Dan's Papers - August 3, 2007 - Spitzer Vs. Bruno And Silver Made Simple

As far as I can figure out, here is what has just happened in Albany. It's pretty sad.

Last November, in a landslide, we elected our New York Attorney General, Eliot Spitzer, to be the governor of New York. Spitzer had made his reputation with no-holds-barred assaults on Wall Street misfeasance. That these assaults were brutal and mean-spirited had been a necessity. In a world where the weak fall by the wayside and the strong survive, it was effective.

Why would such a hard-nosed person get elected as our governor? Because our state government needed to be cleaned up. For at least a generation, the State government has been held hostage by whomever is the Speaker of the Assembly and the Majority Leader of the Senate. You can elect whomever you want as a governor, a conservative or a liberal, with an agenda or without and he will get nothing done, unless he sits down with these two individuals and gets them to agree upon it.

The two, of course, are pals, whoever they are. Because, if they work together, they can always get what they want.

And, unlike the governors, they are there long term. The local districts that elect them elect them again and again, because, in their positions, they are able to shower all sorts of largesse upon their constituency. So its two against one. And if the one doesn't go along with the other two pretty soon, it's bye-bye for him. He'll come up for re-election as a do-nothing governor.

It's a stupid, un-democratic system. Basically, no matter what the people want, it comes down to what Joe Bruno and Sheldon Silver, the current leader and speaker want. It seems that, to a great degree, the various assemblymen and senators in Albany are, like the governor, also redundant. One of them even told me once that it didn't even matter if he showed up.

Most people know this, which is exactly why Spitzer was elected with such a majority. Everyone wants the system changed. And only two people stand in the way.

As a matter of fact, most people didn't have any idea how Spitzer could break all this up. And they didn't care. They just wanted their state government back. Spitzer straightened out Wall Street. Let him figure it out.

Unfortunately, Spitzer did not figure this out. Or, he has not figured this out until now. Instead, he has gone with the old, tried and true methods. He threatened Bruno and Silver. Then he publicly insulted them. Then he sent in the troops.

In this case, the troops he or his staff sent in were the State Police. They were told to find something on Bruno. Then he or his staff ordered his Public Information Officer to concoct a damning press release about what they had found before they found it.

As a matter of fact, what they found was not much. To the credit of both Bruno and Silver, their activities do not border on the criminal. They have not lined their pockets. They have not used government property for personal use. Who needs to do anything criminal when you are in possession of such power? Keep your nose clean and you could keep your position for life.

Spitzer's tactics, unfortunately, are the very same ones that he used in his Wall Street days. It's really sad. The people he sends in look like bouncers and bodyguards. They find their targets and whisper to them, "you're history," or worse. It's awful.

In this case, in an attack against Bruno for what was believed to have been the misuse of a government aircraft -- which it wasn't -- Bruno responded to Spitzer's assault by demanding that the new Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo, look into whether Spitzer was using government property -- a.k.a. the state police -- to attack him for his own political gains.

And, of course, he was. After Cuomo completed his investigation and made his report, Spitzer had to publicly apologize, suspend those that did this on his behalf and chastise the rest. He also claimed that he knew nothing about what they had done in his behalf, which seems just so improbable.

I think it's very sad that Spitzer hit the ground running when he took office with the exact same tactics he used on Wall Street.

There is such a thing as a light touch. I do hope he is capable of it, because we sure need the reform. He ought to look at what happened in California with the Governator there, an Olympic-gold-medal-winning weightlifter who came in as an actual laser-gun firing superhero to pull that state out of its malaise. He got a few things done and then reached the point where the legislators in Sacramento felt he had gone far enough. Feeling the opposition stiffen, he first tried a battering ram, which failed, then took the matter to the people. In a key vote, they rejected him. He had gone too far. And what he was asking would make HIM dictator.

Did he give up? Not at all. He declared that the people had spoken and now he would work WITH the state government. Mild mannered and jovial now, people were struck by his good will, his energy and his determination in the face of the rebuff and they began climbing onboard again. Now, reforms are underway. Some say he is the best Governor in the country.

Everyone hopes that Spitzer will learn from his experience and try to bust open the lock on democracy in Albany. Try dividing and conquering Try cajoling. Try asking the state Senators and Assemblymen to create new legislation to limit their own power. He might be surprised to find that everybody wants to do this. He should have a closer look at the State Constitution. Because this has to be done.