NEW YORK CIVIC

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2011-12-15T17:30:00.002-05:00

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Wall Street Endures

2011-11-18T17:51:00.001-05:00

The Occupy Wall Street campaign is faltering, despite considerable public sympathy for the social issues which the protesters seek to publicize.

The pickets and other demonstrators focused on a seam of popular discontent at economic inequality in the United States, the difficulty people face in obtaining work, and the failure of wages to keep up with rising costs. The effects of the Great Recession, specifically people losing their jobs, their mortgaged homes and large portions of their 401(k)s, have left millions of Americans unhappy with their own economic situation and their prospects for the future.

Although there is widespread dissatisfaction with President Obama, the public holds Congress in even lower regard. Last month, according to a CBS News/New York Times poll, Congress registered a 9% approval rating, the worst in the legislative body's history since Americans were first surveyed on the subject in 1977. Although the President may have erred in reaching too far and, paradoxically, retreating too often, the Congressional followers of Rule 9-J, "Just Say No", have offered the American people next to nothing.

One improvement in civic discourse comes from the spread of C-Span and other programs dealing with public issues. We know more about our public officials than we did years ago. We can discern with they really mean, both from their choice of cliches and from their body language. When one strips the gibberish and the platitudes from the remarks of the lawmakers and the witnesses who testify before them, one can get a sense of what is actually going on in the minds of the players.

It is true that they speak in code; that is a convention of public discourse. If many of our representatives said in public what they actually believe, their careers would be terminated. We see how many entertainers, performers or talking hosts have lost their jobs because of words and phrases which are politically incorrect, or capable of offending any group of people, whether racial, religious, ideological or gender-linked. It was said to have started with Uncle Don back in the 1920's on WOR. In reality, this never happened, but it has been so widely told over the years that it has become part of our popular culture.

Speech can be offensive, and the characterization of a group because of the behavior of a small number of its members places an unwholesome and possibly dangerous strain on the fabric of a heterogeneous society. We now attempt to deal with this situation by defining certain abusive words as "hate speech" and penalizing the speaker.

As always, the responsible approach in marginal cases is to seek balance, with freedom exercised with responsibility. At my law school graduation, a quotation was read that I learned was coined by a professor in the 1930's and has been recited annually since that time. "You are ready to aid in the shaping and application of those wise restraints that make men free."

By substituting 'people' for the possibly suspect noun 'men', the sentence gains at least another century of useful life, unless another euphemism comes into fashion.

The unhappiness expressed by the demonstrators, pickets and campers at Zuccotti Park is by no means confined to one city, state, or region. It partly stems from the belief that government is too far removed from the people, or at least far from the people who are complaining. It is partly a reaction to the resentment expressed against the poor, the disabled and others who may receive public assistance or public (except military) employment. The distaste for public programs may (or may not) have some roots in ethnic or class antipathy.

Occupy Wall Street offers no particular solutions to the issues it raises. Making public services free or more easily available will increase the $15 trillion national debt and promote economic instability. Rich people have far more mobility than the poor, and can more easily move to tax havens. It is not uncommon, however to hear groups complaining but without practical solutions to the problems they address. Sometimes futility raises the intensity of the complaint.

We will watch closely as this grievance spreads or withers, along with the oncoming Presidential campaign. Our thought is that the race will be decided by the public judgments of millions of individuals, which will to some extent be intuitive and individually may be irrational, as to which candidate is a better person and which one will do a better job. Television brings the candidates closer to the people, and assuming that the candidates are roughly equivalent in ability and resources to deceive the public, something close to the truth may emerge from the welter of claims and denials. E pluribus unum, out of many one.

What happened on Wall Street is simply that people got tired of the act. Every Broadway show opens and closes; almost all politicians, as well as empires, rise and then decline. What begins as new and striking becomes familiar and eventually tiresome. This is particularly true when the participants are not particularly knowledgeable about what they are doing.

We predict that there will be other disturbances in the pre-election period, and that there will be an attempt to unify the left on a program, just as the Tea Party movement has to some extent organized the right. Time will tell which group gains strength, but one thing that any political movement needs is an agenda, which has not yet emerged from the left, while the right simply offers negativity.

Someone will be sworn in as President on Sunday, January 20, 2013. We hope the person will be able. You have probably never heard of him, but you should add Gary Johnson, the Republican former two-term governor of New Mexico, as a long-shot who should be considered, if these decisions were made on the merits rather than on media attention or scandal.

If Gary Johnson gets anywhere in 2012, remember that you read it first here.

After All, It Is a Park

2011-11-15T17:15:00.002-05:00

City Moves on Zuccotti Occupiers

After Two Months' Acquiescence,

Next Round Will Be in Court

Last night, the city administration used its power to close down, at least temporarily, a street demonstration that had occupied Zuccotti Park, a previously uncelebrated 33,000-square-feet plot of choice Lower Manhattan real estate with trees and benches softening the skyscrapers surrounding it on three sides.

The Park is located on the west side of Broadway, between Cedar Street and Liberty Place, roughly two blocks north of Trinity Church, which is at the head of Wall Street. It is public open space, owned and maintained by Brookfield Properties and intended for passive recreation. It was created through a transaction in which Brookfield was permitted to build a substantially larger office building on the site. Mr. Zuccotti, a former first deputy mayor of New York City during the Beame administration, serves as the co-chairman of Brookfield, a Canadian company.

Zuccotti is a highly regarded public servant and a successful and innovative real estate executive. When the city was on the brink of bankruptcy in 1975, a principal demand of the business and civic communities was for his appointment as first deputy mayor, in effect the city's chief operating officer. His leadership helped to restore the reputation of city government, whose credibility had been seriously impaired as a result of misleading financial statements over the years, which concealed the city's failure to cope with deficits.

It is interesting that Zuccotti's name is more likely to be widely known for the two-month forcible occupation of the park designated to honor him than for the good works he accomplished for the city at a critical time in its history.

We must point out that today, in 2011, thirty-six years after that narrow escape from financial ruin, the city's position, although not so dire as it was in April 1975, when bankruptcy papers had been prepared by the law firm of Weil, Gotshal and Manges to be filed in Federal Court, nonetheless conceals structural weaknesses. At this time, due to thirty years of relative fiscal restraint, the city is not as badly off as either the national government, with its $15 trillion public debt, the New York State government, which faces a $3.5 billion deficit in the upcoming fiscal year, or the euro zone, whose stability is widely regarded as precarious.

Unfortunately, there is no John Zuccotti on stage or in the wings today to deal with these fiscal problems. We must face these issues in the closing stage of a twelve-year mayoralty which largely avoided disaster and disrepute, and which initiated many worthwhile programs, particularly in health and housing, while being unable to eliminate the structural imbalance which has plagued city finances for over a generation.

While reserving for another time a discussion of the current mayoral candidates, we believe it is safe to say that none has demonstrated the stature or skills of a Zuccotti or a Felix Rohatyn, to cite two leaders of the past generation. As people criticize Mayor Bloomberg for various aspects of his persona, they should not forget the substantive achievements of his tenure or the relatively high quality of his appointments.

We will be fortunate if the next administration at City Hall is comparable in achievement to the current one. Political leaders are often more highly regarded after they have left office. Harry Truman epitomizes that history. The inevitable reassessment of the current administration is likely to start sooner than the Truman redemption. Our problem, however, is not with what will be Mayor Bloomberg's place in history, a position which will be measured in part in consideration of his enormous personal wealth, employed in the public's interest as well as his own.

The issue which will dominate the next two years in our municipal history is who the successor will be, and whether he or she will have the ability to deal with the daunting issues that still face the city. We have sounded the call that danger lies ahead, and it will take enormous effort and sacrifice to deal with the problems that have gravely impaired so many other places, both in this region and around the world. Time always gets shorter, and we should devote our abilities to a wide search for equitable solutions, because inaction leads to the aggravation of existing problems as the time to resolve them inevitably diminishes.

StarQuest #785 11.15.2011 714 words

Where No Birds Sing

2011-11-10T15:49:00.001-05:00

Governor Defers Budget Decisions,

Blames Volatility in World Markets

A widely used political metaphor is the canary in the mineshaft. The small yellow bird is said to be more sensitive to carbon monoxide and methane than human beings. Therefore, when poisonous gases accumulate in an enclosed underground area, the canary is reputedly the first creature to sense its toxic effects. This makes the bird a living smoke alarm, and signals miners and others to escape.

The canary warns of danger not by calls of alarm, but by their absence. Since canaries sing a great deal of the time, miners could read their silence as indicating that the birds were dead or dying, and that it was past time to flee. The concept of the canary in the mineshaft is used to describe a situation in which peril is perceived by a few, but is imminent for all.

The canary rule can be applied to financial situations, weather conditions, rising waters or other impending crises, physical or economic. The canary in the mineshaft provides an early warning of danger ahead. Theoretically, this avian warning information gives the authorities, or whoever has brought the canaries to the mine, the opportunity to take remedial action in an attempt to forestall the disaster that lies in wait if nothing is done.

Advance information is also a valuable asset in the business world. People have gone to jail for using it for their own benefit at the expense of others. The rules on this sometimes can be difficult to follow, although there are obvious cases where people (e.g. messengers or printers) have obtained information on the job about future transactions and used that knowledge for personal gain.

People who trade stocks and bonds make decisions based on their beliefs of what the market will do. Investment decisions should be made on the basis of the informed judgment of market professionals. It is logical that such judgments should be made, in part, on the basis of what other investors are doing. It is illegal, however, to be too well informed, and people can be prosecuted if they are caught at insider trading.

An opposite flaw in the dissemination of information is criticized in today's Post by E.J. McMahon. He observes that an important budget document is now more than ten days overdue. Every October 31 in New York State, the governor's Division of the Budget is supposed to issue a mid-year financial report, detailing the degree to which the state's real-world economic situation conforms to the projections laid out in the annual budget adopted by the legislature at the end of March.

In addition to tracking the state's actual tax revenues, which according to the comptroller's office are down by almost $400 million from the forecast numbers, the mid-year accounting is an important indicator of the "fiscal trends that will shape the next Executive Budget". It also provides a context to evaluate the budget requests made by each of the state agency heads, which were due this week.

Governor Cuomo explains his decision to delay the DOB's mid-year report, and, consequently, to postpone indefinitely the deadline for agency heads to submit their budget requests, as follows: "Between Greece and Europe and the stock market going up and down, there has been significant ... volatility. We want to make sure we have the best possible [projections], because we are going to start making real decisions based on this information."

The phrase "making real decisions" in government usually means firing people or shelving capital projects. Since the state has won major concessions from the unions in exchange for a no-layoff pledge, it will be more difficult to find areas in which expenditures can be substantially reduced.

Since it is unlikely that there will be a tide-turning economic recovery in the state in the next few months, the delay in submitting reports and budget requests will most likely mean that the reductions, when they come, will be sharper. This is a perennial situation; it recurs with monotonous and unsurprising regularity each budget cycle. The administration buys breathing room, but at a cost.

The next four and a half months will complete Fiscal Year 2011-2012. As the due date for the next budget approaches, the struggle to balance the budget, or to find a ruse to avoid a balanced budget, will intensify. Mandatory cost increases and a projected $2.4 billion budget gap will create an even more difficult situation for next year.

Some alleviation of the bad news may come from the fact that if the budget is so dire than reasonable people will not fault the governor for being unable to keep his commitments. However, Cuomo appears to be proud of his promises, and as a strong governor and potential national candidate, he is under closer scrutiny than some of his rivals.

We fear the silence of the canary. Muzzling or ignoring the bird may provide time to work on the problem, but it will not add any oxygen to the mineshaft.

StarQuest #784 11.10.2011 824 words

One Small Step

2011-10-28T14:57:00.002-04:00

Pension Reform Agreed Upon,

But Will the Promises Be Kept?

By Henry J. Stern
October 28, 2011

The city's antiquated pension system has long been in need of streamlining and updating. The agreement reached yesterday by Mayor Bloomberg, Comptroller Liu and leading labor unions provides hope that 2012 will be a year of pension reform, but such hopes have previously arisen and been dashed on the rocks of political reality.

New York City employees have different pension plans, all under the management of the City Comptroller: the Employees' Retirement System (NYCERS), the Teachers' Retirement System (TRS), the Police Pension Fund Subchapter 2, the Fire Department Pension Fund Subchapter Two, and the Board of Education Retirement System (BERS). Each pension fund is financially independent of the others and has its own board of trustees, which include city officials and relevant union leaders. In general, the city and the unions have roughly equal authority over the funds.

Sometimes the city and union leaders work jointly on pension matters, while at others they are in disagreement, a difference largely based on the relationship between the mayor and the comptroller at the time.

Historically, the city's mayors and comptrollers have been at odds more often than they have been united. The comptrollership has been used as a stepping-stone for mayoral candidates and under those circumstances it is not uncommon for the mayor and the comptroller to disagree on issues.

The last comptroller, Bill Thompson, left office in 2009 after a close but unsuccessful effort to defeat Mayor Bloomberg's bid for a third term. The subsequently disgraced and convicted Alan Hevesi sought the mayoralty in 2001, but ran a poor fourth in the Democratic primary, losing to Mark Green, Freddy Ferrer and Peter Vallone, who all lost to Bloomberg.

Liz Holtzman was defeated for reelection as comptroller in the 1993 Democratic primary by Hevesi, who raised integrity issues against her. She never ran for mayor, but was defeated as the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in 1980 by Al D'Amato and in the 1992 Democratic Primary for Senate by Robert Abrams. Her predecessor as comptroller, Harrison J. Goldin, made a bid for the office in 1989, finishing fourth in the Democratic primary behind Richard Ravitch (3rd), incumbent mayor Ed Koch (2nd) and David Dinkins, the eventual mayoral winner. Goldin had succeeded Abe Beame, the only comptroller in City history to ascend to the mayoralty since Consolidation in 1898.

It is one thing for public officials to disagree on a policy issue, a frequent occurrence, but another to be in chronic dispute on questions of investment and expenditure of public funds, in situations in which the outcomes can result in financial gaps of millions of dollars in return on investments. The hydra-headed current system leads to such results.

The relationship between third-term mayor Mike Bloomberg and first-term comptroller John Liu has been particularly chilly. Although they cannot run against each other in 2013 they clearly have different visions as to what the city should do in the interim.

Liu has been in full-fledged campaign mode for the 2013 Democratic nomination for Mayor from the day he took office 22 months ago. His initial act was to publicly decline a mayoral invitation to lunch on his first day in office, which, though not substantial, set a tone of antagonism over a non-issue. There are other issues, great and small, where the two men have differed. One chronic bone of contention deals with the comptroller's issuing reports faulting the conduct of a mayoral agency. The press asks the mayor to respond, and he generally does.

Whatever justification for a particular dispute it seems clear that the mayor and the comptroller are often on opposite tracks in their judgment of the city's financial crisis and the way for it to dig itself out of the mess. The mayor sees the solution as based on reducing expenses and increasing renevue with an economy that gets better, while the comptroller believes the city can survive the recession by continuing to spend as it has done in the past.

Of course, all this may change in the next few months, since new economic data is constantly arising and influencing the stock market, corporate earnings, and tax receipts. The financial situation may improve, or deteriorate.

The tentative agreement reached yesterday between the mayor and the comptroller will require considerable fine-tuning in addition to approval by the State Legislature in Albany. It is by no means complete and dispositive of the main issues that have arisen. It does indicate a desire to reach common ground and the recognition that the city's urgent and continuing fiscal troubles require more savings to be made without endangering the pension system.

Some watchers believe that the decisions announced yesterday are not real, but a paper gloss over a more severe situation designed to buy a few months breathing room in which city and state officials will work out a more comprehensive reform. Of course, if the financial situation improves over the next several months to the extent that these measures will not be fully required, so much the better.

The working agreement announced yesterday will require the relinquishment of some authority by the comptroller, who now possesses almost plenary authority in making investment decisions for the $120 billion that remains in the city's pension accounts. It is a rare for public officials to spontaneously limit their authority in any way, unless they are required to do by law enforcement or other external authorities.

Liu has been under fire in the press in recent weeks for alleged fundraising irregularities, including taking campaign contributions from certain donors under the name of others in order to increase the amount of matching funds he would receive from the city's Campaign Finance Board. If he made concessions as the result of current political weakness, it remains to be seen whether he will adhere to them when his own situation improves.

It should always be remembered that every high political office is but a few steps from the grand juries' chambers in the county court houses. The higher one rises in the system, the more vulnerable one is to accusations of various types of misconduct.

The trouble is, as we say in Rule 32, that some of the charges are likely to be true.

Spirit of '76

2011-09-26T17:01:00.006-04:00

How Do We Get

Better Leaders?

Today is the fifth day of fall in the year 2011. The political calendar has however raced ahead. We are in the midst of the 2012 Presidential campaign, and the 2013 Mayoral race is already under way.

This acceleration of political competition is due in part to campaign finance laws, which require reporting of contributions far in advance of the election. Candidates are judged by the media and the public by the amount of money they have raised. It is therefore in the interest to collect as much as they can as soon as they can.

A political action committee supporting women candidates calls itself "Emily's List", the acronym standing for 'early money is like yeast', which means that it helps the cake rise, hopefully so people will donate when campaigns begin and encourage others to do the same. Gender-based organizations may encounter problems when two candidates with the same reproductive system seek the same office, but Emily's List makes the selection process less burdensome by limiting its support to pro-choice Democrats.

Under current law, there are political action committees for both major parties and for independents. Their ability to raise funds and donate to candidates may ultimately be determined by the Supreme Court of the Unite States. At present, there is some uncertainty as to the effect of the Citizens United decision of December 2010, which overturned nearly a century of precedents by ruling that corporate spending on elections could not be limited, based on the court's expansive reading of the First Amendment. Precedents seem less important where there is a political agenda. See Bush v. Gore (2000).

Individuals have the right to contribute as much as they wish to candidates under the Supreme Court decision in Buckley v. Valeo (1976). Today we will discuss other events in that memorable year in our history, the bicentennial of the Declaration of Independence.

