| Just about a year ago when I began volunteering with a political campaign for the first time, my candidate was considered a long shot at best. That candidate was facing the full weight of an overwhelming political establishment. Opinion makers quickly dismissed the upstart candidate as too young and too inexperienced, noting the primary would be nothing more than a formality or procedural obstacle on the way to the front runner's inevitable coronation [1].
Of course, that "incumbent" candidate was Hillary Clinton; Barack Obama, my candidate, the one pundits expected to implode into a cloud of inexperience under the crushing weight of the establishment with an audible 'poof', is now our Democratic nominee. There's still a great deal of work to be done before Barack Obama becomes our 44th President, but he's out of the gate with a strong lead, even with the wounds of our the long, contentious primary campaign still slowly mending.
New to politics a year ago, I entered the fray with only a passing familiarity with the candidates various policy proposals. Despite my indifference and apathy at the time, Barack Obama's commitment to good government policies -- specifically campaign finance reform, government transparency and ethics reform -- drew me into the campaign, and eventually into Democratic politics for good. I could go on and on about my admiration for Obama's dedication to these issues, how good-government, campaign finance, and increased transparency are the prerequisites for lasting change, but I imagine there's little need to trumpet Obama to TAPers (for the record, this post was originally written for a broader audience at dailykos -- I hope I my relative ignorance of state issues compared to the average TAP reader doesn't spoil the message).
Well, once again I'm rooting for the reformer-underdog. Still, despite the overwhelming weight of New York's establishment machine bearing down on Paul Newell campaign, I'm more convinced than ever that Obama-style bottom-up Change is precisely what NY state so desperately needs.
NEWELLNYC.ORG
Like Obama, Paul Newell's campaign for New York State Assembly in Lower Manhattan insists that reforming Albany should be our top priority. In light of the recent FISA capitulation, it may seem hard to believe, but NY state Democrats are often even less effective than our US Congressional Democratic majority at delivering real reform, despite an overwhelming Democratic majority in the State Assembly (of course, Republicans control the State Senate -- I'll address that problem shortly).
Albany is broken, corrupt and unaccountable. As one of the three-men-in-a-room, Sheldon Silver is directly responsible. The dysfunction of Silver's Albany cabal denies democracy to New Yorkers and costs us billions in funds spent unaccountably. Behind closed doors, Silver and Bruno are listening to the concerns of campaign donors and party bosses instead of New Yorkers.
Outside of that room, New Yorkers are looking for real change.
-- Paul Newell (newellnyc.org)
Let's look at a couple examples of Albany's culture of corruption actively blocking progressive change in New York and protecting some of the most regressive laws in the country today. New York's draconian Rockefeller Drug Laws -- on the books since 1973 -- have survived for decades despite repeated attempts at meaningful reform, and near universal recognition of the need for reform in the state (succinct history of the Rockefeller Drug Laws). While meaningful incremental reform did make it through the legislature in 2004 (Drug Law Reform Act of 2004, or DLRA), reducing mandatory minimum sentences and expanding drug treatment programs, the reform was missing most of the key ingredients for lasting reform. Most importantly, so called "judicial discretion" still hasn't been restored, leaving prosecutors the "power to determine sentencing due to the mandatory sentencing provisions" (drugpolicy.org).
Drop the Rockefeller Drug Laws
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Rockefeller drug laws are possibly most destructive piece of legislation on the books. Tens of thousands New Yorkers are serving multi-year sentences for non-violent drug offenses. This is breaking up our families and destroying lives.
While a clear majority of New Yorkers have supported Rockefeller reform for many years, Sheldon Silver and Joe Bruno's culture of failure in Albany have consistently failed to bring change.
http://www.newellnyc.org/2008/...
Early last year, meaningful reform of the Rockefeller Drug Laws appeared again on the floor of the legislature, even passing by a comfortable margin in the State Assembly. News of reform passing the state Assembly sounds encouraging, except when that reform is ultimately killed in the State Senate shortly thereafter. But wait, you say! How could progressive New Yorkers conceivably blame Silver's Assembly leadership for drug reform's demise in the Republican controlled Senate? Here's where New York state politics get really interesting (i.e., depressing), hopefully compelling any reform minded progressives to rally around our noble cause.
