It seems in tough times, when no one thinks the folks now in the Senate are doing a great job, incumbents are having trouble raising campaign cash.
"They are relentless in their calling lobbyists this year, mainly the Democrats in the Senate, and it's unbelievable," a prominent lobbyist with strong Democratic ties told The Post yesterday.
"None of us has ever seen anything like it."
A lobbyist with strong GOP connections said legislators "are all crazed because they're scared of running this year and not having the funds they think they need to do it."
Via Liz, here's a direct quote from Senator Eric Adams that supports the exact point that RebootNY is making about the State Senate.
"I have a news flash: I don't know many elected officials that don't have a credibility problem. And if that becomes a criteria on who can sit in office and who can't, than we're in trouble."
Well, Eric, I have a news flash: Credibility SHOULD be a criteria of who can sit in office and who can't...so what does that mean about office holders? They should be removed?
RebootNY has launched its website! There are several cool things to check out. Perhaps best of all is our senate district map.
But where are all the challengers? (Check out SD-1.) Well if you are a challenger, campaign committee, exploratory committee, drop us a line. Lets us know something about the challenger and how to contact him or her. The idea is to clean up the house that is called the New York State Senate, but it won't happen without good challengers.
Our map is really great fun. There is a ton of information. Like why do we have a 13 year Republican incumbent in a district with a 19% Democratic enrollment advantage? Can you find which district it is?
File under: Absolutely Hilarious and Incredibly Accurate Unintended Irony on the Part of Facebook.
It seems that the folks at the automatic responder department of Facebook know their politics. The photo on the left is a screenshot from Facebook. The photo is of a page titled, "Nys MajorityLeader." I kid you not. That's the title. Nice start.
Obviously someone from the Nys MajorityLeader's office set this up to gather support for everyone's favorite Monserrate protector, Pedro Espada.
Setting aside the actual lack of Facebook understanding on the part of the administrator of the page, how about that photo? Instills a quiet confidence that the Nys Majority is in good hands.
The Facebook irony comes in if, while not signed in on Facebook, you do a search for NYS Senate Majority Leader, you get the results on the left.
To see the entire page, make sure you are logged out of Facebook and go HERE.
The irony is that Facebook is asking the exactly correct questions.
The Senate is getting a dose of sunshine - Sen. Eric Schneiderman, talking on the Fred Dicker show, mentioned that the transcripts behind yesterday's report on Hiram Monserrate will soon be posted on-line.
More of that, and, who knows, maybe we'll actually get some good government.
...and it seems that Steve Pigeon and Tom Golisano are behind this one as well.
Must read from the Buffalo Pundit on all the details. In a nutshell, but read Alan's entire post:
...Tim Kennedy approached Democratic HQ to ask to run against Stachowski. Lenihan reportedly told Kennedy that he was going to stick with Stachowski and let him decide when he wanted to stop going to Albany. Kennedy then turned to Steve Pigeon and asked for his help to run against Stachowski. Golisano's money was pledged, but Pigeon wanted something in exchange.
Pigeon wanted Kennedy to deliver the legislature to him. Three Democrats to flip so Collins would have his majority. Rumor has it that Pigeon is working on Collins' gubernatorial campaign behind the scenes.
Kennedy delivered Miller-Williams, who is affiliated with Grassroots, which is currently aligned with Pigeon and City Hall, as well as Christina Bove. It is also rumored that Brian Higgins is one of the people behind the scenes brokering this on Kennedy's behalf.
Tim Kennedy, the man who wants Stach's job in the Senate, seems to be the new Pigeon/Golisano/Higgins/Collins owned Pedro Espada.
Just what we need in the State Senate...another Pedro Espada...and more coups about jobs and patronage staff hires.
"The state ethics and disclosure laws make it much harder for law enforcement to investigate and prosecute public corruption involving state officials,'' Baxter said. "There's just so little transparency in the legislative process that it takes an enormous amount of time and effort to uncover what really happened."
--snip--
Baxter said the Justice Department normally would defer to local or state prosecutors in cases of public corruption involving state and local government. But he said the structure of the state Legislature and the rules the elected officials created have made such referrals difficult.
--emphasis mine--
Should legislators be nervous?
Federal authorities who oversaw the prosecution of Joseph L. Bruno said they will continue to investigate allegations of corruption within the state Legislature, and that the FBI's resources for such cases have more than doubled in recent years.
