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This belongs to you. Take it back...
Spitzer 
Mon Dec 03, 2007 at 10:55:34 AM EST
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It has been very gratiying to me to see Governor Spitzer finally come around to taking some of my advice. Not, of course, that I've been the only one saying such things... but the chorus has been louder in other places than here, where my "tone it down and work with some people, will ya?" is something of a minority position. Still, I did have the idea, as per: http://www.thealbanyproject.co... and, pleading with him http://www.thealbanyproject.co... to "Please, please, please hire a non-lawyer advisor, please."
Thanks, Guv. Gyory (see http://timesunion.com/AspStori... and http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11... ) was an excellent pick. Anderson's promotion is a good move, too.
Now, perhaps I am about to start such a row here with this opinion that I, like Spitzer, could be described by Richard Norton Smith's analogy of walking into buzz saws of my own devising (more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11... ). But, I'm sticking to my guns on this one (that simply sticking to one's guns, like the Sheriff of Wall St., is unproductive-- irony noted): hiring as new advisors a lobbyist and a communications specialist-- and paying more heed to his brilliant from-the-legislature Lt. Governor-- is the right course for Spitzer to take to bring about the reform that we elected him to accomplish.
I know to some around here, them's fightin' words. So, let's debate it in true democratic fashion, shall we?
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Wed Nov 28, 2007 at 13:20:53 PM EST
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From today's New York Times:
All he wants from the Assembly members, whose affections for him have largely evaporated in the last 11 months, is a similar sort of second chance, Mr. Spitzer told the group....
"He treated us with the respect the Legislature deserves," said Assemblyman Mark Weprin, a Queens Democrat. "I think dialogue always improves relationships."
So, is legislative reform now officially dead?
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Mon Nov 26, 2007 at 00:48:41 AM EST
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The idea of more fairly enforcing the sales tax code, through making efforts to collect from certain e-tailers who, technically, should be paying sales taxes in NYS, was not left on the table long enough for there to be much discussion about it. I can certainly understand why Spitzer needed to do that from a political perspective. But, as I am not running for any office, I take no risks in openly discussing the policy issues around collecting sales taxes in NY. Fact is, sales tax as a source of revenue is NOT keeping up. And, as expenses for the state and counties are continuing to rise, well, that makes a hole that must be filled somehow (and please, NY, not by borrowing and hoping for a better year next year).
According to a recent Gannett Albany Bureau story, 37 out of the 57 counties outside NYC have experienced a lower sales tax collection this October than October 2006. The article shows several counties in my region with very weak (below inflation) increases for year-to-date over last year at this time, and one with a substantial decrease. Some counties are adjusting their budgets downward to compensate.
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Tue Oct 23, 2007 at 16:18:31 PM EDT
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(From our friends at the Drum Major Institute. I'll have more on this later. Short version is that I think the Governor's plan is solid policy. I really do. However, I think the ineptitude with which it was introduced has likely killed it. In this piece Andrea describes a "conversation" about an important issue. I'm all for that, but the Governor ceded the progressive half of that immediately by saying, well, by saying nothing. My take on this is very close to Bouldin's. Regardless, I am awfully tired of watching a blowdried blowhard like Dobbs spout Bruno's "spoiled, rich kid brat" schtick. - promoted by phillip anderson)
post by Drum Major Institute's Andrea Batista Schlesinger
Lou Dobbs is at it again. His target this time? Governor Eliot Spitzer and his plan to provide drivers licenses to New Yorkers regardless of their citizenship. In developing your own opinion on the Governor's proposal consider this: If, like Lou Dobbs, you believe political pandering that exploits fear should be used to stall a much-needed conversation about immigration policy, you should join his knee-jerk opposition to Governor Spitzer's plan. But if you want a common-sense approach that follows the lead of eight other states and would make New York's people and streets safer, go with the Governor.