Capitol Park by flickr user iessi, used under Creative Commons license
When Newell speaks about reforming Albany, he invariably focuses on the insidious "three-men-in-a-room" problem, whereby Assembly Speaker Silver, Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno and the Governor effectively control the state. Bruno and Silver especially, have developed a cooperative relationship in Albany effectively designed to protect incumbents -- in fact "since 1970, twice as many NY legislators have died in office than been defeated by challengers" (newellnyc.org). Here's a quick rundown of one major cause of this problem from the Gotham Gazette and NYTimes (emphasis mine).
In New York State redistricting is officially done by the six members of the Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment (LATFOR), who are appointed by legislative leaders on both sides of the aisle. The task force thus takes on the aura of a disinterested bipartisan body. In reality, the leaders of each house have agreed to split the spoils. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver controls redistricting for the Assembly and Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno controls redistricting for the Senate. And if that power divide isn't distressing enough, state law and legal precedent have established that district lines CAN be drawn in order to ensure that party representation and incumbency are protected.
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In fact, overall, New York State ranks near the bottom in terms of turnover in its legislative races. In 2002 no incumbent lost a general-election race in New York. Over the past twenty years, only 30 incumbents have lost general election races. This is an incumbency return rate statewide that hovers around 98 percent.
GG, Why Gerrymandering Must Go by Doug Israel (February 14, 2005)
Mr. Silver's extraordinary power comes from his safely gerrymandered majority and his unchallengeable hold on his district. But it also comes from his members.
NYT, Silver Wields Power by Keeping Albany Guessing By Joyce Purnick (June 20, 2007)
Gerrymandering doesn't nearly capture the entirety of Albany's chronically-dysfunctional nature, but it's an important aspect of our state government that fosters unaccountability. Campaign finance, Tammany-style machine politics, and various other distractions have plagued New York politics for decades. When politicians literally draw their own districts, it becomes impossible to hold our leaders accountable. Despite his continued support for Albany's crippled politics -- a system specifically designed to deliver an unrepresentative Republican State Senate majority, Sheldon Silver gets to claim credit for the Assembly's efforts to reform the state's archaic, racist, and inhumane Rockefeller Drug Laws. Corruption at the very foundation of Albany's politics is directly responsible for New York's continued inability to enact progressive legislation and reform, specifically reform of the Rockefeller Drug Laws despite overwhelming support from New Yorkers.
In November 2006, more New Yorkers voted for Democrats for NY State Senate than for Republicans
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92% of NY voters who voted for a Republican State Senate candidate picked a winner.
43% of NY voters who voted for a Democratic State Senate candidate picked a loser.
Gerrymandering and the 51% minority by TAP's Scott in NJ (Dec 19, 2006)
Beyond supporting the state's broken political foundations, Shelly Silver's cloistered leadership style creates additional problems for New Yorkers. Take for example Congestion Pricing, the recent proposal supported wholeheartedly by New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, then Governor Eliot Spitzer, and the New York City Council. For downtowners, Congestion Pricing would have meant "$354 million in federal funds to help mass transportation, ease traffic congestion and improve the air that all New Yorkers breathe" (NYT, Mr. Silver Does It Again). More specifically, 10.4 million dollars of those federal funds would have helped launch congestion pricing in NYC (high startup costs plagued London's congestion pricing implementation), "$213.6 million to improve and build new bus depots, $112.7 to develop bus rapid transit routes, and $15.8 million for expanded ferry services" (Wikipedia, New York congestion pricing).
Without holding a vote or even allowing debate on the Assembly floor, Sheldon Silver killed congestion pricing for New York City. $354 million in federal mass transit financing? Gone; given instead to Chicago. New, reliable source of revenue for mass transit projects? Squashed. Improved air quality and quality of life? Swept aside without a vote, or even a single word of debate.
Silver claims a vote would have been a waste of time, that "fewer than 25 Democratic members of the chamber would have voted in favor of the bill" (NYT, Congestion Pricing Plan Dies in Albany). Earlier, when the provision was approaching the City Council, skeptics were raising the same doubts before the vote there, in hopes of scaring off supporters. Despite gaining a state commission endorsement, enjoying a comfortable 30-20 victory in the City Council, in the end, NYC's Congestion Pricing Plan was brought down by a single man behind closed doors, hidden from the constituents he's been elected to serve.
Rarely does one man have a chance to do so much harm to so many.
NYT, Mr. Silver Does It Again (April 8, 2008)
As if to underline the absolute discretion that these 107 state legislators in the Assembly exercise over major state and city legislation, the final blow to the bill was administered on April 7 in private-a committee killed it before it could even come to the floor. Mr. Silver's members had spoken to him, they said afterward-and he listened.