POLITICAL EVENTS IN NEW YORK STATE IN 1976

BTW, the Buckley in the Valeo case is not the author William F. Buckley, who ran for Mayor in 1965, but his brother James, who was a United States Senator from New York at the time of the High Court's decision. James had been elected on the Conservative Party line in 1970, when the liberal vote was divided between Democrat Richard Ottinger, a Congressman, and Republican-Liberal Charles Goodell, who had been appointed to the Senate in 1968 by Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller to fill the vacancy caused by the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. Senator Goodell had five sons, one of whom is Roger Goodell, commissioner of the National Football League.

After one six-year term, Senator Buckley was defeated for re-election by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the Democratic-Liberal candidate. After leaving the Senate, Buckley was appointed by President Reagan as Undersecretary of State for International Security Affairs (where he succeeded Matthew Nimetz) and Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (where he was succeeded by John G. Roberts, Jr.).

Moynihan had narrowly won the Democratic primary in a race which featured three candidates from the party's left wing: Congresswoman Bella Abzug, former City Council President Paul O'Dwyer and former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark. Abe Hirschfeld, a garage magnate later imprisoned for the criminal solicitation of a hit man to kill his former business partner, ran fifth. After his release from prison, he ran again for the Senate.

Under the New York State Election Law, political parties are required to nominate candidates before Primary Day. The minor parties, therefore, must make their choices before the major parties. The Liberal Party could not foresee who would win the Democratic primary for the Senate. The identity and philosophy of the Democratic nominee would be a major factor in determining whom the Liberals would choose. It was therefore necessary to select a candidate who could withdraw after the primary. The law provided only three paths to withdrawal: death of the candidate, moving out of the State of New York, or nomination for a judicial office. It was therefore desirable to nominate a lawyer, who would be able to depart from the race honorably and safely if circumstances warranted a substitution.

At that time, I was City Councilmember at Large from Manhattan, and the only elected Liberal in the state. I was asked to be the Senate candidate and, of course, accepted. When Pat Moynihan won the Senate primary, the Liberal Party found a candidate it could proudly support, and I was nominated by the party for the New York State Supreme Court, an office that had always been filled by major party nominees. What would have happened if Bella Abzug had defeated Moynihan is a question that will never be answered. Alex Rose, leader of the Liberal Party, died in December 1976. However, even if Ms. Abzug had received the Liberal nomination, she might have lost to Senator Buckley. Moynihan defeated Buckley by about 585,000 votes. He was considered a moderate liberal and appealed to a broader range of voters than Ms. Abzug. Of course, no one can be certain with regard to hypothetical contests.

The determining event in that primary was the New York Times' last-minute support for Moynihan, a decision made by publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger (not the present publisher, but his father) to over-rule the editorial board, which had supported Ms. Abzug. That was an extremely important choice, because Senator Moynihan, who had been U.S. Representative to the United Nations and had advised four Presidents (two Democrats and two Republicans) was re-elected three times and enjoyed an extraordinary reputation. Moynihan retired in 2000 and was succeeded by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, who served until she resigned in 2009 to become Secretary of State.

Return with us now to the thrilling days of yesteryear. The other New York Senate seat was occupied successively by Jacob K. Javits, four terms, 1957-81; Alfonse D'Amato, three terms, 1981-99; and Charles E. Schumer, 1999 to the present. The seat Moynihan held was held, as we have noted by, James Buckley, Charles Goodell and Robert F. Kennedy, who defeated Kenneth Keating, a Rochester Republican congressman. FYI, years ago, New York was considered a Republican state.

The governor in 1976 was the late Hugh Carey (Rockefeller had become Vice President under Ford). The state comptroller was Arthur Levitt, a Democrat who served from 1955 to 1978 (six four-year terms), longer than anyone else in the history of the office. The attorney general was Louis J. Lefkowitz, a Republican, who also had the longest tenure in that position, 1957 to 1979 (five and one half terms). Lefkowitz succeeded Jacob Javits, also born on the Lower East Side, who resigned as AG when he was elected to the Senate in 1956.

Do public officials today measure up to the standards of those of a generation or two ago? I think probably not. It is altogether possible that the bosses did a better job of choosing candidates for high office than the consultants and sloganeers who now manage political campaigns for hire. After all, Alfred E. Smith and the first Robert F. Wagner were plucked by Tammany Hall from the mediocracy of the state legislature. And are any boss-chosen governors comparable to Eliot Spitzer and David Paterson?

We close with a memorable couplet by the satirical poet Alexander Pope (1688-1744), who wrote in "An Essay on Man" in 1734:

"For Forms of Government let fools contest;
Whate'er is best administer'd is best.

Dance of the Districts

2011-09-21T16:57:00.001-04:00

Political Panel Praises

Partisan Redistricting,

Solons Are Discomfited

At Koch Remonstrance

The reapportionment dance took a few steps forward and backward today as LATFOR (The New York State Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research) held a public hearing in lower Manhattan. The committee has been traveling around the state to hear from the public, but that is no indication that they will respond to the complaints that have been received from academics, good government groups and potential candidates.

The first grievance, which has been expressed by speakers who caught the road show before it arrived in New York City, was that LATFOR should not exist all, but that an independent redistricting commission should be appointed, rather than leaving the task to the assembly of incumbents now conducting the hearings and charged with preparing a plan for the approval of the Legislature, the body that will be affected by the plan.

The reformers want to prevent self-serving partisan districting, which fulfills the desires of a political party at the expense of non-members of that party. They want nonpartisan districting, either this year by law or permanently by Constitutional amendment. The incumbents' idea of avoiding one-party favoritism is bi-partisan districting, which serves the needs of both the Democratic and Republican parties, at the expense of challengers and independents of all stripes.

The star witness at the hearing was former Mayor Edward I. Koch, co-founder of New York Uprising, which is a coalition of former public officials favoring independent non-political districting. Click here to read Mayor Koch's testimony, an informative review of current state of efforts to draw fair lines.

Under the Constitution of the United States, a census of the population is taken every ten years, and the results determine the apportionment of seats in Congress. Because of New York State's comparatively slow growth, it will lose two seats as a result of the 2010 census. The usual political tradition when New York loses two seats has been to take one upstate Republican seat and one downstate Democratic seat. The situation has been complicated since 2010 by the departure of three members of Congress from New York State because of sexual misconduct, in three cases different from each other and all involving unrequited desires.

The custom in New York has been for the Democrats to draw Assembly district lines and the Republicans the Senate lines. For seats in Congress, the parties had to reach agreement on district boundaries. Because of changing demographics and social attitudes, the Republican hold on the Senate has becoming ever more tenuous. A law adopted when the Senate was in Democratic hands changed the districts that would benefit from the head count of inmates from the upstate counties were they were incarcerated, providing employment to local residents, to the downstate counties where they lived while committing the crimes, largely, felonies that resulted in their being sent upstate.

Some people want the Democrats to win both houses, so responsibility for whatever happens or does not happen can be placed on one party. Others prefer a divided legislature, so that conservatives as well as liberals will be heard. A number of players publicly prefer domination by their own party, but their private opinion is another matter. Common sense tells us that moderate government is more likely to be achieved under diverse leadership than when the legislature is under the control of one party. A political system dominated by either party tends to reduce the importance of general elections and increase the effect of party primaries, where the more extreme members of each party have proportionately greater influence, in part because independents are forbidden to vote.

Redistricting will be an important issue in the months to come, and much will said on the subject. The argument is not ideological, the left against the right, the spenders against the savers, or liberals against social conservatives. The issue here is one of equity and fairness, of expressing the wishes of the people, as opposed to those in both parties who would manipulate the system, deny ballot access to challengers, preserve incumbents by any means available, and place individual legislators under the thrall of the legislative leadership, where any expression of autonomy is punished.

The New York State legislature, periodically derided as the most dysfunctional in the United States, has earned its ill repute, not only through acts of dishonesty by members of both houses, some of which have resulted in prison sentences, but by an arbitrary system of rules and protective walls around the leadership, so that although the great majority of the members are honest, there is precious little they can accomplish without the consent of men who, to put it politely, are more responsive to special interests and individual desires, often paid for by political contributions.

To allow the leaders to retain the power to choose their followers by drawing their districts condemns the backbenchers to little more authority than their constituents, who may decennially be moved like cattle from one district to another to serve the political interests of those whose lack of responsibility and desire for re-election have helped give rise to the state's now acute financial problems.

Do not take this commentary as indicating that any particular legislator is better or worse than any other. Some considered paragons of virtue may never have been subject to temptation. Others usually reviled are not only smarter than most others but are better politicians. And when people elected to high office as reformers are found to have several screws loose which prevent positive interaction with other people, the distinction between intellect and insanity becomes difficult to find.

But regardless of their intellect, ability, integrity or state of rage, all public officials should run in honestly drawn districts, equal in size, compact and contiguous, and linking communities by interest. Political boundaries should not be perpetrated on the public by self-serving incumbents, who have systematically manipulated the electoral system to serve their personal needs at the expense of the public interest in honest government.

Big Apple Turnover

2011-09-14T17:51:00.001-04:00

Turner Tops Weprin

Koch's Intervention,

Distaste for Obama

Reflected in Vote.

The election yesterday of Republican Robert Turner to Congress is significant for several reasons.

One is that the result will be widely perceived as a rebuke to President Obama and the Democratic Party, which it is. For some, the issue was jobs and the economy. For others, the administration's hostility to Israel is an important issue, which affected Catholic voters as well as Jews. The hostility of Muslim extremists extends to all other religions, and the Catholics were the original crusaders in the Middle Ages.

The Democrat, David Weprin, was clearly the machine candidate, chosen in part because he could be counted on not to squawk too loudly when his district was eliminated. Mr. Weprin, a retiring person and a hard worker, would not be in politics except that his father, the distinguished Saul Weprin, rose to be Speaker of the Assembly before he passed away in 1994, to be succeeded by Sheldon Silver. David's younger brother, Mark Weprin, was also a member of the Assembly before he was elected to the City Council in 2009. The Weprins are the last remaining political dynasty in the Queens delegation to Albany, the Hevesi clan having been reduced to son Andrew, an assemblyman since 2005.

There was no Democratic or Republican primary to select the candidate to fill the seat vacated by Anthony Weiner, whose troubles have been recounted at length and need no further exposition here. Normally party nominations are the result of primary elections, but in all five elections held yesterday, the departing officials left at a point on the calendar when a primary was not required, and the nominee could be selected by the county leader. Observers believe that Melinda Katz, the former Councilmember and Asssemblywoman, would have been a stronger candidate. She came in third while Weprin ran fourth in the 2009 contest for City Comptroller. But she would have been less likely to take a dive to suit the county leader.

In Queens, that is Congressman Joseph Crowley, in Kings it is Assemblyman Vito Lopez. For the Brooklyn-Queens congressional district, both leaders concurred in the choice of David Weprin; he would have been the only person in recent memory to have been a member of the City Council, the state legislature, and the U.S. Congress. That, however was not to be, although he could be consoled by the words of Meat Loaf, "Two out of three ain't bad" (Rule 20-T).

Many voters had negative views on the economy and the Obama administration, which were reflected in the vote. When seen together, Turner, at 70, was physically more imposing than Weprin, who is 55. Turner was a more folksy and less political figure, running at a time when politicians are not held in high regard for good and sufficient reasons.

The solidarity of Democrats, practically all the legislators lining up like sparrows on a wire to support colleague Weprin, left the field open for independent Mayor Koch and Assemblyman Dov Hikind, both of whom occasionally support Republicans. Both Liberal Party members and Conservative leader Michael Long supported Turner. The Liberals want Obama to win in 2012, and urgently wish him to change course before it is too late. The Conservatives simply oppose Obama, and are promoting the Turner victory as a national uprising.

Basically, this was an election between boss-picked candidates to fill a vacancy created when party leaders decided that a wayward Congressman guilty of infantile behavior was dispensable. The problem they must face is that the cure for Weiner's bizarre misconduct may be worse for the Democrats than the disease.

The wild card in the primary turned out to be Mayor Koch, a popular and credible octogenerian leader who seeks no public office, and is therefore more susceptible to the dictates of conscience. He has never been shy about expressing his opinions, and the fate of the Jewish people is an issue of great importance to him, although he is a secular Jew. His early intervention made the sleepy race competitive. The vigorous Turner campaign attracted both Russians and Orthodox Jews, neither of whom has particularly high regard for the other. Politically, the Russians are mostly conservative, having lived under an all-powerful state.

The Orthodox were upset that Weprin favored gay marriage, and said that his position was consistent with his Orthodoxy. His co-religionists disputed his claim. I support gay marriage, although I was late to the cause. Turner promised Koch not to exploit the issue, and he kept his word. The Orthodox, however, consider this an important matter, even though the State legislature had approved it and will not change its position, in part because of demographics and in part because of increasing public acceptance of same-sex marriage.

So it is that Mr. Turner will go to Washington, and the Ninth District, in its present gerrymandered dumb-bell configuration, with a narrow link between Brooklyn and Queens, will retire to well-deserved oblivion, having enjoying its moment in the spotlight. Unless there is another major hurricane or other disaster, the television towers will not return to Broad Channel and Howard Beach.

Let us hope that the President gains insight from the events in New York-9, as they call it, and returns to the foreign policy of American presidents starting with Harry Truman in 1948, with the exception of Jimmy Carter, who has established a Center in Georgia that requires continuous infusions of funds, provided by friends in the Middle East.

More will be written about New York-9. It may be remembered like one of those towns whose high point was a battle in the Civil War, and after which has slept quietly for a century. But, on September 13, 2011, ten years and two days after the fateful 9/11, the people of the district spoke. I believe they were influenced to some extent by the national tragedy whose anniversary they had so recently observed. In any event, an election is a great public event and an expression of the views of the community which people who believe in democracy are bound to respect.

Is America Awake?

2011-09-09T17:27:00.003-04:00

Ten Years Later,

They Still Want

To Kill Us All.

Do We Know It?

The tenth anniversary of 9/11 has created a media stir of considerable magnitude. The tenth anniversary of Pearl Harbor Day, December 7, 1951, caused relatively little stir. But by then, we had won World War II.

Anxiety has been augmented by the authorities reporting a "credible threat" of another terrorist attack on the date of the catastrophe in 1991. By the time you read this, another attack may or may not have occurred. If it did, it most likely was on a far lesser scale than 9/11, but may still inflict substantial damage and attract world attention. Unfortunately, to many people in other countries, an attack on the United States would be a cause for rejoicing.

Police Commissioner Kelly tells us that in the last ten years, thirteen credible plots to attack New York City have been foiled. In an article yesterday from The Daily Beast, John Avlon reports that nationwide 45 jihadist terrorist plots have been thwarted since 9/11. Some, like the shoe bomber and the underwear bomber, failed only because of the clumsiness of the plotter. Others were stopped by the excellent work of our intelligence community. Whatever the case, it is conceivable that some day our lucky streak will come to an end.

Meanwhile, the American people have differing levels of awareness as to threat of terror. Our government seems reluctant to think of this ongoing danger as directly related to a radical branch of Islam, which it clearly is. The army report on the Fort Hood massacre, where an Islamist army major, who had made no secret of where his sympathies lay, murdered 13 American soldiers on a military base in Texas, tiptoed around the issue of why Major Nidal Malik Hasan acted the way he did. And army psychiatrists approved his performance despite hearing his tirades about infidels.

Another fact that has remained below the radar screen is that "according to the Bipartisan Policy Center, in 2009 at least 43 American citizens or residents aligned with Sunni militant groups or their ideology were charged or convicted of terrorism crimes in the United States or elsewhere, the highest number in any year since 9/11." One incident in 2009, hardly remembered today, occurred in Little Rock, Arkansas when a Muslim convert, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, the former Carlos Bledsoe, shot at soldiers waiting in line outside a military recruiting office, killing one soldier and injuring another. Many similar incidents have not been widely reported; they have become too common to attract great notice unless there are a number of fatalities.

The departure of American-born Muslim youths from Minnesota to join the jihad in Somalia, although not a crime, is cause for concern. Some of these young men were killed on the battlefield, one was slain when he tried to return to the United States.

A web of organizations in the United States have defended radical terrorists on First Amendment grounds as exercising their religious freedom. The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is as follows:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

There is nothing in the First Amendment protecting bomb makers, or people who commit acts of violence or exhort others to do so. Far beyond shouting 'fire' in crowded theaters, there are ideologues who would set fires in crowded theaters, or buses, or subways if they could. Just this Tuesday, Agron Hasbajrami, an Albanian citizen who had been living legally in Brooklyn since 2008, was arrested and indicted by a grand jury on charges that he provided material support to terrorists and had been planning to join a radical Islamic group in Pakistan. He had purchased a one-way ticket to Istanbul.

The struggle against Islamic terrorism is one that will continue well into the future. It has by no means ended with the death of Osama bin Laden. It is different from our previous wars in that it is not fought by national armies over defined territories, and concluded with the victory of one side and the surrender of the other. The enemy here is a malignant ideology which believes, as a matter of faith, that non-believers must become subservient to one particular theology, and that all who do not should be required to pay tribute, or be put to death..

That may sound ridiculous to you, but if millions of people believe it and thousands act on it, the matter is quite serious. And there may be billions of people who, even if they do not necessarily believe it and are highly unlikely to act on it, would not be enormously upset if that ideology prevailed and Earth became a theocracy.

The struggle for freedom and democracy, values we take for granted, can be a lonely effort. Another human impulse is submission, the desire to be guided by someone else and freed from personal responsibility. We saw that in Jonestown, Guyana in 1978, and in Germany in the 1930's. Circumstances do not require everyone to feel that way, just enough party members to control the government, the army and the police who rule the country.

With the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the world has become more dangerous. The ability of individual non-state actors to do enormous damage has increased substantially and will continue to do so. Technology has brought a dazzling parade of inventions in recent years, especially in communications. The dark side is the ability of bad men to do evil, and we are not worried at this time about the world being ruled by mutant robots.

