With Espada In Power, Reform Won't Even Be On The Backburner, It'll Be Thrown From The Stove

Malcolm Smith promised a new day in Albany under his control, but with the selection of Pedro Espada as Majority Leader, "reform" is now officially a doublespeak word. The change in the chamber has been waiting for more than forty years, hopefully we'll only have to wait another two while Espada has his session in the sun, or should I say, complete darkness.

From The Times-Union:

Mr. Espada owes more than $60,000 in fines to New York City's Campaign Finance Board, dating back to a campaign for Bronx borough president in 2001. He had been fined by state election officials for infractions involving a Senate campaign a year before that. This year, as Mr. Espada ran in another district to rejoin a body he was voted out of in 2002, he didn't even register his campaign committee with the state Board of Elections. That could mean more than $6,000 in additional fines.

This is the man Mr. Smith has to placate in order to hold onto to his party's two-seat majority?

No wonder people already are grumbling, if only anonymously, about a Senate leader who has seemingly sold the store.

There's little reason to wonder, meantime, what Mr. Espada might think about one of the great perks of legislative power, namely the political slush funds known as member items. A fiscal crisis involving record-high deficits wouldn't seem to deter him. The overriding issue when Mr. Espada lost his seat in 2002 was how the Senate had to take the extraordinary, if not unprecedented, step of recalling $745,000 in funding for a Bronx-based group that runs health care clinics for the poor. The group, Comprehensive Community Development Corporation, was operated by Mr. Espada himself — at a salary of $235,000, on top of the $90,000 he was making in the Senate.

Oh and there is so much more about the man. That article referenced above is just a primer on the history of Pedro Espada. With all the facts and figures, this was my favorite part:

"We're defined not by our blemishes, but by 30 years of work," he told The New York Times last week. Such thinking leads to this assessment of his critics, of whom he says, "They hate me because I'm not perfect."

"I'm going to get better," he says. "I'm a work in progress."

LMAO! If what went on over the last month to wrest power away from the Senators that actually deserved it was progress, I really, really hate to see what's next. Whatever takes place, it'll definitely be hidden far away from the prying eyes of good government groups and what makes up the media. Of course, this behavior can only mean one thing. That is, for the Bronx to make some progress and kick this sucker out (again) in 2010.