Over the years we've heard plenty of scandals that rocked the state. When corruption is exposed it makes big headlines, and sometimes the politician in the spotlight goes to jail. While it is good to see justice being served, the problem goes much farther than the individual in question for the moment. The entire culture of our state capitol is a mess and the FBI investigators and U.S. Attorneys who investigated Joe Bruno can attest to that.
The Buffalo News took a closer look yesterday:
In chasing after Bruno, the feds ran into an old Albany problem: Connecting the dots here is no easy task.
“If you read the congressional record, you see virtually everything a legislator says on the floor of Congress is recorded in some fashion,” said acting U. S. Attorney Andrew Baxter. “Our experience with the New York State Legislature is that bills are passed, member items are granted, and it is very difficult to reconstruct which individual senator or Assembly people were actively involved in promoting or casting the legislation or granting those member items.[...]
In Albany, rule No. 1 is to control the flow of information. Lawmakers and the governor spend millions each year on publicity efforts — whether it’s a personal photographer for Paterson or state-of-the-art TV broadcast facilities where legislative staff members ask puffy questions of lawmakers to beam back to local stations.
But want to get things unfiltered, say transcripts of legislative floor debates? You can look at the Senate Web site but only if you work for the Senate. On its public Web site, no such transcripts exist.
The state’s exalted Freedom of Information law? In practice, it’s often a tool to deny or delay access to information. Or, increasingly, it’s just ignored. The Buffalo News, for instance, in September filed a FOIL seeking documents on government hiring during a period when a hiring freeze was supposed to be in place. The governor’s office still has not complied.
It isn't just one particular legislator, it is nearly the whole lot of them...and their staffers too. What goes on up there is criminal when you think that they are charged with serving the people of New York. The only service is self-service and those that fight it on a daily basis (e.g. Good Gov't groups) know that they are up against a system that has been set in stone for decades. Though after a long investigation, the Buffalo News does have some suggestions in terms of reform.
It must start, reformers say, with redistricting, the mother of all incumbency protection machines. It’s the once-a-decade process that occurs after the census, when legislators redraw state legislative and congressional district lines to take into account population shifts. But the legislators protect the incumbents with party-friendly voters, or at least the favored incumbents.
The next round is just a couple of years away, and critics are calling for an independent body to craft the lines to put an end to districts such as the “earmuff district” for Rep. Louise M. Slaughter that curls from Buffalo to Rochester in search of Democratic voters or a downstate legislative district kept contiguous, as required, by connecting across a sand bar at high tide.
Next, move on to campaign finance and New York’s high donation “limits.” Consider: When new U. S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand runs next year, the most an individual is allowed to give her is $4,800 for a primary and general campaign. That’s a federal law.
And that is just for starters. Yet every one of these reforms will be fought tooth and nail by the leaders of both parties while they scream and shout that nothing is wrong and that they are open, they do make reforms and no, all that stuff isn't necessary. Now of course the ones saying this are people like Shelly Silver, Jim Tedisco, Malcolm Smith and Dean Skelos. Yet it doesn't have to be them, because the next high profile names are being groomed to continue the tradition. They'll never cede this power willingly, and that is why we need real corrective methods in New York. We need campaign finance reforms that make the system completely financed through public means. We need to make sure everyone can see what these legislators do in their spare time and whether those companies benefit from which politician are on their payroll. We must have transparency and if Albany doesn't give it to us, we must force it upon them. What that force could look like, I do not know yet. Whether it be from the Department of Justice, a grassroots phenomenon to vote them all out or whatever else, but something has got to give. No amount of scandal is going to make the leaders in Albany reform themselves, obviously, they've made that loud and clear.
|