The survival of representative governments is complicated by the fact that many law-abiding people are unable or unwilling to identify and confront the enemy, despite repeated incidents of violence, like the mass killings in peaceful Norway, of all places. Sure the attackers can be called crazy, but their insanity sometimes takes the form of murdering others on behalf of particular causes. The Norway nut hated Muslims, and his act shows that violence is not confined by ethnicity or ideology. The Son of Sam obeyed his dog and killed retail, but that was 35 years ago, before the AK-47.

It makes good sense, however, to look for violence in or near places where it has occurred, and among people who have repeatedly committed violent aggressive. And it is important that the entire society be made aware of what is going on. The jihadists state their goals openly, as Adolf Hitler did in Mein Kampf, published in two volumes in 1925 and 1926. He followed his course unimpeded for thirteen years, while civilized Westerners, exemplified by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, averted their gaze and swallowed Hitler's lies.

On the tenth anniversary of 9/11, it is as important to look to the future as it is to honor the heroes and recall the past. Our efforts should be devoted to seeing that no such tragedy occurs again, and that the people of the United States and other nations be roused from their self-centered stupor, and begin to take actions to protect themselves before it is too late. At this point in world history, it appears highly unlikely, at least to us, that time is on our side.

StarQuest #778 9.9.2011 1231 words

Garbage In, Garbage Out

2011-08-30T18:11:00.002-04:00

Asphalt Green

Set to Become

Port Garbage

Under City Plan

For some years, the City of New York has been planning to construct a marine transfer station (MTS) on the Manhattan side of the East River, with an entrance and exit at 91st Street and York Avenue. There was such a facility on that site until 1990, when it was closed. In the twenty years since, the neighborhood has become increasingly high-rise residential and Asphalt Green, a recreation center with a swimming pool and substantial play areas for children, has been built east of York Avenue, immediately adjacent to the site.

The transfer station would be a large building which trucks loaded with garbage that would enter and then drop their contents into scows. When filled, the scows, pulled by tugboats, would travel down the East River and bring the garbage to freight cars which would carry it by rail to rural sites where the city had purchased rights to deposit solid waste.

The site, a couple of blocks from Gracie Mansion, has stirred neighborhood controversy. Local elected officials, led by Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, are strongly opposed to the location. Mayor Bloomberg supports it. Indeed, he advanced its construction by a year, in an effort to lock in the site before he leaves office in December 2013.

Supporters of the site say that Manhattan should handle its own garbage, rather than ship it to other boroughs. They say the residents of the East Side who oppose the site are guilty of "environmental racism", dumping unpopular facilities in neighborhoods inhabited by poor people. This argument carried the day at the City Council, where in June 2005 an attempt by then-Speaker Gifford Miller to over-rule the mayor's solid waste plan which included the marine transfer station failed when the Speaker could not muster the necessary two-thirds of the Council, and the vote was canceled. It was rumored at the time that Miller had rounded up 32 votes, but 34 out of 51 members were required for an over-ride.

The fact that Miller was running for mayor against Bloomberg that year did not help his cause. It enabled the mayor to appear as the defender of the outer boroughs against a councilmember from the silk stocking district who did not want a necessary sanitary facility in his backyard, even to take care of his own constituents' garbage.

Since that time, the project has spent six years wending its way through the bureaucracy. When approved, the decision was seen as the outcome of a political battle between the mayor and the speaker. Now, with Miller long out of politics, and Speaker Quinn a strong ally of the mayor as she seeks to become his designated successor, the old lineup has evaporated, and the transfer station appears to have clear sailing.

None of this has to do with the merits of the proposal, which have been challenged in the courts, so far without success. In general, the courts are supposed to decide on whether the city has authority to take a particular action, not to judge the merits of the proposed action. However, judges often insert themselves into local disputes, whether to make friends or avoid making enemies, or to attract attention to themselves and the power they can exercise, at least until the matter is taken to a higher court, which has no problem in reversing political decisions made by trial judges.

Disclosure: I live on East 84th Street, which is far enough away from the site for me not to be bothered by whatever smoke, noise, odors or fumes that may emanate from the plant. I do remember the old plant, and the problem there was that trucks waiting to enter one of the berths from which they dumped the garbage would line up on York Avenue, their diesel engines running, all the way down to 86th Street, five blocks south of the station. The trucks were often accompanied by flies, who feasted on the trucks' cargo whenever they could gain access.

The environmental elite is all for the project, out of belief that it will mitigate global warning, and the conviction that anything that discommodes rich people or reduces the value of their homes cannot be all bad. These groups have been under fire from minorities because they are overwhelmingly white, although composed primarily of volunteers.

Supporting this project is a good way for the richies to show that they favor justice for all, and are not troubled by any consequences that do not affect the underprivileged, or as they now prefer to say, the underserved, since they are not seeking privileges, but rights which they richly deserve but have never received in our unjust society.

Of course, rhetoric on both sides has next to nothing to do with the merits of the project. There are factors: length of truck routes, availability of sites on the Hudson River, the West Side of Manhattan (ships generally dock there, not on the East River). The effect on property values, and consequent tax revenue to the city, should also be considered. If $100 million in luxury housing declines in worth to $75 million because it now faces a huge garbage dump, that is a cost which will be paid each year when the city assesses the real estate that is its principal fixed asset.

There is also the issue of what to do if you build it and it doesn't work the way you wanted it to. Look at the Town of North Hempstead in Nassau County, which built a costly incinerator, only later to dismantle it and use the land for a golf course. This turned out to be a nine-figure blunder, but it was supported by the so-called experts. Of course, a transfer station is easier to build, small children employ its principles in sandboxes.

But with Murphy's Law in mind, do not underestimate the capacity of public officials (and their rivals and successors) to mess things up. This is particularly true when a noisy minority opposes the project from the start. BTW, why was the first transfer station built at that site to ship out truckloads of garbage abandoned twenty years ago? Why was the striking asphalt plant on the site, designed by the famous architects Kahn & Jacobs in 1944, recycled into a sports and arts center in 1982? Possibly because the manufacture of asphalt is a business historically operated by organized crime, with which the city was not competitive.

My prediction is that some day, not too far away, the experts will find a better way of getting the garbage onto the scows or a better place in which to do it. In the meantime, as they say, "there goes the neighborhood." Many communities have gone up and down over the years, often for reasons that were beyond the reach of government. The novelty here is that the city itself will pay to ruin the ambiance and the view, which will diminish the economic value of one of its finest local neighborhoods.

Let us make it clear that a lot of honest and intelligent people support this project in good faith. It is just that, based on my knowledge, experience with similar proposals, and stubborn intuition, I don't believe them to the extent of spending billions of dollars of tax money to do what they tell us. For example, what if the rural states reject our garbage, or make accepting it prohibitively expensive? Will the scows remain at sea in perpetuity?

The fact that this damage is being inflicted in the name of improving the environment reminds us of the words which sadly became famous in Vietnam: "We had to burn down the village in order to save it."

As Puck observed, "What fools these mortals be."

StarQuest #777 8.30.2011 1287 words

Water, water, everywhere

2011-08-29T18:19:00.003-04:00

Irene Drenches City

Winds Just Bluster,

Nature Lends a Hand.

Mayor Back in Groove

Today we enjoy the calm after the storm. The sky is clear and we have a pleasant breeze. It is a perfect day to go outside and breathe air that is cleaner than usual. You can also leave your apartment windows open.

The contrast, of course, is with last week, when Hurricane Irene dropped millions of gallons of water over the Eastern Seaboard, starting with Puerto Rico, and heading north to Canada, finally dissipating over Quebec. Hurricanes have no regard for political boundaries. Landfalls slow them down but do not stop them.

Fortunately, Irene turned into a tropical storm as it approached New York City, and we were spared the worst of the winds, which would have inflicted enormous damage on property and probably would have killed many people, as tornadoes frequently do.

This column tends to view significant events, including natural disasters, in terms of their political effect, if any, and the competence of public agencies and officials in dealing with crisis.

In that regard the Bloomberg and the Cuomo administrations did very well. It is possible that the Mayor's good work was, in part, based on his determination to avoid another fiasco like the late December blizzard in 2010 which was not anticipated and not responded to promptly by city officials, some of whom were out of town. There is nothing wrong with the mayor's learning from that experience, and in fact it is a credit to him that he did.

There was one change in the lineup, Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith, who lived in Washington, D.C., and became, somewhat unfairly, the official scapegoat for all that went wrong in the city's response to the blizzard, was replaced by Cas Holloway, who had been Mayor Bloomberg's Commissioner of Environmental Protection. Holloway lives in Brooklyn Heights, and had served years in the mayor's office, and before that, in the Department of Parks & Recreation, a well-known incubator of young talent (e.g. Adrian Benepe, Ed Skyler and Bradley Tusk).

The city had the advantage of five days' notice that Hurricane Irene was headed our way, and used the time wisely to make arrangements as to how to deal with the approaching storm. The mass evacuation of nursing home residents turned out not to have been necessary, but anyone who remembers senior citizens drowning in their beds in New Orleans during Katrina did not want to see a repeat of that tragic scenario.

HISTORICAL CATASTROPHES

The death toll from Katrina was 1,836, making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in the United States since the Johnstown, PA, flood in May 1889, where an estimated 2,200 people died, mostly by drowning. That tragedy was caused by the catastrophic failure of the South Fork Dam on Lake Conemaugh, which released twenty million tons of water which raced 14 miles downstream to reach Johnstown. The worst natural disaster in United States history was the Galveston flood of September 1900, which killed an estimated 8,000 people. The multiple attacks on 9-11-2001 killed nearly 3,000 people, but that was a man-made tragedy and not a natural disaster. Outside this country, the Haitian earthquake of January 2010 resulted in 316,000 deaths, more than a hundred times as many as died at the World Trade Center.

As of this afternoon, just one death in New York City has been attributed to the storm, which is the result of good luck, sound planning, and fine work by first responders. The men and women who worked to achieve this result deserve praise for their efforts. We hope they suffer no after-effects from their work.

This hurricane was extensively covered by the media, particularly television, which had great visuals of surging waves. Reporters and cameramen were placed in different neighborhoods and showed the extent of the flooding, which never seemed to be as deep as their descriptions. Winds are less visible on TV, but one could see reporters trying to stand up straight while they spoke, with gusts occasionally pushing them around.

Mayor Bloomberg had periodic press conferences to report on developments, which is what Mayor Giuliani did after the 9-11 terror attack. Governor Cuomo called out 2000 National Guard troops, deployed them in flooded areas, visited upstate counties, praised local officials and showed himself to be deeply involved, with State Operations Director Howard Glaser coordinating the state's response, where flash floods upstate endangered lives, with people trapped in motels by rising waters.

After 9/11, candidate Andrew Cuomo got into trouble for saying that all Governor Pataki did was hold Mayor Giuliani's coat. This year Governor Cuomo spoke wisely and to the point, telling what the state was doing, and saying nothing negative about anyone. By highlighting the hurricane's effect in Long Island and upstate counties in the Hudson valley, he avoided Mayor Bloomberg's turf and showed that he was ready for prime time. Good.

Even President Obama got into the act, speaking live for a few minutes at 5 p.m. Friday about federal assistance in the disaster area, and how all levels of government were working together. He also mentioned ways people could prepare for impending hurricanes. It was somewhat reassuring to know that he cared about us New Yorkers.

In another first for natural disasters, we received e-mails all day from miscellaneous elected officials, district leaders, city councilmembers and even one aspirant to a Queens Assembly seat, advising their constituents how to deal with the winds and the flood. These messages were harmless, and might even be helpful if one had no other source of information as to what to do in the event of a hurricane, or were watching TV for the first time.

These e-mailings were evidence of the maxim, "It's an ill wind that blows no good", because the raging hurricane provided an opportunity for the politicians to send mailings to their constituents at the expense of the State or City of New York. Watch for the next rainstorm, and see whether we are advised to carry umbrellas.

We defend the city from accusations of over-reacting, which were implicit in some questions from skeptics in the press. For the next hurricane, we can do fewer evacuations, but it is important periodically to test emergency management situations, and Irene was an excellent occasion to find out what works and what doesn't.

I think of the two men on the beach in Florida talking about what had brought them there. One man said he had a candy store which burned to the ground after a serious fire. The other fellow said that he had a clothing store, which had been blown away by a tornado. The first man expressed surprise, and asked his companion, "Tell me, how do you make a tornado?"

Since we cannot make tornadoes or hurricanes, we should use the ones that God sends us to learn all we can as to how to deal with them, and minimize the loss of life and property. It is not wrong for a disaster to be a test of public officials, they are elected in part to protect us, and a crisis gives them the chance to show what they can, or cannot do.

President Bush looking out the window of Air Force One flying over New Orleans after Katrina six years ago was not a helpful image, and his words on the ground to his FEMA chief, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job," reverberated to his discomfort. It is remarkable what the elected class has learned since then.

We wish that hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, tornadoes and forest fires do not threaten our State. If they do come, we depend on our public officials to lead our response. There is also a great deal that individuals can do, and they should be more prepared for disasters than they are today.

We have lived for over a half century under the threat of weapons of mass destruction. With nuclear proliferation under way, with unstable regimes in some countries, and others led by psychotics, the world is a dangerous place, whether or not it is warming (and it probably is). The more people can do to provide practical protection for themselves and their families, the better their outcome may turn out to be, as my mother used to say, "if anything happens."

September Surprise?

2011-08-23T15:15:00.003-04:00

Turner-Weprin Contest

Seen as Vote on Obama

The possibility of an upset in the special election September 13 to fill Anthony Weiner's congressional seat should cause Democratic leaders some anxiety.

Although Assemblyman David Weprin, the Democratic candidate, must be considered the favorite in view of the heavy Democratic edge in registration, the Republican nominee, Bob Turner, is running hard. In 2010, Turner opposed incumbent Weiner last year and won 40% of the vote in what had been considered a deep blue district. When Weiner was forced to resign June 16 as a result of a sexting scandal, Governor Cuomo chose September 13, primary day, as the date for an election to fill the remainder of Weiner's term, which would have expired January 3, 2013.

Anthony Weiner, who had served eleven years in Congress before he was brought down by scandal, was not convicted or even indicted for any crime. He did not have sexual intercourse with any of his online acquaintances. He did not pay anyone for sex, nor did he threaten or abuse anyone to secure sexual favors.

Weiner did not cheat on his taxes or claim fictitious deductions. He did not assault anyone of either gender. He did not betray his office by seeking bribes for his vote. He did not kill, steal, or commit physical adultery. He did covet higher office, but that is no sin. Millions of men around the world have gone on the internet to find sexual excitation or release. Unless it involves minors, such behavior is not a crime.

What he did, in circulating nude pictures of himself and sending salacious messages to his pen pals, is ludicrous and pathetic. If a private citizen behaved that way, it would be the height of folly and a matter of serious concern to his family. For a public figure, an elected official, a candidate for mayor, to do such a thing and jeopardize one's career and one's marriage indicates a serious mental disorder, which certainly requires treatment. For a start, they should take away his computer and only allow it to be used under supervision.

However, foolishness and narcissism are not sufficient grounds for the removal of an elected official, particularly if his conduct did not violate the standards set by criminal law. Nor did his constituents demand his removal, according to public opinion polls at the time. They knew him, and wanted to reserve to themselves the right to pass judgment on his aberration. There was some sympathy for a nice boy gone astray. Nor did he want to resign; he desperately clung to his job, because that was the validation of his existence.

In the end, it was Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the House Democratic leadership that compelled him to go, because they felt his misconduct would injure the party in the November 2012 elections. It was a 'holier than thou' attitude which carried the day, as well as the mob mentality which often accompanies lynchings, physical or judicial. Weiner's abrasive personality, his arrogance and his self-promotion had won him no friends among his colleagues, and his office manners led to frequent turnover on his beleaguered staff. Weiner was not an appealing figure, and his public downfall created no mourning on Capitol Hill.

What is fascinating here is that Nancy Pelosi and company drove him out, not because they were necessarily horrified by his juvenile behavior, but because they thought it was to their political advantage to lance the boil, to cull the black sheep from the block, to fumigate and sanitize the party label. This was Pelosi's judgment even though Weiner had supported her for speaker in January 2007 over Steny Hoyer, a more moderate and less divisive Democrat. Perhaps she objected to the fact that he objectified women in his correspondence. Her attitude recalls Rule 32-Y: "Yes, but what have you done for me lately?"

HISTORICAL INTERLUDE -- HOW THE SEAT WAS WON AND HELD, 1923-2011

The Congressional seat itself has a noteworthy political history. Originally thought of as the Jewish seat in Brooklyn, it was occupied for fifty years (1923-72) by Emanuel Celler, who rose to become chair of the Judiciary Committee. He was the fourth-longest Representative in the history of the House. The record holder is John D. Dingell of Michigan, who assumed office on December 13, 1955, succeeding his father and namesake, who served a mere 22 years. The silver medalist is Jamie Whitten of Mississippi (1941-1995), who chaired the Appropriations Committee. Third was Carl Vinson of Georgia (1914-65), who chaired the Armed Services Commitee. A nuclear powered aircraft carrier was named in his honor in 1980 when he was 96 years old. He is a grand-uncle of former Senator Sam Nunn (D-Ga).

Three other men had longer tenure, aggregating the years in the House and in the Senate. They are Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia (1953-2010), Carl Hayden of Arizona (1912-69) and Daniel Inouye (1959 to the present). Hayden had been sheriff of Maricopa County and Inouye was a Territorial legislator before Arizona and Hawaii gained statehood.

Celler, a stalwart of the Brooklyn Democratic organization, was upset by 31-year-old Elizabeth Holtzman in the 1972 Democratic primary. She served eight years before running for the Senate in 1980. She won the Democratic primary over Bess Myerson, John V. Lindsay and John J. Santucci, the Queens DA, but she lost the general election to the town supervisor of Hempstead, Alfonse D'Amato, who had defeated incumbent Jacob K. Javits in the Republican primary. Javits stayed in the race, polling 664,544 votes on the Liberal line from New Yorkers who were not enchanted with either major party candidate.

The seat Ms. Holtzman vacated was taken by Charles E. Schumer, who had been an Assemblyman since 1974, the year he graduated from Harvard Law School. Schumer, who was 23 when he was first elected, had defeated an organization candidate to win the Assembly primary, which in that district was tantamount to election. Schumer held the House seat for 18 years, until he entered, and won, the Democratic Senate primary, handily defeating (with 51%) both Geraldine Ferraro (21%) and Mark Green (19%).