--snip--
"It really is the state Legislature," Pikus said of where they are focusing. "The bureau understands that in any government form of the legislature there's going to be some allegations of wrongdoing and we are constantly on the outlook for that. I have the agents now, very experienced agents, working on information that's come to us and we're taking a look at it."
Yesterday, Joe Bruno, former Republican Senate Majority Leader, was found guilty on two counts of essentially taking payola money from a business associate in return for favors and contracts. He was acquitted on five other felony charges and one where they just couldn't decide.
The details brought out in the trial have finally opened the window on exactly how the Senate was run under his leadership and how business was done in Albany for the 15 years he was in charge.
What we saw was a textbook example of how a powerful politician used his position in the Senate to enrich himself and his associates via the activities of his "other outside jobs" as a consultant and business owner.
As disturbing (and unsurprising to those who have followed Albany politics) as his law-breaking was, what should be more disturbing are the activities for which he was not convicted. The fact that they were NOT against the law speaks volumes about the law itself and the way the rules of the Senate have evolved over the decades.
Because there has been no threat to the power structure in Albany for so long, players left and right have learned to play the system, and the lawmakers have done nothing to upset the cart.
An example of strange bedfellows that this system created is the incredible union support Uncle Joe and the Republicans received over the years. Why would unions support a Republican party that repeatedly passed environmental, education and taxation legislation that hurt working class people? Well, it turns out that Bruno did consulting work for an organization that had the unions as clients so now we have a pretty good reason why he gave the unions everything they asked for come contract time. Nice pay off using state money.
Well, the times they are a changing.
The rocks that have been turned over this year have shown a particularly seedy and messy world; a world that New Yorkers should no longer tolerate. They certainly can't afford it anymore.
Now the question becomes, how do we change the State Senate and how it does business? Well, it begins with the Senators themselves. More specifically, YOUR Senator.
If your Senator isn't committed to real reform, they shouldn't get your support. It's pretty simple.
We should be dedicated to electing Senators who listen to dissenting opinion, make decisions based on fact and discussion - not influence and money, and that they represent the people that elected them - not their own self-interest. If we elect an army of these people to represent us, as was the intent when the Constitution was drafted, then all the other issues most of us are concerned about will take care of themselves through ethics reform, open debate, and the electoral process. (h/t to AB)
Last week, I posted the diary, NYS Senate: The Perfect System of Corruption. I made the point that the system in New York is not broken, as many people have said in the past, but that it was, in fact, running perfectly...for the power grabbers and moneyed special interests.
In that diary, I introduced a new organization called ReBootNY.org. This is how I described it:
...a statewide organization to elect not necessarily more Democrats or Republicans, but to elect BETTER SENATORS who have had enough of the crap and are willing to actually do their job...serve the people of their district and New York...NOT SIMPLY GET ELECTED TO BE A COG IN THE PERFECT MEMBER ITEM DOLLAR DELIVERY SYSTEM OF CORRUPTION.
I am honored to have been asked to be the Executive Director of ReBootNY.org, and I have accepted with pleasure.
Today's vote on marriage equality has brought the need for our organization to the fore.
We need Better Senators in New York and the next cycle will be a great opportunity to elect them.
ReBootNY.org's efforts will not be single issue centric, but ME will certainly be in the mix. We need to rid ourselves of as many of the incumbent Republicans as possible (Do you realize that they didn't say a WORD during debate today?) and we need better Dems to help Folks like Liz Krueger and Eric Schneiderman pass common sense, progressive legislation.
We will be raising money, approaching candidates, and lining up folks to help train campaign staff. We have activist from across the state on board and want your help. If you can, please go to our temp. site (we are in the process of building a really good one) and sign up for updates and toss some $ our way if you can.
Today's vote proves to us all, once again, that we have to ReBootNY to make it work for us.
Anybody else watching this? Diaz sounded like a bigot, Schneiderman sounded GOOD. Just figured this would be a good place for a discussion, but can't embed the player.
Diaz - no (yikes)
Schneiderman - yes (understands the law, as usual)
Adams - yes (passionate appeal)
Klein - yes
Valesky - yes (big vote)
Parker - yes
Espada - yes (even, Pedro is a yes)
Savino - yes (personal appeal)
Liz Krueger - yes (everyone's favorite Senator. It's about personal discrimination)
Squadron - yes (little bill with big impact)
Montgomery - yes (to keep people from having to live in sin. Interesting point.)
