[Michael Hoover rightly pointed out that New York State's politics were
worse than most other states, so people in other states might have
opportunities that we in New York don't. Apropos, here's an article on a
recent study that claims to show that our state political system in New
York politics isn't simply worse than most -- it's the worst one in the
country period.]
URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/22/nyregion/22york.html
The New York Times
July 22, 2004
So How Bad Is Albany? Well, Notorious
By MICHAEL COOPER
A LBANY, July 21 - Over a five-year period, 11,474 bills reached the
floor of the two houses of the Legislature in Albany. Not a single one
was voted down.
And during that period, from 1997 through 2001, the Legislature held
public hearings on less than 1 percent of the major laws it passed.
When those laws made it to the floor of each chamber for a vote, more
than 95 percent passed with no debate.
Civic groups, policy advocates and even some lawmakers have long
rolled their eyes at what has become known as Albany's "dysfunction."
But a study released here on Wednesday by the Brennan Center for
Justice at New York University School of Law illuminates just how bad
the problem is, calling the Albany body the least deliberative, most
dysfunctional state legislature in the nation.
"Neither the U.S. Congress nor any other state legislature so
systematically limits the roles played by rank-and-file legislators
and members of the public in the legislative process," the study
concluded.
The report, which compared New York's Legislature with those in the 49
other states, found that Albany represents the worst of all worlds,
being at once stiflingly autocratic and strikingly inefficient.
It noted that the two men who control the Legislature - Assembly
Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Democrat, and the Senate majority leader,
Joseph L. Bruno, a Republican - have almost total power over which
bills they will allow their members to vote on, and a wide range of
sticks and carrots to help them keep their members in line.
The report found that it is harder to get a bill voted on in New York
than anywhere else in the nation. And it found that while New York has
one of the most expensive Legislatures in the nation, if not the most
expensive, its rate of bills that actually become laws is one of the
lowest in the nation. The report includes a number of recommendations
for change, and one of its authors, Jeremy M. Creelan, said he would
be heading a statewide campaign to try to get each house of the
Legislature to alter its rules.
Some of the center's proposed rule changes were amusingly
straightforward. Consider this one: "Votes by members shall be
recorded and counted only when the member is physically present in the
chamber at the time of the vote."
While that might sound self-evident, it would actually amount to a
somewhat radical change in New York, where state lawmakers who sign in
in the morning are automatically counted as voting "yes" on every bill
that comes before them unless they signal otherwise - even if they
have left for the day.
The report found that 81 percent of the nation's state legislatures
require their lawmakers to be physically present in the chamber to
vote, and that "New York's is the only Legislature that routinely
allows empty-seat voting."
Not surprisingly, the report was not warmly received by the two men
who control the state's 212-member Legislature.
Senator Bruno called the report "pure nonsense," saying that other
Republicans in the Senate confer with him constantly but that it falls
to him to lead.
"Talk to the C.E.O. of any company," Mr. Bruno said. "If you want to
act on something, and the company has 212 employees, what are you
going to do, have a discussion and let 212 employees do whatever the
agenda is? Is that what you do? So you have 212 different agendas. And
that is just chaotic, doesn't work. That is Third-World-country
stuff."
Speaker Silver said that he talked to the Democrats who make up his
conference all the time. "Nothing happens here in Albany, in the
Assembly, without the input of the rank-and-file legislators," he
said.
But the input Mr. Bruno and Mr. Silver were referring to comes mainly
from the members of their own parties, and it is given in private,
behind closed doors. Those party conferences, in fact, are where many
of the real decisions are made.
Just this week the Assembly Democrats held a passionate debate about
whether they should reinstate the death penalty by passing a bill to
change a section of the current law that was ruled unconstitutional.
And the Republican senators agonized over whether to raise the state's
minimum wage - an issue that has divided the Senate for some time.
But neither debate was held in public.
Sometimes lawmakers do not even know what they are voting on. The
State Constitution requires a three-day waiting period after a bill is
printed before the Legislature can vote on it, to give lawmakers and
the public time to read each bill. But it allows an exception when the
governor sends the Legislature a "message of necessity" allowing a
vote on a bill as soon as it is printed.
Mr. Bruno said the calls for reform were unrealistic. "You know, I
always get a kick out of these people," he said. "When I study civics,
if I were relating to my civics classes, I would fail as a senator -
I'd get an F As a leader - I'd get an F-minus, if there is such a
thing. You've got to get in the real world."
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company