It was to fill Schumer's vacated seat that Anthony Weiner, then a City Councilmemember, was elected in 1998. Again, the real contest was the Democratic primary, where Weiner (28%) outpolled Melinda Katz (27%), Noach Dear (22%), and Daniel Feldman (22%). Weiner's margin over Ms. Katz was 285 votes. She was later elected to the City Council and chaired the Land Use Committee there. She came in third for City Comptroller in 2009, ahead of only David Weprin, who was fourth. Without making a judgment on the merits, it is clear that Katz and Weprin, both middle-class Jewish councilmembers from Queens and City Council committee chairs, appealed to precisely the same base.

Weiner was re-elected six times, and since Congressional terms end in even-numbered years, he had the odd-numbered years to pursue his quest for the mayoralty, which he did in 2005. After a surprisingly strong performance in the Democratic primary, Weiner could have made the runoff against Fernando Ferrer, the frontrunner, but he withdrew from the race rather than opposing the former Bronx Borough President in a bruising racially charged battle reminicent of the Ferrer-Green runoff in 2001. In any event, Weiner would most likely have lost to Bloomberg in the general election.

In 2009 Weiner planned to run but decided not to after Bloomberg's people said they would spend over $100 million on the campaign, twenty per cent of which was to be devoted to what is called "oppo research" on his rivals. We do not know what skeletons Weiner had in his closet at that time, which was two years ago, when Weiner was single. There is, however, a major rule, 16-J, "Nobody does it once." If you are curious, you can ask us who the J stands for.

BACK TO THE FUTURE

To return to 2011 and the current campaign, both sides have printed misleading offensive literature. Weprin says that Turner would abolish Social Security and Medicare, while Turner implies thats Weprin would support a mosque on every corner and uses 9/11 imagery to make his point, which is incredibly tacky. And the good stuff is usually saved for the last week. Money from outside the district is flooding it to support each of the candidates.

We do not know what will happen in the September 13 election. "As luck would have it" (Rule 17-A), this will be a closely watched contest, and the result may be taken as a measure of President Obama's popularity, which is not overwhelming at the moment. Adding the scalp of Qaddafi to that of Bin Laden would help the President, and no one can be certain of what will happen in the next three weeks. The political waters were roiled to an extent by Mayor Koch's vigorous endorsement of Turner, which Koch explained as an expression of displeasure at Obama's apparent lack of affection for Israel. Historically, many Jews are supportive of the authorities, who they believe will protect them from enemies. In the old country, they did not believe the Czar himself was anti-Semitic, it was just his ministers who gave him bad advice. Some older Jews still believe they are voting for Franklin D. Roosevelt.

It is more likely that economic conditions will affect the outcome of the special election. This is a heavily Democratic area, part Brooklyn, part Queens. No matter who wins, the district is likely to be partitioned in the imminent decennial reapportionment, so the election must be viewed as a one-term proposition. Its principal effect will be the potential embarrassment that a Republican victory would bring. At this moment, that seems unlikely, but special elections are particularly hard to predict. The polls as yet unreleased will have influence on the outcome.

One observation we can make is that when the House Democrats tried to play it safe by throwing Weiner under the train in June, rather than leaving that task to his constituents, no one anticipated that, in September, the party would be struggling to avoid a greater shame: the defeat of a regular Democrat in a blue New York City district by a candidate running against President Obama. The 24-hour media cycle makes it possible today for elections to turn on a dime on the basis of new disclosures, whether they are true or false.

The latest Democratic defection may be Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who is quoted on p6 of today's Post, saying, "I will not support David Weprin." Hikind objects to Weprin citing his religiion in voting for the gay marriage law in June. "Weprin basically used his Jewish orthodoxy to say gay marriage is OK. He used his orthodoxy to say gay marriage is kosher. That crossed the line." Hikind has previously supported Republican candidates in races where gay marriage was not an issue. He said he would meet with Turner in the coming days.

In the secrecy of the ballot box, one can only imagine how former Congressman Weiner will cast his vote. I suspect he will vote for Weprin, so he can answer questions truthfully and avoid responsibility for what may happen. What he wishes for in his heart I cannot tell, but I know how I would feel under the circumstances.

StarQuest #775 8.23.2011 1875 words

Sailor Take Warn

2011-08-22T15:49:00.002-04:00

PRESCRIPT: Based on my personal experience and limited financial acumen, the publication of this article probably indicates that stocks are at or near their lows, and that the economy is about to improve. I hope that is a talisman of the future, but I have no unique information, inside or outside, that that is the case. Although my opinions are my actual beliefs, and the article is serious, I do not suggest that you buy or sell any investment on the basis of my observations.

Debt Threatens

U.S. Prosperity

The last fortnight has definitely not been accompanied by fourteen happy days.

Apart from the falling stock market, which appears to be a worldwide condition, public opinion is trending to concern that America may be headed for a new recession. The anticipated decline is not particularly the fault of American banks or irresponsible lending policies, although unsound business practices have weakened the economy. European nations as well appear to have spent more than they have, and the result of their overspending has undermined the euro and threatens the economies of other countries in the zone.

The allegedly offending nations are Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain. As luck would have it, the acronym for the quartet is PIGS. The problem of spending is however global. It results from people's natural desire to enjoy goods and services which they cannot afford to purchase with their current earnings, which come from jobs that may or may not exist next year. The issue of debt affects individuals, families, small and large businesses, and governments on the municipal, state and national levels.

Karl Marx is said to have written "Democracy is a form of government that cannot long survive, for as soon as the people learn that they have a voice in the fiscal policies of the government, they will move to vote for themselves all the money in the treasury, and bankrupt the nation." (There is uncertainty as to the provenance of that observation. Wikiquotes lists alternate sources here.)

Our democracy has served us for 235 years, and the United States has not yet been bankrupted. The country has weathered wars, panics, recessions and depressions. Individuals have been wiped out financially, and too many are today unable to find work. Yet America moves forward, with its people enjoying a generally high standard of living by comparison with other countries. If he made it, Karl Marx was clearly wrong in his doomsday prediction, as he was in other pronouncements that have not exactly worked out.

Nonetheless, with our unemployment rate stubbornly above nine per cent, and with many additional millions of people underemployed, or so discouraged that they have left the labor market, the economic state of the nation is not healthy for more than twenty million Americans. The rate may be 9%, but if you are one of the 9%, the rate is 100%.

Some problems are fairly obvious. If goods can be manufactured or assembled in China or in any number of third world countries, at a far lower cost of production than in the United States or most European nations, why should any business organized to earn a profit for its shareholders and wealth for its officers manufacture products anywhere else? The decline and fall of tariff barriers in international trade has generally been regarded by moderates as a good thing. Its effect was supposed to be to increased wages and improved working conditions in the poorer countries, without adverse effects on the wealthier nations.

Unfortunately, political and economic issues sometimes work out in ways that were not expected. We do not have the ability or expertise to tell at what level, if any, tariffs should be imposed. We were told in school that the Smoot-Hawley Tariff led to the Great Depression of the thirties. Yet that tariff was signed by President Hoover on June 17, 1930, while the stock market had crashed on October 29, 1929, the day known historically as Black Tuesday, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 38 points to 260, or l2.8%. The next day, October 30, the Dow fell another 30 points, to 230, over 11%.

The tariffs imposed the following spring by Congress seem to be a reaction to the crash rather than the direct cause of it. They certainly did not help the market as the Dow continued to fall, hitting an all time low of 41.22 on July 8, 1932. But who knew it would peak at 14,164.53 on October 9, 2007? Unfortunately, record highs and lows only become known after the fact.

1932 was the year Hoover ran for re-election and was defeated by Franklin D. Roosevelt, with the Democrats capturing both houses of Congress, electing 311 Representatives to 117 Republicans and 5 members of the Farmer Labor Party, which was centered in Minnesota. That was the public reaction to hard economic times.

More recently, President Obama's actions to turn the economic tide have been ridiculed by his political opponents, who have directed a constant stream of attacks on whatever he does or says. This is comparable in some ways to the Democrats' assault on George W. Bush. Obama has been scorned by both the right and the far left, although with the Congress as it was in 2009, it is not clear what more Obama could have accomplished.

Rule 46 comes to mind while we discuss this situation today. "Do not mention rope in the home of one who has been hanged." It has been traced to a 16th century maxim: "A man ought not to make mention of a halter in the house of a man that was hanged." The saying was reported by John Minscheu in England in 1599 (We previously cited it, in relation to Andrew Cuomo, in 2007).

One thing we have learned by living through enough business cycles is that, in general, the result of repeated rises and falls is a rise in the indexes. That is not true of specific stocks, bonds or real or personal property, which may become worthless as time goes by. Although present economic conditions will eventually improve, possibly sooner than later, a great deal of damage will have been done to people who will not be in a position to benefit from the recovery.

When he came to office in January 2009, in the wake of the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September and the forced sale in March of Bear Stearns to J.P.Morgan for $10 a share (it had sold for $133.20 within a year before) Obama and his new cabinet were faced with the risk of a rapidly deteriorating economy. President Bush and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulsen (former head of Goldman Sachs) had secured the first bailout legislation from Congress, which Bush signed on October 3, 2008.

When asked why he supported and signed the bailout when all his life he had been a supporter of free enterprise and generally opposed to government intervention (interference is the pejorative synonym), the 43rd President replied that he did not want to go down in history as the President who watched the economy go to pieces and did nothing about it. Bush did not want to be perceived as either a Herbert Hoover or a James Buchanan.

On September 19, he said: "The risk of doing nothing far outweighs the risk of the package. ... Over time, we are going to get a lot of the money back." His prediction proved correct.

Are the federal remedies for unemployment and the credit freeze working today? Certainly not as well as we would like. Is there anything more that could be done? The idea that keeps recurring is putting the unemployed to work on the infrastructure, as President Roosevelt and Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes and WPA Administrator Harry Hopkins did during the Great Depression with the Works Progress Administration (Hopkins) and the Public Works Administration (Ickes).

Unbelievable as it may seem today, at one time in the '30s there were 1800 architects and engineers working for the New York City Parks Department under Commissioner Robert Moses paid by the federal government. They built or renovated over six hundred parks, playgrounds, swimming pools and beaches

Part of my underlying liberalism is the opinion that people who are capable and willing to work hard should have the opportunity to do so, perhaps not in the field or at the level they prefer, but they should be enabled to support themselves and their families. How to do this within a free enterprise system is a challenge. Many Republicans say the best way to reach this goal is by diminishing the size and scope of government, which they see as the enemy.
My view is quite different. The problem is that, human nature being what it is and what it will be, the tyranny of the bosses is likely to be replaced by the tyranny of the state and its bureaucrats. It took forty-three years to get from "The Jungle" (Upton Sinclair, 1906) to "1984" (George Orwell, 1949).

The problem is complicated by the presence of social issues (abortion, capital punishment, gays, guns and God, immigration, marijuana) as elements that influence voters as part of the electoral process. People may or may not vote their economic interests if they believe social issues are more important. And their economic interests may be adverse to the social order - if one group of individuals, workers, managers, oil barons, subsidized agribusiness, bureaucrats, landlords, heirs and heiresses, the nomenklatura, is extracting from society more than they should and contributing less - the public interests may well be served by limiting that group's authority or influence. Of course, one can expect the elites to use its electoral influence to prevent that outcome from taking place.

The economic situation today is unsatisfactory for tens of millions of Americans. The President is likely to be judged on how he deals with the economy. But little as he may have been able to do, his political opponents offer less equity and new innovation.

The idea that everything will get better if it is made easier for people to exploit the less fortunate is hard to believe and not supported by evidence or experience. We will see how it resonates with the American people. In 2010 they voted by a substantial margin to replace incumbents. Who will they blame if conditions do not improve by 2012?

These are the views of a self-proclaimed liberal with sanity. Some may challenge that characterization, but these are the differences in opinion to which, as part of their certain inalienable rights, all men and women are entitled, dare one say, by their Creator.

StarQuest #774 8.22.2011 1683 words

A Good Governor

2011-08-08T16:28:00.004-04:00

Carey Was Indispensable

In City's '70s Fiscal Crisis

The obituaries for Governor Hugh L. Carey stress a major achievement, bringing fiscal responsibility to New York City government after the financial crisis of 1974 and 1975. Here are some facts about the situation at that time and Governor Carey's critical role.

Mayor Koch, who knew Governor Carey since they served in Congress thirty years ago, has written about Carey's achievements. Click here to read his commentary.

This article is a worm's eye view of the fiscal crisis and political events that surrounded and followed it. Back then, I was a City Councilmember at large, elected from the Borough of Manhattan. The City Council, at the time less powerful than it is today, had little to do with creating or resolving the city's near-bankruptcy. We offer some background and political history of the 1970's. Thirty-five years later, it is remarkable how many of these events have been forgotten, while the new generation of New Yorkers never knew them.

In Governor Carey's inaugural on January 1, 1975, he said that "the days of wine and roses were over." This was a sage prediction of the fiscal storms ahead. In response to the city's inability to borrow money to meet its obligations, Carey secured state legislation creating the Municipal Assistance Corporation (also known as Big Mac) and the Financial Control Board for New York City. MAC had the authority to borrow money on behalf of the city, and city tax revenue streams were required to give priority to MAC bonds over any other municipal obligations. The interest rate on some MAC bonds was set as high as 11 per cent, and that income was tax-free. The FCB had authority over the city budget, its approval was required before a budget could be adopted.

The city's fiscal crisis was different and more immediate than the one the Federal government is now enduring. For years, starting at the end of the mayoral term of Robert F. Wagner in 1965, and increasingly during the eight years of the Lindsay administration and the first year under Mayor Abe Beame, the city had consistently spent more than it received in revenues. The gap was filled by borrowing, and city officials devised a number of instrumentalities for short-term borrowing, which was in addition to regular long-term borrowing through the issuance of bonds. In addition, current expenses, which should have been paid for by current revenues, were allocated to the capital budget, which made them eligible for bonding.

To meet its cash needs, the city began to issue new instruments, called RANs, TANs and BANs. These were respectively Revenue Anticipation Notes, Tax Anticipation Notes, and Bond Anticipation Notes. When they came due, the city rolled them over, renewing them for a short period of time. The sum of money borrowed in this way steadily rose, and there came a time in 1975 when the banks, fearful of default as the city's debt increased, stopped buying the freshly issued notes. This caused an immediate cash crisis, as the city did not have the money to pay its employees, having become dependent on the proceeds of the short-term notes which had been rolled over.

The Emergency Financial Control Board (as it was called at the time) had effective control of the city government, since it controlled the cash flow. Its seven-man board consisted of the governor, the mayor, the state and city comptrollers, and three private citizens chosen by the governor and confirmed by the state senate. Other elected officials were allowed to appoint non-voting representatives to the Board.

Governor Carey, who had become proconsul for the city, first secured the retirement of Deputy Mayor James Cavanagh, a longtime civil servant and the appointee of Mayor Beame. Cavanagh, an honorable man who came to symbolize the old way, was replaced by John E. Zuccotti, a 38-year-old who had been chairman of the City Planning Commission. The city reduced its expenditures sharply, mainly by laying off 50,000 employees on June 30, 1975, the end of the fiscal year.

Politically, Carey concluded that Beame was indecisive and not competent to manage the city. He and former Mayor Wagner set about finding a challenger for the 1977 Democratic primary. The usual partner of Wagner and Carey was Alex Rose, the Liberal Party leader who had brought about Mayor Lindsay's re-election in 1969 after Lindsay, at the time a Republican, lost the primary in his own party. Lindsay was re-elected on the Liberal Party line.

Sadly, Alex Rose had passed away on December 28, 1976 and Wagner and Carey were left on their own. They settled on Mario Cuomo, at the time New York's secretary of state under Governor Carey. Cuomo came in second in the seven-person primary race (Bella Abzug, who had just left Congress after narrowly losing a Senate primary to Daniel Patrick Moynihan, came in fourth). The top two, Congressman Ed Koch and Cuomo, made the runoff. Beame had been eliminated because he came in third, Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton ran fifth and Bronx Congressman Herman Badillo was sixth. Joel Harnett, a civic reformer, was a distant seventh. The results were so close that the top six candidates each received more than 10 per cent of the vote, but none of them won 20 per cent. Koch was barely one per cent above Cuomo in the initial voting.

The law provided for a runoff between the top two candidates if no one received 40 per cent of the ballots. Koch defeated Cuomo in the primary runoff by ten points, and in the general election when Cuomo ran a strong race on the Liberal line. On winning, Koch declared peace with Carey, and the two men became political allies and friends. In 1982, when Mayor Koch ran against Carey's Lieutenant Governor, Mario Cuomo, for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, Carey endorsed Koch, who ended up losing to Cuomo.

The breakthrough in Hugh Carey's political career came in 1974, when he defeated the better-known Howard J. Samuels by a 3-2 margin to become the Democratic and Liberal Party candidate for governor. Carey had been a Congressman from Brooklyn for seven terms. Samuels, known affectionately as "Howie the Horse", had been the first chairman of the Off-Track Betting Corporation. He had the support of Democratic Party leaders and was personally wealthy due to the success of Kordite, a plastic product used in baggies, wax paper, plastic wrap, disposable kitchenware, and sturdy trash bags, which he invented and developed. Samuels came from upstate Canandaigua, and was widely referred to as "the upstate industrialist". Carey was the downstate politician.

As governor, Carey made first-rate appointments to his staff, including David Burke and Robert Morgado as successive Secretaries to the Governor, Judah Gribetz as counsel and Michael Del Giudice as policy director. After he left office, Carey led a relatively private life with his family.

In addition to the extensive obituary by Richard Perez-Pena which began on A1 of the Times, the Carey family placed a lengthy and detailed notice on pA17, the obituary page of the newspaper. Mayor Koch wrote a tribute to the former governor, titled HUGH CAREY: NEW YORK'S GREATEST GOVERNOR OF THE MODERN ERA. Click here to find the column, republished on New York Civic's website. It is well worth reading.

