Yup. According to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School NY is once the proud home of the most “dysfunctional” state legislature in the union. Woohoo!
Since this is new to, perhaps, those Dopers who are not residents in the Empire State, here’s a link to the Brennan Center release, which has links to the study, itself.
Personally, I tend to believe that the report’s authors are wearing rose colored glasses if they seriously believe that the incoming Democratic majority in the State Senate is going to change the chamber rules one iota from the ones that the Repubican majority has been using for decades to strangle any kind of real voice for the people in the chamber. After all, the Democrats have controlled the Assembly for that period of time, and have been happy to continue to return to the same restrictive and autocratic rules for decades.
It’s the best chance for reform in the Senate in years. I agree with that. This is a far thing from saying it’s a good chance for reform in the Senate.
What’s got me really torqued, however, are the comments that my State Assembly Speaker has had the chutzpah to make to the press.
Here’s a local paper’s article, with a bit of Sheldon Silver’s responses to the study.
What got my ire going at fusion temperatures was this bit from Silver: Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, took sharp exception to the report.
So, what are the substantive reforms that Silver is boasting of?
Why, it’s:
That’s right. Those committees that members get paid extra for actually have to meet once a month to vote “present,” so they can justify the thousands of dollars more those useless parasites in Albany take from the state.
This is Sheldon Silver’s idea of substantive reform.
His staff is even worse.
That’s right. The same budget that gets passed weeks or even months late has frequent public meetings where the people involved do nothing substantive. In the end, every year, the budget battle comes down to three men in a [closed] room. Who make the decisions amongst themselves, and then get rubber-stamped by the two chambers of the Legislature. And this rat-fucker seems to think this meets the standards of openness and full disclosure in government?
Then he goes on to protest:
For years, Sheldon Silver has complained that the various initiative in the State Senate, passing bills there that would reform both houses were nothing more than grandstanding. Because everyone involved knew that no matching bill in the other chamber would ever be passed.
And now the rat-fucking staff of this lying, filthy autocrat is trying to boast of their own bills that never made it to law?
Fuck you.
And fuck the goddamned sheep in NY who keep returning any incumbent to Albany. As long as we keep saying our state aid is worth being bought off by the Assembly and Senate leadership to allow this idiocy to continue we’ll keep getting the government we deserve.
Rat-fucking lying assholes.
We’re facing a huge crisis in our budget. This is the quality of leadership that we must count on to find a solution.
Anyone want to buy some state parks? The Adirondacks used to be pretty until they got clear cut to raise some money for the state.
