposal to prevent cars from using special lanes that will be reserved for a new class of city buses. If that was not frustrating enough, six Democratic co-sponsors of the bill were among those who voted not to move it out of the Assembly’s Transportation Committee because the panel’s chairman, Assemblyman David F. Gantt, also a Democrat, opposed the measure.[...]

The rejection of the city’s bus bill was also disappointing for environmental advocates. This month, the city will introduce new rapid transit buses, which will operate on 50 miles of lanes throughout the city by 2011. The city had hoped to use cameras mounted on the buses to catch cars that encroach in the special lanes.

“It has the potential to revolutionize the way people move around town,” said Gene Russianoff, an advocate for mass transit and a lawyer for the New York Public Interest Research Group. He added that it would be “impossible to enforce lanes now with the police — you’d need a battalion.”

Mr. Gantt, who is from Rochester, has long opposed the use of cameras for law enforcement, but recently he reversed course by introducing a bill that would allow for red light cameras in Buffalo. The bill was drafted to favor a type of traffic-monitoring technology made by a company run by his former counsel.

He brushed off a question about whether he had sought to influence the votes of other committee members on the bus bill.

“What do you think, I go around breaking people’s arms?” he said.

Literally breaking arms? No, but I certainly think that if you want to play with Mr. Gantt, there has to be some sort of pay to get that bill going. Though perhaps we should check the limbs of Michelle Schimel, Harvey Weisenberg, Sam Hoyt, Janele Hyer-Spencer, Matthew Titone and George Latimer, all Democrats who were co-sponsors of the bill before voting against their own legislation. Though the problem isn't their arms really, it is their lack of a spine when not standing up to the leadership.