BTW, many years ago, Governor Carey received the park name "Leonine". It was a reference to his middle name, Leo, and his stately appearance. In New York State, he was, at an important time in history, the king of beasts.

StarQuest #773 8.8.2011 1247 words

Beware the Gerrymander

2011-08-03T17:03:00.001-04:00

Common Cause Drawing Lines

For Legislative Redistricting,

LATFOR Holding Hearings

Writing a blog has many satisfactions. One can share information and opinions with thousands of people who have elected to receive them. One can affect the public's view of issues. On some occasions, one can publish material previously unknown or unconnected to the larger universe of public policy issues.

A blog also has its frustrations. The blogger can draw conclusions and make proposals, in a loud or soft voice, but there is no assurance that anyone will do what he recommends. In most cases, there is a reason that officials will not do what you suggest. The most common reason is their own self-interest.

It is an ancient truism that the first law of nature is self-preservation. The thought was expressed elegantly by Andrew Marvell in 1675 in England in a metaphysical poem, "Hodge's Vision from the Monument".

"Self-preservation, nature's first great law,
All the creatures, except man, doth awe."

BTW, the gifted Marvell (1621-1678) is the author of another iconic couplet, well known for centuries:

"The grave's a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace."

The importance of self-preservation was doubtless in the minds of our ancestors, the cavepeople, whether they expressed that view in their speech or not. When one watches nature programs on public television, and sees the way animals treat, and eat, each other, the priority of survival for any living creature is evident.

The relevance of these observations to today's politics arises when we consider the decennial issue of redistricting. The Constitution of the United States (Art. I, Sec. 2) requires the enumeration of the population by means of a census to be taken every ten years (the first was in 1790), and the assignment of seats in the House of Representatives based on roughly equal districts. It is left to the state legislatures to draw the lines, either as a body, through a committee, or by taking recommendations from a group they appoint for that purpose, be it judicial, academic, nonpartisan or bipartisan.

New York State is historically noted for egregious gerrymandering. For roughly the last half century, the Assembly has been districted to elect Democrats, whereas the Senate lines favor Republicans. The steady growth in allegiance to the Democrats and the relative depopulation of upstate has made it increasingly difficult to draw Senate lines to keep the Republican Senate majority.

In 2008, the Democrats actually gained a Senate majority because of the high vote for President Obama. They managed their majority so shamefully and corruptly that the Republicans narrowly regained control in 2010. During the campaign, all the Republicans promised in writing to support an independent redistricting commission in order to win the approval of Mayor Koch and an organization he and others formed called New York Uprising.

After the Republican victory, owing in part to the use of the Koch pledge in their literature, they concluded that the independent commission they promised to support could not come into effect until the state Constitution was amended, an event that would not take place before 2013, at the earliest, and would not apply until the 2022 election. What happened, of course, was that once they had a majority, the Republicans repudiated their pledge, as it was no longer in their self-interest to honor it.

Governor Cuomo has repeatedly pledged to veto any districting plan that is not prepared by an independent commission. He does, however, leave himself some wiggle room by requiring that the plan be fair, reasonable and nonpartisan, without re-emphasizing the necessity for an independent commission.

To his credit, the Governor has stated that he does not believe that the committee of state legislators charged with statutory authority to draw the lines, the New York State Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment (LATFOR), can see past their own personal and political interests and create district boundaries that are equitable. LATFOR has so far had two hearings upstate, with another scheduled tomorrow in Albany. Five hearings will be held in New York City in September, one in each borough (Queens - Sept. 7; Bronx - Sept. 8; Brooklyn - Sept. 20; Manhattan - Sept. 21; and Staten Island - Sept. 22). Their locations have not yet been announced.

If the Governor vetoes a districting plan, it will be up to the legislature to sustain or override the veto. To override requires a two-thirds vote in each house, which means that both the Democratic and Republican leadership would have to agree on a plan. Enough legislators have signed the Koch pledge to sustain a Cuomo veto, but will they keep their word?

Another possible scenario is that, anticipating Governor Cuomo's veto, the Legislature will avoid the political consequences of overriding the Governor's honest and populist stance and instead stall as long as it can, perhaps until February 2012, before issuing its suggested lines.

The aim of this strategy would be for the legislature to make the case to the state or federal courts, which would be charged with drawing the lines in the event the state does not adopt any, that there would not be enough time before the April 24, 2012 primary date to come up with new lines, and thus there would be no alternative but to adopt the LATFOR lines.

To thwart this potential manipulation, Governor Cuomo should take Bill Samuels' suggestion and appoint a nonpartisan, independent commission now that would draw up equitable lines which the Governor would be comfortable adopting. This commission's recommendations would not be binding, nor would they carry official weight, but they would be valuable if the redistricting battle winds up in the courts, and the judiciary needs a viable alternative to the LATFOR lines to consider in a short period of time.

Common Cause New York deserves praise for the substantial labor that it is currently performing to create their own set of lines, drawn up according to the principles commonly held by good government groups. Basic fairness requires that legislative districts be compact, contiguous, equal in population, reflect communities of interest, and not be stacked, packed, hacked or cracked, which are terms used to describing either stuffing members of one group into a district in order to control it, or breaking up natural concentrations of people to diminish their power to elect a member of their group.

It will be interesting to see how different Common Cause's lines will be, when they are completed in the coming months, from the ones LATFOR ultimately draws. Close examination of the differences are likely to reveal the partisan self-serving motives of the legislators.

There is still a possibility that the Legislature will honor the pledge it made to Mayor Koch, the former mayors and governors who are part of New York Uprising, and Citizens Union, a leader in the struggle and the organizing force behind the ReShape New York coalition, of which New York Civic is a member, and hold a special session to appoint an independent commission in place of LATFOR. That is, however, highly unlikely as it would almost certainly frustrate the Senate Republicans's desire to maintain their majority, which they may lose unless President Obama's defeat in 2012 is as massive as his victory was in 2008.

There are many injustices in politics, such as the denial of ballot access to independent candidates, the use of technicalities in the election law to exclude legitimate candidates, the use of public resources by incumbents to promote their re-election, soliciting and securing campaign contributions from people and organizations candidates have assisted financially, usually with public funds, vacancies artfully created by timely resignations of incumbents, so the positions will be filled by special or midsummer elections with minimal voter turnout, and the prevention and suppression of primary elections through political or economic intimidation, not to mention old-fashioned voter fraud, such as multiple voting, and a variety of other 'dirty tricks'.

The struggle for clean elections and clean district lines are part of the effort to insure fair, open and honest elections so that the voters' choices will be respected. Unfortunately, insiders in the political system will often use every sort of chicanery to prevent a free election. In these contests, the insiders have a great deal at stake. It is their boodle, pelf and spoils that they are trying to preserve.

The voters have a right to choose their elected officials. The officials do not have a right to choose their voters, although in fact they try to do just that. Sometimes they even succeed. In New York State they usually do.

"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" was said by Wendell Phillips in 1852, in a speech to the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. That statement is still true today, and applies particularly to those who would tamper with the electoral process in order to gain private, personal or partisan preference.

The least one can expect in a competitive election is a map with clean district boundaries. Sadly, for far too many office holders, that is the last thing they want to see happen. We will watch closely for the next few months, looking out for attempts to manipulate the process. If the past is any indicator, machinations are likely to be attempted by those who hold legislative power. This is an early warning that there will be trickery afoot.

Suffer Little Children

2011-07-27T17:50:00.005-04:00

Mattingly Leaves ACS,

Presided Over Tragedies

But Reformed the Agency.

Judge Richter Is Successor.

John B. Mattingly is retiring as Commissioner of the Administration for Children's Services (ACS) after seven years in the trenches. At the age of 66, he will return to the child welfare foundation he headed in Baltimore.

His departure is in striking contrast to Jay Walder's jumping ship after 21 months at the MTA to take a far more lucrative position running a railroad in the Orient. Yet Walder may have performed a service by his surprise exit. His manner had alienated many of the people he had to deal with, and the financial chasm between receipts and expenditures had only widened, although through no fault of Walder's.

John Mattingly stayed for the long haul in what is probably the most thankless position in city government. You get into the news only when a child under your protection is murdered, usually by the mother's boyfriend, or when the child starves to death after months or years of neglect and abuse. The more grotesque the death, the more attention it receives in the media, and the more people are shocked by the tragedy, which can often be traced to the negligence or incompetence of employees of the Administration for Children's Services.

The nadir in this agency came five and one half years ago, when the police found the lifeless and emaciated body of Nixzmary Brown in an apartment in Bedford-Stuyvesant. We reported on the case on January 13, 2006, and you can read our analysis of the situation by clicking here. We reproduce the headline over the story.

TORTURE AND MURDER OF A 7-YEAR OLD GIRL
LIVING WITH FAMILY UNDER ACS SUPERVISION
LEADS TO DEMANDS FOR FULL INVESTIGATION
AND REVIEW OF ACS' FAMILY-FIRST ATTITUDE.

With additional information, we wrote another article five days later, which you can read here. By January 18, similar horror stories were coming to light. This was the headline on the second article:

OBSERVATIONS ON THE DEATH OF AN AMIABLE CHILD,
TORTURED BY ADULTS AND IGNORED BY AUTHORITIES.

The reference to an amiable child is from the caption on a small statue in Riverside Park, just west of Grant's Tomb, which commemorates the life of St. Claire Pollock, a young boy who, on July 15, 1797, fell to his death from the edge of a cliff overlooking the Hudson River. We feel sadness over the centuries at the loss of an innocent child. When the tragedy is caused in part by official misconduct, people feel anger as well as sorrow.

A roster of murdered children appeared in a third story, which was published on January 23. Compare the unusual, hopeful names their mothers gave them with their sordid and pitiful deaths. Click here to read the article headlined:

SIERRA, DAHQUAY, JOZIAH, NIXZMARY;
FOUR CHILDREN DIE IN FOUR MONTHS
WHILE UNDER THE CARE OF CITY ACS.

That column, which is almost lyrical in tone, begins with the poem, "Who killed Cock Robin". It continues with a contemporary version of the children's rhyme. I strongly recommend that you read it; you will not be disappointed.

AFTER THE TRAGEDIES

With the support of Mayor Bloomberg, Commissioner Mattingly survived these disasters and went on to institute numerous reforms in the beleaguered agency. More caseworkers were hired, and their training improved. Supervision was increased, and supervisors were held responsible for their employees' misconduct. Child welfare advocates, generally critical of public agencies, gave Mattingly good marks on the whole upon his departure.

However, since no one can entirely believe the words of public officials, (look, for example, at the hosannahs which exalted Joel I. Klein upon his departure from the Department of Education to enter the service of Rupert Murdoch) we cannot say for certain what, if any, skeletons remain in the closet at ACS.

We commend Commissioner Mattingly for his service and dedication over seven long and arduous years. Mayor Bloomberg was courageous for not yielding to those demanding Mattingly's immediate dismissal after the tragedies.

We have just learned that the mayor has appointed Ronald E. Richter, a Family Court judge, to succeed Mattingly. Richter was formerly a Deputy Commissioner at ACS, in charge of Family Court cases involving child abuse, neglect and custodial rights. He is married to Franklin Cogliano, and they have a 14-month daughter, Maya.

Mayor Bloomberg said that the Commissioner's sexual preference had no relevance to his appointment.

Jaybird Flies

2011-07-22T16:57:00.002-04:00

Jay Walder Is Not Casey Jones,

Jumps From NYC to Hong Kong

Because MTA Nears Fiscal Crash

Jay Walder is no Casey Jones.

Unlike the iconic railroad engineer, who kept his hand on the throttle while his train plunged down curving tracks to disaster, and by doing so saved the lives of many people, the MTA chief Jay Walder did not even complete two years at the helm of the transit authority before he jumped ship for a more secure and lucrative berth in a private, profitable transit system.

Walder was not shanghaied in the dead of night; he is going voluntarily to MTR (Mass Transit Railway), a railroad colossus headquartered in Hong Kong. Any idea where they might bank?

Actually, Walder had a number of good reasons for his secretive flight from New York and the MTA. The first is the impoverishment of the system he is leaving. The MTA has consistently been undersupported, not given enough money to operate, let alone to build and maintain the system in good repair. Before he came, they overspent wildly, in part because of bureaucracy, over-engineering, and weakness before unions, as well as traditional corruption, particularly in construction and real property. Walder did not want his reputation endangered by too many years presiding over a system subject to those perils.

Second is the apparent indifference of Governor Cuomo to the plight of the MTA, and the absence of any effort to develop a relationship with Walder. It was not nearly as bad as Governor Paterson, who refused to speak with Lee Sander, Walder's predecessor, or even to return his calls, because Sander had been appointed by his predecessor, Governor Spitzer. Sander did not have the luxury of another job offer as Walder did, so he hung around until he was dismissed by Paterson on May 7, 1999 on practically one day's notice, even though it took more than two months after that to find a successor (Walder).

Sander was not the only Paterson commissioner to be fired practically instantly. On October 21, 2010, just twelve days before the election of Governor Cuomo, the Environmental Protection Commissioner, Pete Grannis, who had served since the start of the Spitzer administration and before that, spent 32 years in the Assembly, was told to clear out immediately by Larry Schwartz, at the time a key aide to Governor Paterson. The trumped-up charge against Grannis was that he had sought to avoid budget cuts for his agency, which every commissioner worth anything does every year. Grannis was told that Paterson would not speak to him about the matter and that his dismissal was final. He got the news as he was preparing to deliver a speech and receive an award from an environmental group at what became his last supper in office.

The question arose as to why Grannis was fired just then. Why not leave it to the incoming governor (Cuomo) to choose his cabinet? Why should Grannis' 36 years of state service end in peremptory dismissal? One plausible explanation is based on where Larry Schwartz is now. Governor Cuomo has appointed him Secretary to the Governor, which is the equivalent to chief of staff on the national level and the same post Schwartz held in the Paterson administration.

It is likely that, in firing Grannis on the spot, Schwartz was serving his new master, Cuomo, and sparing the governor-elect the embarrassment of firing an environmental icon. Cuomo has the right to choose his own commissioners, and Joe Martens is a good choice for the position, with a fine environmental record. Nonetheless, we recount the story now to tell you how it was done, which is in accord with the important Rule 26, "No prints."

Walder chose to accept what could be the best transit job in the world, at a multiple of the salary which was begrudged to him in New York. He thus avoided the fate of his predecessor Sander and his colleague Grannis.

Last night, I watched The Call on New York 1. People called and emailed the station to express their views on Walder. Almost all were very negative, with the exception of Richard Ravitch, the former lieutenant governor, as well as MTA chair. Ravitch was highly complimentary, as was Mayor Bloomberg. The hostile attitude of the public came because of the service and personnel reductions that Walder was obliged to make because of the lack of public funds and steadily rising expenses, most but not all of which were uncontrollable. How many years should one devote to serving people who think you are doing a lousy job, when in fact you are doing a very competent job at an obviously thankless task?

One could tell that many of the disgruntled callers were transit employees or union activists. Even so, there were precious few callers who admired the service they received from the MTA or its departing chairman. If there were an attempt to jam the switchboard, it succeeded. If there were not, the negative sentiment was more authentic. Of course, no one likes waiting for a train on a hot platform, being squeezed or crushed inside a car, or being delayed for an indefinite period, whether by "the dispatcher" or by "train traffic ahead".

The underlying fact is that the transit system is in a financial bind comparable to that which faces the United States, except that it cannot run up fourteen trillion dollars in deficits and then ask for more. Sooner or later, probably sooner, fares will rise and interest on the MTA's indebtedness will increase. The State and City, traditional sources of additional funding, are, as we know, undergoing severe fiscal problems and highly unlikely to substantially increase transit subsidies, if indeed they are willing to retain them. One cannot mention state aid without recalling with sorrow the disgraceful decision of the New York State Assembly to eliminate the commuter tax on May 17, 1999, a date which will live in infamy in mass transit history. How long should Walder remain at the helm of a ship which takes on more water each year?

We believe that Jay Walder is, by and large, a decent, honorable, hard-working and competent bureaucrat, who will be missed after he is gone. He is not an inspirational figure, nor did he attempt to be one. Nicole Gelinas, giving Walder a mixed review, asks today in The Post: "Can the next MTA chief be a fighter?" One answer to that question is that the MTA chief is an appointed, rather than an elected official. Major funding decisions are made by the elected, and it is the job of the appointed to do the best they can with the resources that they have been given.

Of course, they can and should demand more; that is what Commissioner Pete Grannis (who was from 1974 to 2005 an elected official, given to expressing his own opinions) did in October 2010, for which he was summarily politically beheaded in what appears to be a pre-election housecleaning. Fortunately, Grannis has found a new job in what appears to be a more congenial setting, so his public service can continue and his pension clock keep running.

"Speak truth to power" is a noble slogan, but truth is better spoken by those with no power than by those with some. People with intermediate degrees of power are likely to lose what little they have if they engage in unappreciated candor. Those outside the Beltway (or its local equivalent) are less subject to the whims of the authorities.

We wish Walder the best in his new adventure, which we hope will be excellent, for the sake of the millions of Chinese and others who will benefit from his services. The search for a successor should begin at once. It will be a real challenge to the Governor and the MTA to find someone as knowledgeable and professionally skilled as Walder. But once such a person is hired, s/he must be given the appropriation that is needed for the MTA to do the job right.

P.S. It is ironic that people now go from New York to Hong Kong in order to triple their wages.

Four Wheels Bad

2011-07-19T16:39:00.002-04:00

Today, we are told, is the one hundredth anniversary of the removal of tolls from the East River bridges, which at the time ranged from one to ten cents.

One would think that such an occasion would be a day of celebration, people rejoicing at the freedom to travel from Manhattan to Brooklyn and Queens and to return without stopping to pay a toll to a troll. A bridge is a street over water was the prevailing philosophy when the city was young and growing.

For most of us, that is our sentiment today, but a cadre of transit activists insistently desires a return to the days of the toll collector on the bridge, as well as charging motorists to go from one neighborhood to another in Manhattan.