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Wed Oct 03, 2007 at 16:33:46 PM EDT
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I don't think I could have expressed this any better than Wayne Barrett at the Village Voice. (Thanks, CapCon.)
...the first real challenge to [Albany's] insider-party game in modern history... Spitzer’s determination to take the senate away from the party that has controlled it ... is an electroshock to the state’s political culture—disturbing not just to New York’s Republican remnant, but even to the assembly Democrats, who, like prior governors of both parties, have protected and prospered from a divided legislature. What we are hearing in the high-pitched posturing over this scandal is the death wail of an incestuous bipartisan combine, threatened by a governor ... who knows ... what it takes to push his taut frame through a stiff Albany wind.
This sounds good, but I worry that Spitzer has done a weak job of dealing with the posturing, failing to explain basic civics to the participants and holing up against an investigation that seems to have nothing to find. I'm also not as optimistic as Barrett that this is a death wail - but it's certainly a wail.
(Barrett's piece leaves Andrew Cuomo in tatters, though, I think.)
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Tue Sep 18, 2007 at 15:59:49 PM EDT
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I just noticed over at Capitol Confidential that there's a How do we keep young people around? confab over at SUNY Cortland today.
I'm a little surprised that I hadn't even heard of it - did I just miss it?
It seems especially sad to miss given NYCO's, Robinia's, and my proximity to Cortland.
I also can't seem to get the webcast CapCon points to to work, on Mac, Windows XP, or Windows Vista. Any idea where we can find out what they said?
[Update: I got some of it, more below the fold.]
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Thu Sep 06, 2007 at 08:18:46 AM EDT
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Is the censorship of art a New York State Democratic Party value? Let's ask Dan O'Hara, newly appointed director of the New York State Fair.
While it is probably not the first time that artwork has been yanked from the annual New York State Fair Photography Exhibition for annoying someone, it's probably the first time that a piece of artwork has been yanked during the Fair for non-obscene content.
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Tue Aug 21, 2007 at 20:41:09 PM EDT
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Sorry for the tabloid style headline, but this is nothing short of astonishing:
Lawyers representing Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s 83-year-old father, Bernard Spitzer, say a prominent political consultant who has been working for State Senate Republicans threatened the elder Mr. Spitzer this month in an anonymous, invective-laced phone message.
The allegations against the consultant, Roger Stone, were laid out in a letter sent today to State Senator George H. Winner, Jr., the Republican chairman of the Senate committee on investigations and government operations. A copy of the letter was obtained by The New York Times.
And yes, Eliot Spitzer's dad saved a crazy threatening voicemail from this nutjob. And yes the voicemail is replete with four-letter epithets. You can listen to it at the link above.
I would guess that Stone's tenure in New York politics has come to an abrupt end. The guy is seriously WHACKED!
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Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 09:27:57 AM EDT
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The same week that Governor Spitzer cross-posts a diary here at TAP and DailyKos, congratulating the netroots on our successes, he also gives a speech that some, like the AP as reported in the Times Union, find a bit more "introspective" and "philosophical" than his standard fare.
Gov. Eliot Spitzer said the scandal stalling his administration shows how his "passion" for reforming Albany needs to be tempered with humility.
"Without vigilance and humility," Spitzer said Tuesday at the Chautauqua Institution retreat, "righteousness can become self-righteousness.
"Over the past few weeks, it has become evident that this principle was forgotten," Spitzer said, according to a transcript of the speech. "We were fighting so hard for what we believed that we let down our guard and allowed our passion to get the best of us. I have accepted responsibility for these failures.
He also said "hubris is terminal," quoting an old saying, and added that "without a greater amount of humility, great power will not simply cause us to make mistakes. It will be our undoing."
Is somebody new handling communications differently? Any regular reader here knows how much I long for that... so, in a hopeful spirit, here is a little reflection on how humility and the desire for democratic reform can be expressed with passion, but without personal partisan combativeness, and how "right" can be double-checked by direct democratic participation of the people in the process.