Serano - yes (I have always liked him)
Hassell-Thompson - yes (touching family appeal)
C. Johnson - yes (Thanks to Tom Duane)
Perkins - yes
Oppenheimer - yes (very emotional)
Stavisky - yes (single sentence argument...and right)
Smith - yes (his religion allows him to vote yes)
Duane - yes (No. Thank YOU, Senator Duane.)
I often ask people, "What would you pick as the most outrageous scandal on the part of the NYS Senate during the past year?"
Most folks initially say, "Do I have to pick just one?" . After a few minutes of derisive laughter and disgust, they come up with answers that have been varied but all of them have a good deal of merit. Most point out the June coup, others chime in about the Monserrate broken glass attack of his girlfriend, and still others make mention of the January power blackmail of the Three Amigos --Diaz, Espada and Kruger--(which eventually led to the coup, BTW).
Those more in the know have referred to Espada's attempt to funnel a couple of million in member items to his own "non-profit" organizations, while other insiders insist that Dean Skelos' demand for millions of state payroll dollars in exchange for votes or even basic co-operation to pay for a large minority Central Staff that could then be used as a state funded campaign army for Republicans in 2009 and 2010. In reality, those examples just scratch the surface.
Dysfunction is everywhere, from the battle between Paterson and, well, everyone while the budget crumbles, to Kevin Parker's attack of a NY Post reporter, to the revelations of decades of systemic, "legal" corruption and institutionalized "pay to play" on the part of the entire Republican leadership that has been made public during the Joe Bruno trial.
Let's face it, the entire Senate and how it operates reminds one of the recent Cavemen episode, where state workers drew a hefty paycheck while holed up in a private "cave" where they watched TV, did drugs and hung out. In the case of the Senate, the cave is right there in the open. It's called the third floor of the Capitol Building in Albany. And though they don't do drugs in the Capitol, an argument can be made that don't do much to deserve their paychecks. I know. I used to work there.
Now, not all Senators are cavemen, but the system has created the ability for a few of them to hold the entire state hostage to their greed.
The System is Broken
How many times have you heard that phrase? I want to disagree. Unfortunately, the system is not broken. If it were, it would be easy to fix. The problem is that the system is running incredibly well and it has evolved into a perfect self protective, re-election pay-to-play machine that would make any systems analyst drool. It's like the alien of Hollywood fame; a magnificent organism that uses the travels and bodies of its enemies to propagate and spread its evil throughout the universe.
As an example, look at how the Senate System has trained the special interest groups, good government organizations, political parties and the media to play its game. They all have adapted and know what buttons to push to get what they want, and none of that has to do with democracy (with a small d). In the media's case, the press even occupies space on the same third floor of the Capitol Building and is constantly played like a cheap violin by the senate leadership and rank and file to distract the public from what is really happening.
What can we do?
That's a great question...and many organizations in the past have tried to "fix" Albany, but they haven't really had a chance against the "perfect system." They have failed for one, simple reason...they have played by the system's rules...which is just what the system wants.
Some have tried to reform by working with one political party or the other, but the parties have been, unfortunately, co-opted by the system and have no interest in changing it substantively. Others have appealed to specific Senators to champion specific legislation, only to run into a complicated maze of Committee rules and fiefdoms and the veto power of the leadership.
Like I said, this system is far from broken. A broken system doesn't last as long as this one has and doesn't come up stronger each time it is threatened.
A New Way Forward
The folks who created Fire Monserrate, the effort to gather signatures and create public pressure on the Senate to remove Hiram Monserrate from office, have decided to tackle a greater mission; to substantively change the way the New York Senate does business. It's one thing to have a criminal Senator removed from office, but it doesn't change the political system that has allowed far too many "Monserrate Events" to happen...all at the cost of the people of New York.
The new organization is a PAC and is called Rebootny.org and it will take quite a different approach to change. We have no interest, for example, of getting rid of Hiram Monserrate or Dean Skelos only to replace them with another Hiram Monserrate and Dean Skelos with the same or a different party affiliation.
We are in the early stages of development...in the process of raising money, approaching candidates, lining up folks to help train campaign staff and building a statewide organization to elect not necessarily more Democrats or Republicans, but to elect BETTER SENATORS who have had enough of the crap and are willing to actually do their job...serve the people of their district and New York...NOT SIMPLY GET ELECTED TO BE A COG IN THE PERFECT MEMBER ITEM DOLLAR DELIVERY SYSTEM OF CORRUPTION. Remember, every Senator supported Pedro Espada for either President of the Senate or Majority Leader at some point this summer. No one should get a free ride.