There is a politically correct sentiment that the automobile is an evil contraption, similar to the feeling in the 19th century that horseless carriages were infernal machines, whereas horse droppings, which are organic, were no problem. The truly committed car-haters try one scheme after another to make using a car in the city expensive, uncomfortable and, where they can, illegal. These nanny-staters want you to travel their way or not at all. Their credo: two wheels good, four wheels bad.

One technique the Luddites employ is to expand vastly a network of lanes reserved exclusively for bicyclists, even in narrow streets of lower Manhattan, where there is barely room for one lane of traffic alongside the parked vehicles. This experiment was tried on a much more modest scale in the Koch administration; it ended with the mayor over-ruling the transportation commissioner, declaring the experiment unsuccessful and closing down the lanes. Bicycling on city streets is desirable, but it can have tragic outcomes, with the death of the gifted Marilyn Dershowitz, mowed down by a mail truck on West 29th Street in Manhattan, the most recent example.

We recognize that there are various modes of transportation in New York City: railroads, subways, buses, cars and trucks, taxicabs, motorcycles, ferries, pedicabs, bicycles and travel by foot. They should all be encouraged and supported where their use is appropriate because they are needed to take New Yorkers where they want to go. One type of vehicle should not be considered as the enemy of every other.

Three years ago, the Assembly defeated a proposal to charge fees for travel on the city streets. It was called "congestion pricing", as if it were a remedy for a disease, congestion of the lung or the throat. In fact, once such a scheme is adopted, toll gates could be placed anywhere, at any hours, if not immediately, then by amendment of the law, which would be much easier to achieve than its adoption. The income tax began in 1913 ranging from 1 to 7 per cent.

London has already raised its congestion fee from 5 to 12 pounds, and increased the area in which it is charged. If the purpose of the plan is to meet the capital or operating deficits of the transit system, a new revenue stream will lead to increased expenditures, both for labor and for capital costs.

The recent construction history of the MTA is exemplified by the 2 Broadway fiasco, which in terms of wasted money, adjusted for inflation, exceeds CityTime in the annals of municipal scandal. A prime office building location, in the financial district at the southern tip of Manhattan, was selected for back-office use, when space could have been acquired in Brooklyn or Queens for far less money. Then, extensive renovations, costing hundreds of millions of dollars, were paid for by the MTA. People from the MTA and union officials were convicted and sent to jail for their role in the corruption. On top of all that, the MTA does not even own the building; it leases it from one Tamir Sapir, an immigrant from the Soviet Union who drove a taxicab and later became a real estate magnate. Sapir is a good example of the opportunities available in America, but leasing from him is by no means the best way to spend public funds, which have to be made up out of the farebox or taxation revenues. Google Sapir for information about his legal and political connections.

The concept of observing 2011 by regressing to a system discarded in 1911 is simply a method for a wasteful free-spending agency to meet its chronic financial needs by imposing additional taxes on the people. Here are ideas the MTA does not seem to have thought of yet: impose a sales tax on transit fares; put odometers on automobiles and charge for each mile the streets are used; increase municipal garage fees to the level of privately-owned garages and parking lots. In case you didn't know, the last sentence is irony, like Swift's "A Modest Proposal", but not as well done.

The extravagant reconstruction of the Fulton Street subway connection is a prime example of overbuilding at public expense, which exceeded a billion dollars for what is essentially a pre-existing subway interchange. The excuse here was that there was Federal money available which had to be spent in lower Manhattan. The half-billion dollar reconstruction of the South Ferry station was marginally more useful, but also over-engineered. The wholesale destruction of trees in Battery Park has yet to be remedied.

Mass transit is important and needs adequate support. The lockbox should be kept locked. The MTA, however, does not deserve a blank check, nor should it acquire a new revenue streams by burdening New Yorkers whose only taxable act is trying to go from one part of the city to another.

Public officials who oppose new taxes should realize that this scheme is a particularly burdensome tax whose impact will be felt by people whose jobs require local travel. Whatever costs accrue to business will be passed on to consumers in the form of price increases.

New York City did the right thing a century ago. Let us not undo the good work of our ancestors.

Donkey, Elephant Play Chicken

2011-07-14T17:05:00.002-04:00

Debt Ceiling Crisis Impends,

But Catastrophe Is Unlikely

Unless Sides Are Obstinate

The impending national debt crisis, now anticipated for August 2, nineteen days from today, is not taken extremely seriously by many Americans because of their lack of trust in our government and skepticism over the statements, particularly threats, made by public officials.

The risk, however, is more substantial than anxiety induced by the Doomsday prophet from California who predicted the world would end on May 21, 2011. The prognostication of fiscal disaster is about as credible as the firm budget pronouncement this spring by the administration that the City of New York would lay off the 4,100 most recently hired schoolteachers at the close of the school term on June 28. That forecast was repeated day after day in the tabloids, and may have induced some older teachers to retire, but it alarmed only the faintest of heart. This is New York.

In Washington, the widely publicized negotiations now taking place appear to have degenerated into a game of chicken, with each side maneuvering to place the blame for any loss of services or entitlements on the other. Part of the problem is that there are more than two interests at the table, the White House, and the Senate and House Democrats and Republicans. Each has an interest in the outcome, and their demands and requirements are not the same.

We believe that compromise is the obvious solution, with a package of measures disagreeable to all constituencies. That was the way the budget deal was worked out between the President and Congress that was announced April 8, which now seems like a long time ago.

We also observe that the President got credit (and poll points) for the budget agreement, even though it did not comply with the demands of what is called his core constituency. On the other hand, and we don't know exactly why this happened, Newt Gingrich ended up being widely blamed for the Federal government's partial shutdowns in 1995 and 1996. This came after his "Contract with America" campaign in 1994, which led to Republicans winning the House and Senate. "Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown."

Rule 20-E as it applies to politics is "Everything is personal." We don't know enough of the scheming within the Republican party intended to isolate the Speaker, but our sympathies are basically with people who are trying to put an arrangement together than with those trying to extract the maximum political gain from a potential Constitutional crisis by placing others and themselves at risk. Card games for high stakes have a romantic appeal to many Americans, but the nation's credit and standing in the world economy should not be jeopardized by elected officials who dislike government in general and would take advantage of any opportunity to weaken or discredit it.

What government's fiscal problems usually come down to is that people want more benefits for themselves and their businesses at lower costs than they are willing to pay. This is to be accomplished by slaying a devil named "waste", which often means what the other fellow is getting. When this combination of high rewards for low payments is found to be unattainable, as usually occurs, borrowing is the easiest way to postpone the reality of earning what you spend. This happens in households, in corporations, and in nations from Greece to other lands which are basically subsistence economies, often ruled by tyrants with large appetites.

We predict, without the gifts of a soothsayer, that impending disaster will be staved off, at least for a while, although we cannot foresee the machinations that will be relied upon to achieve that result. The immediate outcome of the dispute, however, will be diminution of the reputations of the squabbling parties, especially if they display excessive self-interest and righteousness in their public statements. In times of crisis, there is a tendency to support the President, especially when those trying to destroy him are unappealing and not particularly interested in the plight of the less fortunate.

We have no idea who the public will ultimately blame for whatever may or may not happen in the weeks to come. Much will depend on who the media choose to hold responsible. On one hand, a debt ceiling is like a rent stabilization level or earnings standard, which should resemble but not surpass inflation. On the other, if you really hate government, you want to take any occasion you can to keep it from functioning.

Ultimately, victory will go to those who are perceived as more moderate, which suggests the arbitration process in which both parties are coaxed into making their best and final offers, and the arbitrator must choose one of them, which is a powerful inducement to the parties to be reasonable, lest their offers be rejected.

To put it more simply, that is the equivalent in the home of having one child divide the cookie, or the slice of cake, and having the other then choose which slice he or she prefers. It promotes equality of sharing, which is accomplished on the basis of self-interest.

We watch the trains approach on the track, but unless politicians have become even more foolish than they have been, it is likely that a crash will be averted. Of course, in that situation, neither train will be able to get very far down the track, much less arrive at the next station on time.

Win Some, Lose Some

2011-07-08T15:58:00.002-04:00

Cuomo Reaffirms Commitment

To Independent Redistricting,

But Promulgates Calendar

That Will Bar Primaries

Politics has its ups and downs, as this week's events show.

There was a bright spot. Governor Cuomo reaffirmed his decision, first announced in February, that he would veto any redistricting bill passed by the Legislature that did not provide for an independent districting commission to draw the boundaries of Congressional, state senate and assembly districts.

Under the Constitution of the United States, (Art. I, Sec. 2), a census is to be taken every ten years, and seats in the House of Representatives are to be allocated to the states in proportion to their population. Since 1790, the enumeration has been conducted in years ending in zero. It is called the decennial census.

Under the first census, the population of the United States was counted at 3,922,214, and New York State had 340,120 residents, which was 8.656 per cent of the U.S. total. The most recent census, taken in 2010 and reported in 2011, showed the population of the United States at 308,745,538, of whom 19,378,102 lived in New York State.

In the ten years since the previous census, New York State gained only 2.1 per cent in population while the nation's population rose 9.7 per cent. New York State's share of the nation's population is 6.276 per cent. Since there are now 50 states while in 1790 there were 13, New York has held up fairly well over the 220 years of counting heads. The last half-century, however, has not been kind to the Empire State, which peaked at 45 Congressional districts in 1930 and 1940, but has steadily declined in political strength since World War II.

New York's slow increase in the most recent decade, compared with the much faster gains of states in the South and Southwest, has resulted in the state's loss of two House seats, which in the 2012 election will bring our total number of districts down from 31 to 29. Texas gained the largest number of seats in the last decade, going from 32 to 36. Nevada had the highest percentage increase, 35.1 per cent. The Silver State still has fewer people than the norm for one district, now about 710,000. The red states generally outgrew the blue states in the early 21st century, and as the Constitution makes this a zero-sum game, the gains came at the expense of the blue states.

With the loss of two New York seats, the question arises: which two districts out of the 31 will be made to disappear by whichever legislative body, independent commission or Federal court ends up drawing the final lines? Normally when the flock is culled, the weaker sheep are slaughtered, but New York has a plethora of rookies, as a result of libidinous mishaps.

The last seventeen months have seen three sudden departures of New York State Congressmen, all based on a variety of sexual acts and images, although none involved actual intercourse. The first to go was Democrat Eric Massa, from the southern tier of upstate counties, who was credibly accused of groping his young male staffers and resigned in March 2010. Next was Chris Lee, a Republican whose district lies between the suburbs of Buffalo and Rochester, who resigned in February 9, 2011, the day a photograph of the shirtless legislator appeared on Craigslist. He was outed by Gawker, but exposure is almost inevitable when one trolls for companionship on the Internet.

The most important legislator to fall, also entangled by the Web, was Democrat Anthony Weiner, who accidentally posted a sexually suggestive photo of himself on Twitter on May 27. After a prolonged period of denial, followed by apology and refusal to resign, Weiner gave in on June 16 and left his Democratic seat in Brooklyn and Queens vacant. Queens Democratic leader Joseph Crowley selected Assemblyman David Weprin to run in a special election September 13 to fill the position through the end of next year, when it is likely to be abolished. If that does occur, David Weprin will be in the unique position of being a former member of the State Assembly, the City Council and the United States Congress, as well as being the son of the late Assembly Speaker, Saul Weprin, and the brother of City Councilman Mark Weprin, who is regarded as upwardly mobile.

The reform movement in New York State public affairs, which consists of traditional, well-regarded government organizations, joined by Mayor Ed Koch's New York Uprising, has made independent redistricting a priority for 2011. So far the legislature has ignored their wishes, instead convening its own instrument for redistricting, called LATFOR, an acronym for Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment. The Albany Times-Union, in a well-written account by Casey Seiler and Jimmy Vielkind, brings us up to date on the latest skirmish. The article is worth your attention.

LATFOR met Wednesday for the first time. Its co-chairs are Republican Senator Michael Nozzolio from Seneca Falls and Democratic Assemblyman Jack McEneny of Albany. The meeting was brief and uneventful, but after it ended Mr. McEneny called Governor Cuomo's potential rejection "a very petty approach" based on "a dumb reason". Those remarks were gratuitous and injudicious, even from the assemblyman's point of view. One does not attack a popular governor without some preparation, definition of the issue, and sophisticated choice of language.

Reformers had worried about Governor Cuomo's adherence to his pledge to veto lines not drawn by an independent commission, fearing that as the price for the enormously successful legislative session, he may have promised to let the legislative leaders have their way on redistricting, which is of the utmost concern to them because it may determine who controls the Senate next year. The Assembly is 2-1 Democratic so the Senate will be the battle ground. The last time the Democrats organized the Senate, 2009-10, was considered a disaster. Previously the Republicans had held power for 44 years, in good part due to gerrymandering under an unspoken understanding in which each party controlled one house. Divided government was helpful to whomever was governor. At the same time, it made it more difficult to fix responsibility for anything, and in the long term was not helpful to the State or its fisc.

The McEneny sally Wednesday and the press inquiry that followed it provided an opportunity for Cuomo to express his views. The governor said that his attitude "is crystal clear, has been for a long time: I understand the assemblyman's point of view, he wants to draw his own lines... I want to have lines drawn that represent the people of the state of New York, not a particular assemblyman."

In a move announced late last Friday (considered the optimal time to put out stories of divorces and other possibly ill-received news), Governor Cuomo did make a concession to the state's party bosses, in particular Democratic Leaders Joseph Crowley of Queens and Vito Lopez of Brooklyn. In a move slammed by the editorial pages of The Daily News and The Times, Cuomo set dates for special elections to fill six vacant Assembly seats and one Congressional seat (Anthony Weiner's). The election date is September 13, which coincides with Primary Day, if there are any primaries.

Cuomo was not mandated to call special elections, and could have let the voters in the affected districts select their own party nominees in a September primary leading to a November general election. Instead, the party leader in each county will choose their party's nominees for the vacant public offices. Since Democrats prevail in most districts, that means the Democratic county leaders will decide who the incoming elected officials will be. In the normal course of events, this would make the elected officials particularly responsive to the wishes and preferences of the county leaders who have selected them to hold office. The public is effectively removed from the selection process until two years have passed, during which the selected nominee will have all the privileges of incumbency.

On one hand, how much heavy lifting is it fair to ask Governor Cuomo to do? On the other, what kind of democracy allows one man to choose so many public officials without the consent of the governed?

P.S. It doesn't bother me much that the Queens leader, Joe Crowley, lives in Virginia with his wife and kids. Why pick on one elected official who really seems to want a relatively normal family life, which at a minimum requires the presence of one's family, particularly young children? I object to a few of Crowley's political decisions, but choosing to live with his wife and kids is not one of them. In fact, for a public official, it is wholesome.

Adam and Steve

2011-06-28T14:00:00.002-04:00

Gay Marriage Squeezes By, 33-29,

Tax Limit, Rent Bills Approved,

Sweet Corn Is State Vegetable.

Our last column, sent out late Friday afternoon, reported that the Legislature had not reached a decision on the major issues before it: rent control, property tax cap and gay marriage. The Senate also voted to name sweet corn the state vegetable. It defeated the onion by 56-6, with six downstate Democrats dissenting, including Liz Krueger.

Shortly thereafter, the dam burst and the bills involving money: extension of rent stabilization and a 2 per cent cap on property tax increases were approved overwhelmingly. Gay marriage was considered in the late evening. In the rush to make the 11 p.m. news programs and get the bill signed by Governor Cuomo before midnight, many legislators were not allowed to make statements explaining their votes, which would have been their moment in the sun.

The Gotham Gazette reported the gory details of the silencing and confinement of Senators, including Kevin Parker of Brooklyn, who is known for his fierce temper and physical confrontations with others. The story, a unique narrative of what actually happened on and off the floor, is worth reading here. Although Parker is reported to have cursed out the governor, he did not beat up anybody, although he was justifiably angry at being denied the right to explain his vote to his community, which is divided on the issue of gay marriage.

Some Legislative History

When I was first elected to the City Council in 1973, I signed on as a co-sponsor of what was called the "gay rights bill", which had been introduced in 1971 but had not even received the courtesy of a hearing by a Council committee. The bill would have prohibited discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodation because of sexual orientation. Its opponents at the time said that passing this bill would lead to gay marriage. We responded that this was simply a civil rights bill and had nothing to do with gay marriage, which at the time was inconceivable.

Mayor Koch led the way to equality by issuing executive orders in January 1978, the first month he was in office, which prohibited the City and its agencies from discriminating in any way against gays and lesbians. But for the prohibition to apply to the much larger private sector, legislation was necessary that required City Council approval.

Despite pleas from the mayor, Council Majority Leader Thomas J. Cuite refused to allow the gay rights bill to come to the Council floor. He made his opposition, based on his intense religious belief, very clear. He is said to have gone as far as reaching the father of Councilman Thomas J. Manton of Queens (1932-2006) to implore his son not to support the bill. Manton, a former police officer and a future Congressman from Queens and Democratic county leader, yielded to his father's request. Manton was just one Councilmember, but an influential one throughout his long career.

The Roman Catholic Church was more politically powerful a generation ago than it is today in New York. Under the leadership of Francis Cardinal Spellman (1889-1967), the church wielded enormous influence in political circles. Spellman had publicly quarreled in 1956 with Eleanor Roosevelt over a movie, "Baby Doll", starring Carroll Baker, which he called 'sinful'. The fact that some clerics engaged in homosexual acts only seemed to intensify the church's opposition to any legislation in this area.

In 1985, Cuite retired. He was succeeded by Councilman Peter F. Vallone of Queens. As part of the negotiations over the leadership, in which Mayor Koch took part, Vallone promised to allow the gay rights bill to come to the Council floor for a vote, although he was personally opposed to it. He kept his word and on March 21, 1986, fifteen years after it was introduced, the bill was approved by the City Council, 21 to 14, and subsequently signed by Mayor Koch.