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Tue Aug 07, 2007 at 17:48:16 PM EDT
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(Read this. - promoted by phillip anderson)
A couple of days ago I wrote an abstract diary about power. After a few cycles of comments and another blog post, I'm here to write about what's developed from that, "trying to build a working Rube Goldberg machine out of rotten fish."
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Sat Aug 04, 2007 at 11:08:48 AM EDT
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(More on this when I get back to New York, but I will say this: one of the reasons that I went to work for Brian Keeler's campaign was something he said in pretty much every stump speech he gave. He said, "The first thing I want to do when elected is to make it much easier for YOU get rid of ME." We need a few dozen more folks willing to do just that. - promoted by phillip anderson)
I know there's a New York Power Authority, but this isn't about electrical energy - it's about the concentrations of political power that New Yorkers take for granted. Putting power against power isn't working so well, and we may need to find a different approach.
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Mon Jul 30, 2007 at 12:06:19 PM EDT
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( - promoted by phillip anderson)
(From Amy Traub at DMIBlog)
At the beginning of the month, I wrote an op-ed for the Albany Times-Union challenging the conventional wisdom that the year's legislative session was largely a failure. I pointed out that on issues important to most current and aspiring middle-class New Yorkers, Albany has made significant progress: hundreds of thousands of low-income kids are becoming eligible for state health insurance, underserved schools are finally getting resources they've needed for decades, and new groups of employees are eligible to organize themselves for a fair deal at work. I argued that by minimizing these substantial policy victories for ordinary New Yorkers, we risk feeding into dangerous myths that nothing of substance is ever accomplished in the state capitol.
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Sun Jun 24, 2007 at 22:48:03 PM EDT
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New York State's lobbyists are apparently considering hiring a lobbyist. Or smiling a lot. Or promising the public that they're really very nice people, no matter what interests they may represent, or what legislative tactics they use to get their way.
It's apparently very hard to be a lobbyist these days - maybe too many years of expensive Albany parties and creative campaign donations have left the public with something of a memory:
"Pay to play is somewhat atmospheric, in the sense that it has an appearance that the public assumes is corrupt," said Richard D. Emery, a Manhattan election lawyer who sits on a panel advising Mr. Spitzer on government reforms.
Here's a strange idea. Maybe lobbyists should encourage the legislature to reform itself. Eventually their reputation might improve.
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Tue May 29, 2007 at 10:51:53 AM EDT
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(The more I learn about this plan, the less I like it (and I wasn't crazy about it to begin with) - promoted by lipris)
The following is by Drum Major Institute Fellow Ezekiel Edwards. I thought you'd all appreciate it.
Governor Spitzer's proposed DNA bill calling for New York to collect DNA samples from every person convicted of a crime (including all misdemeanors), and everyone on probation and parole, is problematic for many reasons.
Before examining the DNA strand of the bill, the sample is contaminated first and foremost because of a separate illogical and offensively punitive provision that sets a one-year deadline for prisoners challenging their convictions on grounds other than newly discovered evidence (which would bar such common and occasionally meritorious claims as ineffective assistance of counsel, prosecutorial misconduct, perjured testimony, admission of unconstitutionally obtained evidence, etc., after 365 days). Such an arbitrary rule has little appeal (or appeals). As the Times noted, "if Mr. Spitzer wants to reduce the number of convicted criminals who challenge their convictions, he should start by addressing the serious problems with the state's public defender system that give rise to many of the legitimate complaints."
Even doing away with this draconian deal-breaker, dissecting the collection-happy DNA provision of the draft leads to the discovery of other detriments.
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Sun May 20, 2007 at 21:51:18 PM EDT
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Governor Spitzer has issued an Executive Order which establishes a NYS Council on Food Policy. The press release is available here, and the order itself is here.
Readers who are familiar with my wonky preferences will not be surprised to hear that I think that this Council, with its cross-agency policy development mission and required strategic plan (including annual written report!) is just the kind of thing NYS needs. While I had been lobbying for the bill sponsored by Ortiz and Young, an Executive Order is a way to get the project underway promptly.