Initially, we have a core organization of about 50 people from around the state to get us going. We, of course, will be looking for thousands more to join our effort.
Watch for more about ReBootNY here and on other blogs, in ads, editorials, and local meetings in the near future.
We can't trust the people who created this system to dismantle it. We, the people of New York, have to do it ourselves and we are hopeful that all the attention on the corrupt Albany way-of-doing-things will motivate Democrats, Republicans and Independents to toss out the dead weight and find some quality people who will do the hard work necessary to make New York the best it can be.
State Senator Liz Krueger
State Senator David Valesky
State Senator Neil Breslin
State Senator Suzi Oppenheimer
State Senator Darrel Aubertine
State Senator Brian X. Foley
State Senator Martin Golden
State Senator Frank Padavan
State Senator Catharine Young
State Senator Betty Little
State Senator Jeff Klein
State Senator Bill Perkins
State Senator Thomas Duane
State Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins
State Senator Jim Seward
State Senator Craig Johnson
State Assemblywoman Patricia Eddington
State Assemblywoman Amy Paulin
State Assemblywoman Aileen Gunther
State Assemblywoman Francine DelMonte
State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver
US Senator Charles Schumer
US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand
Mayor Michael Bloomberg
City Comptroller Bill Thompson
Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum
Congressman Joseph Crowley
Congressman Eric Massa
Congressman John Hall
NYS Democratic Party Chair Jay Jacobs
City Council Member Eric Gioia
City Council Member Bill deBlasio
City Council Member Annabel Palma
City Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito
City Council Member John Liu
Dan Halloran, City Council candidate
District Leader Marc Landis
District Leader John Smyth
District Leader Keith Lilly
District Leader Cordell Cleare
National Organization for Women, New York State
NARAL Pro-Choice New York
The New Agenda
Eleanor Roosevelt Legacy Committee
NYC Alliance Against Sexual Assault
New York State Young Democrats
National Women's Political Caucus, NY State
New York Post
New York Daily News
Albany Times Union Newspaper
Watertown Daily Times Newspaper
The Chief, Civil Employee's Weekly News
The Buffalo News
Queens Courier
Newsday
New York Times
Journal News of Lower Hudson Valley
Just received the following statement from Sen. Johnson's office:
"I've reserved comment on the gravely serious situation surrounding Senator Monserrate until Senate Leadership decided how to proceed. Now that a review panel has been formed, and the Senate Standing Committee on Investigations and Government Operations will not be referred this matter, I believe it is now appropriate to share my personal point of view. I join my colleagues in calling for Senator Monserrate to resign his position. Domestic violence is a horrific crime. As a husband and a father, I simply do not believe that someone convicted of assaulting a woman should be a member of this chamber. However, I also support due process. I am confident that this panel will conduct its work in a fair, impartial, and swift manner."
Remember, if you haven't signed the petition to remove Senator Monserrate, do it now and tell your friends that domestic violence is a terrible crime and it has no place in the lives of our elected officials.
The signatures will be delivered to Senator Monserrate's office as well as those of the Senate Leadership...and to the committee for good measure.
...about the Monserrate Committee, and, well...I'll let Senator Diaz' statement speak for itself:
First, it is disappointing to hear Senate Conference President John Sampson saying that he is putting together an independent and impartial Senate Committee to investigate Senator Hiram Monserrate and at the same time sending a message to the committee members by stating "As a father and as a husband, I am not only angry, I am also pissed off". That statement alone may be interpreted as a direct order to the committee to "get Monserrate".
Second, it is even more disturbing to hear the supposed President of the so called "independent and impartial committee", Senator Eric Schneiderman saying that he spoke with Senator Dean Skelos and reminded him that "since back in June we all know what this individual is capable of doing". So much for impartiality.
Third, if anyone thinks that there could be any Republican Senator who will be impartial to Senator Monserrate after the embarrassment that Senators Espada and Monserrate put them through back in June, he or she must be on another planet.
Four, to add insult to injury, there are five Hispanic Senators among the 32 Democratic Senators. One must question why not even one of them was appointed to the committee.
For these four reasons and more, I believe that the real intention of this "independent and impartial" committee is to get even with Senator Monserrate for what he did to the Democrats this past June and to use the Republicans who have been praying for such an opportunity to settle the score with Senator Monserrate.
