Fascist fun and games
The Ghost of Joe Bruno, Tom DeLay Redux, and Why NY Matters
by Jake McIntyre
Tue Jun 09, 2009 at 06:00:09 AM PDT
Democrats took control of the New York State Senate last month after more than four decades of Republican rule, then set out to determine how the Senate's own budget of nearly $100 million and its attendant perks were being distributed.
They are still trying to figure it out.
VIDEO
They recently realized there are some 75 employees working at the Senate's
own printing plant, a plain brick building on the outskirts of Albany. On
Long Island, they found a small television studio, which had been set up —
all with public money, with two press aides on hand to help operate it — for
the exclusive use of Republican senators to record cable TV shows.
Then there are the parking spots, always at a premium near the Capitol.
Democrats had been given roughly one spot per senator — there were 30
Democrats last year — and guessed there were perhaps double or even triple
that controlled by the majority. Instead, they have learned, there are more
than 800.
And Democratic leaders must determine what to do about 45 workers toiling
away in a building close to the Capitol who appear to have been engaged in
quasi-political research for the Republicans.
"Every time we nail something down, we uncover another rock and there's
another 30 people there — it's all over the state," said Angelo J. Aponte,
who as the new secretary of the Senate is the top aide to Malcolm A. Smith,
the Queens Democrat who became majority leader last month.
But as Citizen Bruno was busy getting indicted on massive federal corruption
charges, the new majority was taking bold steps to fix the basic way that
New York works -- reforming the state's notorious Rockefeller drug laws,
seeking to limit outside pay for legislators, and -- perhaps most
impressively, from our perspective in the netroots -- introducing
unprecedented transparency via a new website streaming all Senate business
and providing novel opportunities for citizens to get involved in the
Senate's business.
This, of course, would not do. A state Republican Party used to treating the
Senate as a piggy bank and patronage ATM was not going to let the arriviste
Democrats just dismantle everything they'd built. Moreover, the GOP
recognized that Democratic control of the Senate meant that the upcoming,
post-census federal redistricting process would actually be conducted in a
fair and responsive manner, instead of in a way guaranteed to preserve the
gerrymandered seats of the three remaining Republicans in the state's House
delegation. And billionaire Rochester plutocrat Tom Golisano, who thrice
failed to buy the governor's mansion in "independent" bids, and who spent
millions to try and bolster the dying GOP's hold on the Senate last year,
was appalled that the new Senate wouldn't cut his taxes -- so appalled that
he moved into Florida tax exile.
The answer was simple: a coup. A coup which would thwart transparency and
reform, restore GOP perks and pork, follow Tom DeLay's playbook for
undemocratic redistricting shenanigans, and cut Tom Golisano's taxes. The
needs of the many for responsive government would be sacrificed for the
needs of a very, very, select few.
And so Tom Golisano, who claimed to be the tribune of clean government,
helped broker a deal to give Espada -- a man who spat on basic campaign
finance laws -- the president pro tem's seat in the Senate. And the
Republicans crowed that they had taken back the majority, and undoubtedly
began wondering how long it would take them to reopen their private TV
studio and print shop. And somewhere in Texas, Tom DeLay smiled, proud that state legislative hijinks could still result in more House Republicans.
Make no mistake -- this isn't just a New York story.
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