A Federal non-discrimination bill was first introduced in the House of Representatives in 1974 by Congresswoman Bella Abzug and Edward Koch, who served nine years in Congress before he was elected mayor in 1977, defeating Mario Cuomo in a runoff, after Mayor Abe Beame, Ms. Abzug, Percy Sutton and Herman Badillo were eliminated in the first round of voting. Thirty-four years ago, we seem to have had more distinguished candidates for mayor than the current field of aspirants. The Daily Kos reports that the anti-discrimination bill was once again introduced by Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts in March 2011. Its prospects remain dim in the national legislature.

Importance of the Event

The enormous satisfaction the gay community has demonstrated in the last two days is based on the end of what they regarded as the final legal impediment imposed by New York State to full citizenship. They called the cause "Marriage Equality". The bill was supported by many in the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community who have no intentions or immediate prospects of marriage, but want the same rights that straight people take for granted.

There are ten nations which allow same-sex marriage, according to CBC (the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). They are Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain and Sweden. Denmark and other countries, including France, are not included because they allow same-sex partnerships but not marriages. It was a surprise to see the full list; it contains countries on every continent except Asia and Australia.

The passage of this bill will not end discrimination and violence against gays. In some places homosexuality is still a crime, punishable by death by stoning. Nor would gay marriage necessarily win popular referenda today in most states. It is ironic that in a California vote gay marriage won in white communities but was defeated by black and Latino voters. Not all minorities are supportive of other minorities, but ethnicity and victimization should not be a basis for people to make decisions on what many, on each side, consider an issue of faith, morals and civil rights.

I support marriage equality, in part because I know people who love each other and should be allowed to commit themselves, and assume the protections and the burdens of marriage. In principle, capacity to reproduce should not be a requirement for couples - many people choose not to have children or are unable to do so. With 300 million Americans and millions more seeking to enter this country, there is no risk of running out of people if gays are allowed to marry.

Also, sexual preference is known to be ingrained; it is rarely a matter of voluntary choice. There was a time, until 1967 and the Loving v. Virginia case, that states could prohibit marriage between people of different races. Today, a child of such a marriage is President of the United States. Who can say that some time in the future, a President will have been born to and reared by a gay or lesbian couple?

Finally, it is somewhat gratifying to see New York State resume its historic role as a place of legislative initiative on social issues. Credit goes to Governor Cuomo and the State legislative leadership in both parties. We hope that the success in securing marriage equality will lead to further accomplishments in Albany. As you know, we have frequently been disappointed, but this year we do appear to have a functioning, intelligent and mature governor.

It can make an enormous difference, if our leaders work together and stay on track. They have shown the capacity to do so, now we look to them for performance.

Judgment Day

2011-06-24T17:42:00.002-04:00

Legislature Brooded All Week,

But Has Yet to Lay Any Eggs;

Friday Eve, Low Expectations

We have been waiting all week for the Legislature to act on the major matters before it, which are supposed to be concluded by the end of this session.

It is late Friday afternoon and we believe that our writing week and your working week are likely to close before the unresolved, or secretly resolved but unpublished, issues are brought to a vote in Albany.

The New York State Legislature is not, however, the only deliberative body unable to reach prompt agreement on matters that await its consideration. For example, the United States Congress and the Obama administration are nowhere close to a method of dealing with the crisis when the national debt runs up against its statutory limit, now about 14 Trillion 294 Billion dollars. This is expected to occur on Tuesday, August 2.

Fortunately, the date can be manipulated slightly more than the date the next asteroid will strike Earth, with cataclysmic consequences. (BTW, and to his credit, it was former Congressman Anthony Weiner who did his best some years ago to get funds for asteroid research in the Federal budget, for which he was ridiculed at the time. Wait until the Last Days, when Congress will wish they had listened.)

At any rate, the date of the collision with the debt limit is now 39 days away, and the news stories are about people pulling out of negotiations, rather than joining in to solve the problem. One reason for this is that you get just as big a story by saying 'No' as saying 'Yes' to anything, and you're not responsible for a tax that doesn't happen. Another reason is that it is considered too early to appear weak - the rule of the playground.

Inability to agree does not stop at our nation's borders. The Iraqi democracy that we installed at great cost (Trillions of dollars and Thousands of American lives) has been paralyzed by internal rivalries, some over twelve hundred years old. The European Union is plagued by the inability or unwillingness of Greece and other countries to balance their budgets and reduce entitlements. The forces that drive people and nations apart are often based on greed or self-protection, which are two sides of the same coin. What is self-protection if I do it is greed if you do it.

The paralysis caused by inability to reach agreement is a world-wide problem. Democracy is not a cultural tradition in most of the planet we inhabit. We didn't have it ourselves before two centuries ago, and even then it was limited to white male property owners. Our sincere efforts to encourage and propagate democracy remind one to some extent of the labors of Christian missionaries who went to darkest Africa in the Nineteenth Century to spread the Word of the Lord by converting the natives to European religions. Those preachers of the Gospel had considerable influence in some countries, and probably did more good than harm, however they have endured in modern popular culture only in images of their being boiled in large pots before being devoured by the natives, and in the phrase 'the missionary position', now part of our language.

The more one leaves the prism of New York City and State and looks at the outside world, the easier it is to conclude that human behavior is to a greater extent based on primal instinct rather than European Enlightenment, a period which was unfortunately interrupted by World Wars I and II, where modern technology was put to use to kill people on a wider scale and more efficiently than in previous or future conflicts, say Rwanda, where people of the minority tribe (the Tutsis) had to be trapped in their huts which were set afire, or hacked to death one by one with machetes.

The conclusion one is tempted to reach after this extremely brief survey of human conflict in recent years, is that perhaps the Albany circus is not quite as bad as we think, compared with other methods of dispute resolution. Even though most of the players are narcissists and some are also thieves, the damage they can do to any of us common folk is limited by the state Constitution, as interpreted by the Court of Appeals.

There will always be squabbles over the allocation of government resources, and the role of the state in taking from one group (homeowners and other taxpayers, large and small) for the benefit of other specific groups (state employees, Medicaid recipients, prisoners and their guards). The political parties represent somewhat different slices of the economic spectrum, so some disagreement is inevitable and predictable. That's why we have elections.

Without giving any of these characters a pass on anything, and with some amazement that the human rights issue of gay marriage (whether one likes it or not), became a tail to economic disputes primarily involving state employees, we reserve judgment until the elected officials finish their deliberations. There will be plenty to write about then.

Philosophical Addendum

Since the preference of the Almighty has been raised so frequently in the gay marriage dispute, we venture to offer two thoughts on the subject by someone who has no unique knowledge of the issue.

If the Lord had meant for two people of the same gender to reproduce, s/he would have made that physically possible.

If the Lord had meant for two people of the same gender never to mate, s/he would have made that act physically impossible or at best extremely unpleasant for both partners.

These questions have been decided by Nature, and whether or not same-sex couples are allowed to marry will not affect Nature's Laws, which are frequently attributed to God since they were surely not made up by humans.

Calendar Issues

Weekend consideration of legislation may be affected by the fact that Speaker Sheldon Silver is a Sabbath observer, while sundry other legislators consider Sunday to be the Lord's Day, which may or may not be an appropriate time to make laws. Since the longest day of the year (the summer solstice) came just two days ago, the sun will set later this Friday than on any other Sabbath. The internet (timeanddate.com, successors to the almanacs) tells us that the sun will set this evening at 8:31 p.m. We do not know at this time what effect that fact will have on deliberations.

In negotiations where agreement is close but has not yet been reached, it has become customary to stop the clock, so as to postpone strike deadlines until remaining problems are resolved. But those are earthly clocks, and we do not know whether the Heavenly clock may be held in abeyance, even by the Most Dysfunctional Legislature in the United States.

However, the Sabbath rules have exemptions for works of necessity, or the saving of a life, so it is possible that the authorities would countenance the legislative session stretching into the prescribed Day of Rest. Although Speaker Silver deserves credit for helping Jonathan Lippman to become Chief Judge of the State of New York, and a wise judge he is turning out to be, we cannot reckon the Speaker's influence with the Heavenly Court which presumably decides matters of this magnitude.

Enjoy the weekend.

StarQuest #764 6.24.2011 1204 words

A Train Wreck Named Desire

2011-06-16T17:43:00.003-04:00

Anthony Weiner Self-Destructs

After Twenty Years in Politics;

Turns Out We Didn't Know Ye

This afternoon we watched Congressman Anthony Weiner's four-minute swan song, in which he showed the skills he had honed over twenty years as a public official. The Council Center for Seniors in Sheepshead Bay was crowded with over a hundred reporters and 40 TV cameras, a larger media scrum than he had ever assembled while he was politically alive. It made more than one viewer wistful for what Weiner might have been able to do for New York if he had had his head screwed on right.

Unfortunately, beneath his "YAVIS" exterior (Young, Attractive, Verbal, Intelligent and Successful) there lay a nest of aggression and insecurity so deep that the Congressman propelled himself into a prolonged and repeated pattern of personal behavior which is completely inconsistent with acting as a tribune of the people in a democracy.

Who can say what any of us have in our minds? Mostly, we wisely keep our thoughts to ourselves, particularly if they are socially or politically unacceptable. For an elected official to engage in reckless conversations with numerous strangers, while identifying himself to them as a Member of Congress, a substantial part of his mind must have wanted to be discovered and for the charade to end. When last month he inadvertently pressed 'reply to all' and set off the firestorm which devoured his career, he was possibly, at one level or another, opting out of a lifestyle which, to say the least, papered over a conflicted brain.

Although he was no genius, Weiner was a smart, diligent and basically moderate politician. He had the potential to be the outer borough middle-class successor to the Manhattan aristoi. He had difficulties with his staff, but that is not unusual when intense, demanding and self-important public officials employ decent, honorable people at modest wages who are unprepared to calibrate their lives to their boss's ambitions. That is putting it in a kindly way, but today is not the day to jump on a man who has just departed a life that he may find more precious than his own.

Weiner first ran for Mayor in 2005, and adroitly dropped out, leaving the thankless task of taking on Mayor Bloomberg to Fernando Ferrer. He was considered a likely candidate in 2009, but deferred to Comptroller Bill Thompson after the Mayor and City Council extended term limits. One line I recall being bruited about in those days, less than three years ago, is that Mayor Bloomberg was reportedly willing to spend $100 milllion on his campaign, of which $20 million could be spent on "oppo research", digging up dirt on his rivals. That was far more than would have been needed to discover Congressman Weiner's indiscretions, so the rest of the $20 mil could have been spent on enough media to ensure that all New Yorkers could consider the fruits of the negative research.

Probably the Mayor didn't threaten to do that, just as Marie Antoinette never said: "Let them eat cake." But if enough people say you said it, or think you said it, or think it reflects your views, it can lead to a one-way ride on a tumbrel.

The teachable moment that emerges from this personal tragedy and public farce is that, with many people who we think of as leaders, emotion can overpower reason, and people can and do perform incredibly self-destructive acts. When one such person gains access to a weapon of mass destruction, our civilization will be at stake. We should do our best to minimize that possibility.

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) said in 1962, "Since Adam and Eve ate the apple, man has never refrained from any folly of which he was capable." Lord Russell, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1950 and was regarded as a brilliant philosopher and mathematician, was forbidden to teach at the City College of New York in 1940 by a lower court decision which objected to his views on sex outside of marriage. Mayor LaGuardia refused to appeal despite pleas from Albert Einstein and John Dewey, among other individuals considered wise. LaGuardia was running for a third term (which was then allowed by the City Charter) in 1941. Russell was an avowed atheist, which gave offense to many believers.

Anthony Weiner's self-destructive behavior was not a threat to world peace. It was a ticking time bomb, but he and those who love him, are the only victims. Nonetheless, it should be a wake-up call for those seeking an honest, rational, perceptive and moderate candidate to run for Mayor of the City of New York in 2013, which is not as far off as people may believe.

Those interested should be judged on their character and achievements, rather than their promises, intrigues, race, religion, gender or sexual orientation. The same principle that forbids discrimination on those bases should also forbid favoritism on the basis of what is called "identity politics". The amount of money that each man or woman has already collected from those who hope to benefit by their election should not overwhelm merit as the basis for choice between candidates.

Paradise Lost

2011-06-15T11:32:00.002-04:00

Upstate: Beautiful Country,

But Short of Jobs and People

There is a cloud hanging over Upstate New York.

Many of the 62 counties which comprise the state are an economic wasteland. The scenery is attractive, but there is not enough business activity to sustain city and county budgets, or to provide jobs for the remaining population.

Last Thursday we attended a forum on the problems of Upstate sponsored by a new group, the New York Policy Forum. Its leaders are John Giardino, a Buffalo-born businessman, and Jonathan Cohen, a Koch administration alumnus who is now a writer. Cohen is also a Buffalo native, as was the late Tim Russert of Meet the Press, and the Crotty family, which has produced distinguished lawyers and judges.

Almost all the above mentioned have left Buffalo, a city which was once the 15th largest in population in the United States and is now 70th, with the 2010 census showing 261,310 residents. For purposes of historical comparison, the 1950 census reported 580,132 Buffalonians. In the last sixty years, the population has declined by 55%; the last ten years showed a 10.7% drop. The Buffalo diaspora has shown educated and middle-class residents departing in droves, with the remaining population consisting of many state-subsidized people who are struck in a region with diminishing economic opportunities and worsening social problems.

At the same time, the city of Buffalo is supporting an infrastructure built at a time when the population was twice what it is today. When you consider the city's responsibility for retirees' pensions and health benefits, disaster looms ahead. Upstate New York is now substantially subsidized by taxes collected downstate, in areas which have financial problems of their own.

What brought this problem to my attention so vividly was a weekend trip to Oakville, Ontario for a family wedding. My brother Ken's son, an actor, was married Sunday to an actress. We drove through Upstate New York Friday, and returned Monday. The trip was not confined to the Thruway; we used some other state roads and drove through a few Upstate towns.

Many of the places we saw were almost deserted. Stores and motels had "For Rent" and "For Sale" signs. Factory and commercial space was readily available. The streets were clean, the weather was moderate, the views of the Finger Lakes were splendid. However, economic activity seemed minimal.

We stopped for lunch in a delicatessen in Mt. Morris, a town which is unusually attractive. The food was very good, but my wife Peggy and I were the only customers. Just after leaving on our eastward journey, we encountered what appeared to be the area's principal industry: incarceration.

Rolls and rolls of razor wire, shining in the bright sunlight, provided a well-defined boundary for a state penitentiary. In fact, there were two correctional facilities, across Route 36 from each other. One was named Groveland, and since there were no orange groves in the vicinity, I wondered if it had been named for Grover Cleveland, since he was the second New York State Governor to be elected President. (The first was Martin Van Buren; the third and fourth, the two Roosevelts. Is there a fifth in the wings?)

For years, we have looked to closing upstate prisons to reduce the state budget and to keep prisoners closer to their homes in the city. It makes sense from an economic and a criminological viewpoint. But what then are the thousands of prison employees going to do? Their jobs keep them in the middle class, and there are few if any other opportunities for them anywhere near their homes and families.

Different places serve different populations. Were we upset that in the early 20th century, all the resorts were in the Catskills? That period is over, and casinos are now looked to as generators of economic activity. Many people are employed in the process of transferring money through gambling from one party to another. I do not know how much value is created in this zero-sum game. In the stock market, company capitalizations may rise beyond the company's real value, but there is an opportunity for economic expansion.

Looking at the countryside gave us mixed feelings. The land is beautiful, although many large fields have no crops of any kind growing in them. There are numerous cottage wineries in central New York State, inviting passersby for tours or tastes. The lakes seemed too cold for swimming, at least in early June.

There is no war damage here; no scorched earth or scarred fields. A few abandoned and derelict barns, older farmhouses surrounded by equally aged trees, scattered drainage pools, gas stations which mostly include stores. The landscape was dotted by neat signs of human habitation, there just weren't many human beings around.

One foolish thing the state does, in the name of economic development, is build convention centers for smaller towns that are not needed. They do, however, provide temporary construction jobs for workers and contractors. They also provide opportunities for groundbreakings, ribbon cuttings, and whatever intermediate celebrations can be squeezed out of a capital project. They also lead to naming opportunities, both for the main facility and for parts thereof. Former State Senator Joseph A. Bruno held the record in this regard.

Our conclusion is that we live on a splendid planet (at least that part of it in upstate New York). It is just too bad that the economy is not organized in such a way that the descendants of pioneers and farmers cannot support themselves by the wealth of the land, while too many others who have gone to live in the cities have found the hazards of addiction, crime, family breakdown and unemployment have made their situation even more difficult.

To simplify our observations: "It's really pretty nice up here. Why can't people earn a living?" We know that young people leave the region because there are so few jobs available to them. Each departure further weakens the economy. High taxes are part of the problem, but the cheap land available in other states combined with less expensive utilities and a more salubrious climate give natural advantages to warmer places, who in their turn have to compete with China's low costs for wages and benefits.

We enjoyed the clean air and clean water upstate, and the prices are lower than New York City's. It just seems somehow sad that the beautiful country we visited and the friendly people we met could not be tied into a functioning economy that would support them where they want to live.

He Had a Dream

2011-06-07T11:56:00.002-04:00

Weiner, Spitzer, Strauss-Kahn:

How Could They Have Done It?

The next mayor of New York City stands in the shoes of the next president of France.

Both highly successful political careers have been derailed by the same nemesis: inappropriate behavior toward women because of the need for immediate gratification of the man's sexual desires.

Of course, what the self-destructive trio did, in different ways, was indicative of mental disorder. Other leaders of countries and cities have been mentally ill. They continue until their disorder becomes public, usually as a result of an act so at variance with conventional ethical standards that it would not be tolerated by the electorate.

What is it that makes people who have everything to lose - and nothing to gain but transitory relief - engage time and again in conduct which results in their losing everything? We don't know; we are not psychiatrists. But self-destructive behavior is not new. Its most direct example is suicide. People do that when the pain of living is worse for them than the fear of dying. Former Queens Borough President Donald Manes, facing imprisonment in 1986, chose that cowardly route.

In the cases of Governor Eliot Spitzer and Congressman Anthony Weiner, the suicide is professional. They remain alive, and are free to build new careers. They both, at this point, have loving wives. Neither man will reach the heights he could have attained, but they will not starve.