Senate Minority Leader Skelos has named three past ethics committee chairs ~ Sens. Andrew Lanza, John Flanagan and James Alesi ~ and Senator Cathy Young to sit on the Monserrate review committee.
This creates a majority of women (five) on the nine member committee...and in case Sampson wasn't serious about the nine member thing, he offered Sen. Betty Little to be in the bullpen for short relief.
I wonder if Monserrate can read wall writing, because it's there in all its ten foot, spray painted glory....and Skelos just dotted a few "i's".
Here's Dean's statement:
Senate Republican Leader Dean Skelos today announced members of his conference to serve on the committee that will investigate the matter regarding Senator Hiram Monserrate.
Members of the Republican Conference appointed by Senator Skelos include Senator Andrew Lanza (R-I, Staten Island), a former Chair of the Senate Ethics Committee, Senator John Flanagan (R-C-I, East Northport), a former Chair of the Senate Ethics Committee, Senator James Alesi (R-C-I, Perinton), a former Chair of the Senate Ethics Committee and Senator Cathy Young (R-I-C, Olean).
In addition to these four members, Senator Skelos also submitted to Senator Sampson the appointment of Senator Betty Little (R-C-I, Queensbury) to serve on the committee. Her appointment would make the membership of the committee even with five Democrats and five Republicans.
"I submitted Senator Little's name as a fifth Republican member of this special committee to ensure balance and bipartisanship," Senator Skelos said. "As the editorial today in the Daily News recommended, 'Senator Sampson should add a Republican member to avoid setting an example of allowing the majority party to be the sole arbiter of ethics enforcement.'"
Side note: we are near 1000 signatures at FIREMONSERRATE.COM. Tell everyone you know. We have to keep the pressure on and not let this committee thing let the issue fall into the Albany sinkhole.
"All New Yorkers, especially those who have been victims of domestic abuse, deserve to have Senator Monserrate step down or be removed from office. Monserrate has been convicted of a deplorable crime. The New York State Senate should set the example that violence against women will not be tolerated in our society."
Congressman Hall's office just sent this to us. We applaud and agree with his position. He joins US Senators Schumer and Gillibrand and Congressmen Massa and Joseph Crowley in calling for NYS Senator Monserrate to do the right thing by the state of New York and his district by stepping down.
"Violence against women will not be tolerated in the New York State Senate..." said Senator John Sampson in his presser this afternoon announcing the formation of a committee to look into the "Monserrate Matter."
Eric Schneiderman will chair and, in a nod as to where this may be going, the other four Democratic members of the committee will be women; Sens. Ruth Hassell-Thompson, Diane Savino, Toby Stavisky and Andrea Stewart-Cousins.
Interesting choice here in that two of those four are women of color which would also blunt earlier charges of racism leveled by Senator Diaz in his statement of support of Monserrate.
We await the Republican's appointments to the committee. It will be interesting to see if women are represented there as well.
More later, but we need to continue to push the Senate so that they do the right thing and remove Monserrate from office.
The committee needs to move quickly and not let the old way of doing business in Albany stretch this out until the matter is buried.
Domestic abuse is unacceptable and I have no tolerance for it. Senator Monserrate has been convicted and I think he should resign or the Senate Leadership should take steps to remove him from office. Elected officials should lead by example, that is why we must stand united and act decisively to oppose violence against women.
State Senator Liz Krueger
State Senator David Valesky
State Senator Neil Breslin
State Senator Suzi Oppenheimer
State Senator Daniel Aubertine
State Senator Brian X. Foley
State Senator Martin Golden
State Senator Frank Padavan
State Senator Catharine Young
State Senator Betty Little
State Senator Jeff Klein
State Assemblywoman Patricia Eddington
US Senator Charles Schumer
US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand
Mayor Michael Bloomberg
Congressman Joseph Crowley
NYS Democratic Party Chair Jay Jacobs
City Council Member Eric Gioia
Dan Halloran, City Council candidate
District Leader Marc Landis
National Organization for Women
NARAL Pro-Choice New York
New Agenda
Eleanor Roosevelt Legacy Committee
New York Post
New York Daily News
Albany Times Union Newspaper
Watertown Daily Times Newspaper
The details brought out in the trial have finally opened the window on exactly how the Senate was run under his leadership and how business was done in Albany for the 15 years he was in charge.