We all eat, although food security, and/or the viability of food producing industries, are bigger issues for some of us than others. But, every NYer can celebrate with us today-- not only are we as a state taking a rational and comprehensive approach to considering the food system, but, we are also starting to implement a democratic and participatory policy development framework. OH, HAPPY DAY (and 'bout time, too).
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Thu May 17, 2007 at 10:42:06 AM EDT
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( - promoted by lipris)
The end of deliberations by "3 men in a room" is indeed a goal.... and, a "Leaders' Meeting" that includes some other lawmakers is surely a step in the right direction. It would be fine to not reform the "in a room" part, but, as far as the rest, do we want to just increase the number, say, from 3 to a dozen, and still have them all be men?
Check out this photo of the "Leaders' Meeting" and see if you don't agree with me that there are too many men in that room. If not for the Lt. Gov., you could put wigs on them and it would look just like pre-suffragist days....
Info on the dearth of women representatives and appointees in NYS is included in the following report, available at this site
Women in State Policy Leadership, 1998 - 2005
An Analysis of Slow and Uneven Progress
A Report of the Center for Women in Government & Civil Society
University at Albany, State University of New York
Winter 2006
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Fri Apr 27, 2007 at 08:57:40 AM EDT
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Among the issues that Governor Spitzer has highlighted in his post-budget policy agenda is strengthening NYS's pro-choice laws against possible attack (in the wake of a recent Supreme Court decision that makes those attacks more likely nationwide). Is that really the top of the agenda for women's issues, or, just an easy polarizing issue for Spitzer? Bruno has already accused him of preparing for an attack that does not exist... and, frankly, I'm skeptical that there is much threat there.
The Assembly has taken a differrent tack: POCKETBOOK ISSSUES. Some few women need to terminate a pregnancy every great once-in-a-while-- but, we all need pay equity every working day. I would also like to see a tax structure that is more equitable to women, although the Assembly bill package does not include that-- I think more grassroots education is needed there... details on proposed legislation and an opportunity to attend a NYC educational event follow...
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Sun Apr 15, 2007 at 17:56:16 PM EDT
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Well, Governor Spitzer's been in office for just over 100 days, and he has accomplished quite a bit. However, his toughest battles lie ahead. Newsday, in looking forward to the next 100 days, points out the critical reforms still left undone:
Good-government reforms. If there was any excuse for secret negotiations during the budget talks, there is none for doing so much business behind closed doors during the rest of the session. During that time, Spitzer should press for an overhaul of campaign-finance rules and a nonpartisan system for drawing legislative district lines. Both are necessary to make incumbents less secure and thus more responsive to voters.
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Thu Mar 29, 2007 at 19:24:44 PM EDT
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Flanked by legislative leaders, Governor Spitzer has announced that a budget consensus has been reached... by the Governor and legislative leaders. To quote CapCon quoting the Guv:
"Do we all wish that there had been more public articulation? You bet,'' said Spitzer. "But it took us a long time … before we could converge.''
Ummm... a convergence with Bruno and Silver was not what some of us had in mind.... especially if the Bigger Better Bottle Bill was going to be a casualty (see report)
As we grannies don't swear in public, check after the jump for my expression of EXTREME FRUSTRATION.
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Mon Mar 12, 2007 at 09:38:33 AM EDT
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The question of how we reform health care in NYS is getting a lot of attention-- and it is not all just a jousting match of TV commercials anymore, either. Some very powerful voices have joined in, including the editorial page of the NYTimes and Congressman Charlie Rangel, arguably the most powerful of the "Lions of Harlem."
In the jungle, a lion need lift his voice to a roar only very rarely-- but, if he does, you'd best listen. Rangel has roared, and he is not just concerned about the "what," he is also critiquing the "how." I think I see his point.
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