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9 More Reasons to Throw the Bums Out

by: Roatti

Mon Jun 28, 2010 at 15:12:13 PM EDT

Yesterday, Governor Paterson called a special session of the Legislature to deal with the budget that is currently months overdue. So what did our legislative leaders do? They held a session. With a total of 9 minutes in session for both houses. In case you're counting, that broke down to six minutes for the Assembly and three minutes for the Senate.

We already knew that the rank-and-file members of each house are meaningless cogs in the leadership's backdoor power machine, but this is just a slap in the face to the voters of this state.

Shame on Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Conference Leader John Sampson for not even bothering to pretend that the governing institutions of our state are functioning. And shame on each and every member of both houses for allowing this situation to exist.

Roatti :: 9 More Reasons to Throw the Bums Out

Tags: Sheldon Silver, John Sampson, Senate, Assembly, Reform, (All Tags)

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9 More Reasons to Throw the Bums Out | 6 comments

Ummm... (4.00 / 3)

Albany politics progresses via theater, which it develops in collaboration with the press corps, and conference-leader-articulated diplomatic negotiations and agreements.

The gavel-in-gavel-out session is just another move in a game of chicken.

This is an evolved culture, and the people of NY and the press and the political individuals of all stripes are ALL playing this game. Replacing a bunch of chorus members-- and that is what the legislators are by the time it gets to this point in the drama-- with other chorus members won't fix anything.

What is needed is a change in rules and operating procedure that replaces this system of deliberation (leader and conference based, most deliberation in private) with a different system (citizen and individual legislator based, most deliberation in public).

by: robinia @ Mon Jun 28, 2010 at 20:07:40 PM UTC

by: you @ soon

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Yes but (4.00 / 3)

those rules won't change until the people who write them do

by: Roatti @ Mon Jun 28, 2010 at 20:20:14 PM UTC

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by: you @ soon

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And the only way to do that (4.00 / 4)

is to change how people get elected, which means campaign finance reform. The problem is, the U.S. Supreme Court doesn't want campaign finance reform -- they are, bit by bit, throwing out every attempt to change the system.

Which means we need a new U.S. Supreme Court first. Any suggestions (legal ones, I mean)?

by: Dan Jacoby @ Mon Jun 28, 2010 at 20:26:28 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Make sure Barack Obama gets re-elected. (4.00 / 1)

Justices Scalia and Kennedy will both be eighty years old before the end of the 2013-2017 presidential term. I don't care if BHO wins ugly. I don't care if he loses the popular vote, but wins the Electoral College. I don't care if the election is thrown to the Congress, and he wins that way. I don't care, as long as he wins. Re-elect President Obama by any means necessary, and there is a good chance he'll get to cut the right-wing gang of four in half.

by: Steaming Pile @ Mon Jun 28, 2010 at 20:42:35 PM UTC

[ Parent ]