Congestion Drip: Is Sheldon Silver the Man to Blame? by Azi Paybarah (April 8, 2008)
Typical by flickr user thejcgerm, used under Creative Commons license
It takes true leadership and courage to embrace new concepts and ideas and to be willing to try something. Unfortunately, both are lacking in the Assembly today.
If that wasn't shameful enough, it takes a special type of cowardice for elected officials to refuse to stand up and vote their conscience- on an issue that has been debated, and amended significantly to resolve many outstanding issues, for more than a year. Every New Yorker has a right to know if the person they send to Albany was for or against better transit and cleaner air. People know where I stood, and where members of the City Council stood. They deserved at least that from Albany.
STATEMENT BY MAYOR MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG ON THE FAILURE OF THE STATE LEGISLATURE TO VOTE CONGESTION PRICING (04/07/08)
Sheldon Silver's killing of congestion pricing without even a vote showed contempt for both the democratic process and the concerns of Lower Manhattan. Of 150 Assembly districts in New York, none would have benefited more from that bill than the 64th. We have the Brooklyn Bridge, the Manhattan Bridge, the Williamsburg Bridge, the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, and about three blocks outside the district is the Holland Tunnel. We have dramatically higher asthma rates than the rest of the country. We have noise pollution.
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I understand why Brodsky opposed congestion pricing. I disagreed with him, but I understand where he's coming from at least. His constituents felt they were going to be paying this fee. This was a bill that was going to help the 64th Assembly district directly. We needed leadership and it wasn't there. My question then becomes, "What is the point of being represented by the Speaker of the State Assembly if he doesn't go to bat for you?"
Paul Newell on Congestion Pricing and Reforming Albany by Ben Fried (April 30, 2008)
New Yorkers statewide will never get meaningful legislature reform, ethics overhauls, campaign finance reform, third-party redistricting or transparency initiatives as long as Sheldon Silver continues to lead the state Assembly. Sheldon Silver's maniacal obstructionism affects millions of New York voters. While Silver has continuously sent the district generous earmarks in hopes of placating any resentment, there a growing constituency that understands Silver's leadership is a net negative for the neighborhood and New York state. Paul Newell understands the need to reach these voters, and expand the pro-reform message by speaking about the insidious three men in a room, Congestion Pricing and Albany's crumbling foundations, alongside red meat Democratic issues like affordable housing, and public schooling.
In AD64, fewer than 10,000 votes can deliver real change to Albany, communicating to any too-comfortable incumbents in the Assembly that New Yorkers are need lasting Change. Democratic politics are in an exciting place; we've got a mobilized, excited base across the country thanks in large part to Barack Obama. New voters and activists join our cause every day. This moment is unique, but we need help to turn these golden opportunities into real change, to go from Blue to Bluer.
New York progressives, we desperately need your help. Visit NEWELLNYC.ORG, Join Our Mailing List and Contribute, if possible.
*** TOMORROW NIGHT (Tues., June 24th) the Newell campaign is hosting its last fundraiser for the quarter. Details are available at mypaulnewell.com. Event runs from 7-10 pm, with an open beer & wine bar 7-8:00pm @ M1-5 (52 Walker St., B'twn Church & Broadway) ***
Additional Reading
*The Obstructionist Is State Assembly leader Sheldon Silver the master of passive-aggressive politics, or the guy who keeps bad things from happening to good people? By Geoffrey Gray (Jun 1, 2008)
*NY Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver - Worthless Political Hack by Shane Hensinger (Apr 08, 2008)
*Blue to Bluer: Taking On Sheldon Silver by Chris Bowers (Apr 25, 2008)
*Paul Newell is the progressive choice for New Yorkers by Evan Hutchison (May 07, 2008)
*AD-64 (Yes, Shelly's): Meet Paul Newell by Phillip Anderson
*Paul Newell Interview @ StreetsBlog Pt.1 & Pt.2 by Ben Fried
*Silver Wields Power by Keeping Albany Guessing NYT Editorial Board (April 8, 2008)
*Shelly Silver, shadow governor By Celeste Katz and Larry McShane (April 6th 2008)
*Paul Newell, 32, Is Inspired By Fight on Rockefeller Laws By JACOB GERSHMAN
*Stalking Horse on the Loose? By JACOB GERSHMAN (June 16, 2008)
[1]of course, plenty of sharp thinkers noticed the inevitability strategy was a canard from the beginning. |