Why, oh why, do these gifted and talented people engage in such obviously ruinous behavior? How could the sitting governor believe that no one would recognize him on his repeated liaisons? How many people did the Congressman proposition on Twitter without realizing that any one of them could turn him in? It only takes a single complaint to topple the house of cards. Then others will rush in, confirming the sordid tale. Cf. Tiger Woods.

I have high regard for Anthony Weiner's better side, which I believe exists somewhere under all the lies, self-deception and cruelty to others. He has suffered from his family's instability, his brother's tragic death, his comic last name, and rejection by his peers before he became too important to ignore. The Sammy Glick comparison may be the most obvious literary reference, but I like to believe there was more to Anthony than that.

I hope he makes the best of his new life. There are four dangers lying ahead. First is censure or expulsion from the House of Representatives, which is controlled by Republicans. What better way for the hypocrites to demonstrate their purity than by removing the offender? The second is the Democratic primary in 2012, where he would undoubtedly be challenged. The third is the general election, in which, although it has not be noted, he received only 59 % of the vote in 2010 against a little-known Republican opponent. The fourth hurdle is redistricting. When the lines are drawn for 2012, his seat will be the first to be butchered.

His downfall is a personal tragedy. It is also a loss for the city and state. There are few enough smart politicians to let one go down without an expression of sympathy, and regret over what might have been if he were well.

There are government and private agencies created to help the physically challenged. It is unfortunate that, in the field of mental health, people are less forgiving and help is more difficult to secure, particularly when it involves disclosure of behavior which must be secret because of valid social norms.

The immortal words of Terry Malloy come to mind in another Schulberg reference: "I coulda been a contender."

Anthony Weiner was a contender, but he could have been a champion.

Brief Encounter

2011-06-02T11:45:00.000-04:00

Charges Fly in Weiner Hacking Case,
Rightist Distributed His Photograph.
You Just Can't Leave Junk Pictures
If You Would Be Mayor of 8 Million,
Especially If You Would Scrap With Others

As you all presumably know, there has been enormous press coverage of a possible scandal based on Internet communications, allegedly from Congressman Anthony Weiner and addressed to a college student in Washington State. Both parties deny that they ever met, but that deepens the mystery of why a public official would send a bizarre photograph of his own amply filled underpants to a woman, an event which is considered unlikely to have occurred in the manner depicted.

Unlike most of the media, we will look at the issue without gratuitous puns or snide references. The subject is intrinsically interesting because it involves an important man (think Eliot Spitzer, former Congressman Chris Lee and Dominique Strauss-Kahn) involved with a woman not his wife in a manner considered inappropriate by most of the public. One wonders why those men were foolish enough to become involved in damaging situations, whether the momentary orgasmic release is worth the prolonged pain and embarrassment that is likely to ensue? In some cases, the immediate pleasure surmounts the risk, because men keep doing it, and some of them get caught.

In the Weiner case, it seems totally bizarre that a man who has devoted his life to personal ambition and public service should jeopardize all of that for the vicarious pleasure of sending unsuspecting, relative strangers a photograph, not even of his genitals, but of his stuffed drawers. This may be a fetish or a perversion whose name has not yet come to our attention, but in time it may be entered on the list of psychiatric disorders. It may, or may not, have happened.

Rule 34-S, obviously not original, is "He who lives by the sword dies by the sword." Substitute "press" for "sword" to get Rule 34-P. There is irony if this congressman's embarrassment, and possible ruination -- if such is to be the case -- comes at the hands of the same instrumentality he used so effectively in his rise. Whatever they may bleat, his rivals are not distressed at his misfortune. It assists them in pursuing their own ambitions, and it immobilizes a power-seeking force that could be used against them.

We waited until the end of the day to send out this relatively brief article, anticipating that new events or interpretations would transpire (become known) during the afternoon. We believe that by tomorrow morning, more facts will be revealed. Whatever may have happened is recorded on mechanical devices somewhere, and it is probably simply a matter of time before the truth is discovered.

The last item we received comes from one Benjy Sarlin, a writer for Talking Points Memo, a major, left-leaning online publication. Its headline: "Leaked Emails Show Tip to Breitbart About Weiner Tweet." Its lede: "The ongoing scandal surrounding a lewd tweet sent from Rep. Anthony Weiner's Twitter account took yet another turn for the weird Thursday as alleged e-mails between the person who first noticed the photo and conservative media guru Andrew Breitbart were leaked." For the rest of this tale, which has considerable bearing on the origin of the story and the motives of those who disseminated it, click here.

If the congressman distributed salacious photos to an audience, that is very bad because it would show a profound lack of judgment. If someone stole the undistributed photos from his computer and sent them out in an effort to embarrass the congressman, that is very bad, and should be criminal. There is the possibility that the congressman or his agent took the picture, and the photo was hacked (stolen, to seniors) and distributed by his political enemies, who are widely depicted as numerous and motivated, in part by the congressman's progressive ideology and in part by his aggressive personality, which probably has had a role in his political and social success over the years.

In our judgment, stealing and distributing an image is a worse sin than taking a foolish and embarrassing photograph of oneself. We are not learned in photography, but the picture looks like it was taken by the owner of the underwear.

Another story came out this afternoon on Salon.com: "Embarrassing Emails From Weiner Tweeter Leaked." It was written by Justin Elliott. It refers to intriguing an article "The Wolfe at Anthony Weiner's Front Door" just published by The Smoking Gun, which includes the revelation that Dan Wolfe, the conservative activist who is the apparent source of the leaked tweet, claimed on May 5th, three weeks before the current scandal, that "compromising photos of a 'big time' congressman were in the hands of a 'top 5 Right Wing blogger.' He tweeted, '@RepWeiner are you this Congressman?' He reprised this photo rumor in a May 11 tweet." The story began to go public on Friday, May 27. Was Wolfe prescient or was he guilty?

It is fascinating to observe how the Internet telescopes the news cycle, at least with regard to time. We will see what tomorrow brings in this case. The congressman may have acted foolishly, first in having the picture on his computer (if it were there) and, second, with his confused responses to media questioning in a series of press meetings which he called. But it is not likely that he was foolish enough to disseminate an embarrassing photograph of himself. If he did that, he needs psychiatric help. If he did not, we should see to it that his accuser is identified and punished. Fair is fair.

Greed Rules

2011-05-24T18:04:00.002-04:00

Legislature Stalls on Ethics Reform

Despite Cuomo's Emphasis on Issue.

The Reason for Delay is Self-Evident:

Rules Would Impact Their Incomes.

We turn today to one of New York State's oldest oxymorons: Albany ethics. The legislature, having exhausted itself by adopting a budget on time, appears to be coasting toward a proposed June 20 adjournment. That would leave about three weeks for actions of substance. In the hopper are bills to limit increases in the property tax, to legalize gay marriage, to redraw the boundaries of Congressional and legislative lines districts, and to require the disclosure of legislators' clients and earnings in addition to their state salaries. Several hundred matters of local importance also await action by the two houses.

One important proposal is in limbo. Governor Cuomo has sent an ethics package to the Senate and the Assembly, and is speaking up for it on a statewide tour. We quote from his statement:

"New York State government used to be a symbol of integrity and performance, but we have lost that standard. To clean up the government and restore trust with New Yorkers, we need to pass a new ethics law that mandates transparency and full disclosure as well as a law that calls for a real independent monitor.

"Among many reforms, the Governor's ethics reform agenda would:

* Require disclosure of clients doing business with the state that are represented by legislators before the state and disclosure of how much they get paid.

* Require the creation of an independent body to provide oversight and enforcement of ethics rules because, as we have seen in the past, self-policing does not work.

* Require lobbyists to disclose any business relationship with legislators in excess of $1,000.

* Strip pensions from those public officials convicted of a felony related to the abuse of their official duties."

The legislators have reacted to these proposals as an intrusion of roaches would to a can of Raid, or, if you prefer to avoid product placement, as Dracula would to a crucifix.

The current pretext for Speaker Silver's opposition to ethics reform is that creating an independent body to enforce ethics rules would interfere with the Assembly's exclusive authority to discipline its members, and therefore violate the principle of separation of powers between the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government. This excuse is comparable to the Senate's belated discovery, after all the Republicans signed pledges to support an independent redistricting commission, that such a panel could only be created by an amendment to the State Constitution which takes two years to adopt, and therefore could not take effect until after the 2020 census.

These "reasons" are so spurious as to be amusing, were it not for the fact that those who offer them dominate their legislative bodies, and, in any event, are acting in the interest of their members who also desire to avoid detection of and prosecution for conflicts of interest that may be engendered by their extra-curricular activities. They do not want to go without the undisclosed loose change that they may pick up either for their acts or their failure to act, depending on the needs of the client. Some of our solons are versatile; one could even say subtle. Many of them are hungry.

There are also principled and honest elected officials in the Legislature, most of whom have little or no power. If they speak too loudly, they risk decapitation by their masters. But to be fair, it is only when a politician attains authority on his own that his ethical standards may truly be tested. Most never reach that stage, and their principal vice turns out to be remaining silent in the face of outrage. They feel that, by keeping quiet, they will advance to positions where they will be able to use their influence in the public interest. "As luck would have it" (Rule 17-A), the few salmon who swim that far upstream forget the high principles they espoused as alevin, fry, parr and smolts.

Around the state, the media are getting sick and tired of the legislature's evasion, procrastination and rationalization.

Today, Bill Hammond of the Daily News expresses his disgust at the situation in a column on p27 entitled "YOUR OUTCRIES, THEIR DEAF EARS: The Public's Priorities Couldn't Be Clearer; Albany's Arrogance Couldn't Be More Profound." Hammond asks, rhetorically: "How much louder do the people of New York have to scream before the Legislature starts listening?

"The people overwhelmingly elected Gov. Cuomo with a mandate to fundamentally change how their infamously dysfunctional state government does business.

"The people overwhelmingly back Cuomo's top two priorities - cleaning up Albany sleaze and stemming relentless property tax hikes - as repeatedly documented by opinion polls.

"Yet the elected officials who supposedly represent those people stymie and stall, balk and bluster - and accomplish nothing. They're hunkered down in the Capitol bubble, deaf to their constituents' unmistakable outcry for reform." You can click here for the rest of Hammond's powerful column, which makes enormous sense to us.

This month, The Utica Observer-Dispatch editorial page articulated similar frustrations, as did The Albany Times Union.

A 2011 report, written for the Brennan Center for Justice by Lawrence Norden, Kelly Williams and John Travis and entitled MEANINGFUL ETHICS REFORM FOR THE 'NEW' ALBANY, encapsulates the long-ignored complaints of New York State's good government groups. It includes a list of the 14 members of the Legislature who have been indicted, convicted or pleaded guilty to crimes in the last decade.

Those of you looking for fresh scandal may be disappointed by this article. The leaders of the Senate and Assembly, reflecting the fears and feelings of many of the members, support unlimited outside income for themselves, even though the handsome but undisclosed legal fees they demand and receive for their representation of clients doing business with the state are in fact often rewards for their political influence and access.

Those who represent plaintiffs are particularly shameless in shaping legislation for their personal benefit and fighting any proposal which could have a negative effect on their incomes. In matters of the purse, they fight with the tenacity of the National Rifle Association, keeping their cold, dead hands on their moneybelts.

Mayor Koch has attempted to breach this old boys' network with New York Uprising. Other groups have fought for reform for generations. Saints Matthew and Mark remind us that the poor will always be with us. The same applies to the predators, people who use public office for personal enrichment, while possessing the political power to make certain that the tainted transactions by which they do this are totally legal, under the laws they adopt.

We believe that, eventually, justice will prevail, and elected officials will no longer be able to receive secret income, particularly from those who have matters pending before the State of New York. The City Charter inhibits such transactions; the State Legislature should do no less.

In the interest of your health, however, we advise you not to stand on one leg until the legislators succumb to the pangs of conscience, if any. Your interest in these matters is idealistic and intellectual. Theirs is personal. You vote once or twice a year, depending on primaries. They vote hundreds of times on bills, and there is a reason for each vote they cast: it can be the merits of an issue, submission to a leader, ignorance, naivete or self-interest. Motives vary with each vote and each legislator. The aggregate is an unwholesome brew.

Conundrum

2011-05-18T14:41:00.001-04:00

Mayor Runs the City Government

But Even He Cannot Print Money.

Nationwide Deficits Raise Public Debt,

Making it Harder to Balance Budgets

Writing about city government is, to a large extent, writing about the mayor. The City Charter provides for a strong mayor, in direct control of the executive branch and with power of appoint over much of the judiciary.

To estimate the relative authority of elected city officials crudely and arbitrarily, the mayor can be judged as having up to ninety per cent control of city government, the Speaker of the Council nine per cent and the rest of the council one per cent. We omit the five district attorneys, who are fast becoming lifers, and the comptroller and public advocate (formerly council president), who primarily devote themselves to becoming the next mayor. Those borough presidents who think of themselves as papabili ply their trade around the five boroughs; the others aim at spending their twelve years in dignity and comfort.

Having watched city government for over half a century (forty years as a participant and thirteen as a pensioner-observer), I can say that the seven men who have been mayor since 1954 varied widely in intelligence, integrity and industry. They were all elected, but different candidates appealed to different constituencies.

The sea change in city government came, not from a new mayor, but from an old mayor who changed his base. In the 1961 Democratic primary, Mayor Robert F. Wagner, regular turned reformer, decisively defeated State Comptroller Arthur Levitt, candidate of the Democratic county leaders. The political power of the Democratic organizations (Tammany Hall in Manhattan, the other four had no particular names) was sharply diminished, and in time the labor unions, particularly those comprised of city employees, succeeded the politicians as powers behind the throne.

The primacy of employee unions was established in January 1966, when a twelve-day transit strike that followed Mayor Lindsay's January 1 induction ended with surrender by the new administration, which was motivated by an economy collapsing in the absence of public transportation. This was the opposite of the events of January 20, 1981, when the Iranian ayatollahs freed 52 Americans the day Reagan succeeded Carter. In New York, the city was held hostage from the day that Lindsay succeeded Wagner, and no one knew when it would end.

The basic problem with employee dominance over management became apparent over the years. No entity can prosper if its CEO is selected by its employees rather than by its shareholders. The interests of taxpayers are basically widely divergent from the interest of employees. People who work for the city want to get all they can in salaries, benefits (which are no longer fringes but range up to a third of salaries), and pensions (which over the long run, are comparable to salaries). Benefit costs have grown substantially in the last few years for three reasons: 1) Lower rates of return in both equities and fixed income assets; 2) People are living longer; and 3) They are getting more and better medical care before they die.

This is also basically true on the federal and state level, as well as with regard to cities, counties and other nations. On the federal level, the imbalance in entitlements (social security, medicaid, medicare, employee pensions) is added to the the costs of numerous wars, which include weapons development, a field in which the United States appears to be the world leader, as has been demonstrated in periodic wars and other occasions requiring the use of force.

In cases, such as the United States government, the State of California and to a lesser extent New York State, the bicameral legislature is divided between political parties and the fiscal situation is even more complex. Former Governor Schwarzenegger was unable to resolve the problem in his seven years in office. His four referendum proposals were defeated by the voters in 2005, and he seems to have largely given up after that setback.

We do not know of any state or local government that is following a straight path to eliminate its deficit, although some are doing better at that task than others, like Indiana under Governor Mitch Daniels. The underlying financial issue is that people want more services than they are willing to pay for, and employees want more jobs, higher salaries and sweeter pensions than the state or city can afford to provide out of tax revenues.

The elected officials, dependent on labor union support in money and volunteers, are caught in a vise. They will give the employees everything they can, except for the fact that they are past the point where there is anything left to give. The usual outcome is layoffs, which reduce the delivery of services, cause additional unemployment, and impede economic recovery. The greatest burden falls on younger employees, who are in the stage of marrying and starting families. They are a particularly vulnerable population, and so are the middle aged (people over fifty are unlikely to get another job, certainly not a position at a comparable salary).

An aggravating factor with regard to employment is that, due to technology, it now takes fewer people to do the work society requires than it did years ago. Even if the economy were not in recession, there would be substantial unemployment. Economists know that and most people sense it. You can't cure ingenuity, nor should you try. Sadly, no one has figured a cure-all for joblessness. Public works create jobs, but even worthwhile projects exacerbate the debt problem since the government must eventually pay the cost of labor and materials, plus interest. Requiring union wages (union scale) results in far fewer jobs for the same government expenditure.

Various states have taken action to deal with budget shortfalls, with different degrees of effectiveness. In order to have impact, a new law, a labor agreement, or a change in retirement age or benefit terms must have continuing effect in order to reduce the structural budget deficit. The sale of a state asset for privatization is a one-shot revenue which cannot be repeated. Too often governments have relied on one-shots, like requiring a tax payment to be made in July of one year and June in the next, so the double payment will fall in one fiscal year. That may sound like an odd maneuver, but it has been done repeatedly as an artifice to balance state or city budgets.

What we have done in this column is to try to define the problem of chronic structural financial deficits and report early steps that have been attempted. We will discuss more comprehensive solutions in another article. Unfortunately, there is no magic bullet to resolve this problem, and any solution will require significant pain-sharing. For people who are used to gain-sharing, this would be a reversal of fortune.

Can these problems be resolved, or significantly alleviated, without the application of external force to recalcitrant elected officials, who seek to escape personal responsibility for any hardship that may be involved in attaining fiscal sanity? Time will tell.

NRA's Friendly Fire

2011-05-16T16:51:00.002-04:00

Accustomed as we have become to various scenarios which involve corruption, cronyism, incompetence, foolishness and favoritism, we were nonetheless surprised to learn that last Thursday, a vote was taken by the House Judiciary which defeated an anti-terrorism initiative which we, in our naivete, believed would have been unobjectionable.

The proposal would give the Attorney General of the United States authority to deny the transfer of a firearm to someone who is on the government's Terrorism Watch List. It came as an amendment to H.R. 1800, offered by Representative Michael Quigley of Illinois. The amendment is only one sentence long, although it is a long sentence. Here it is, in full:

"ATTORNEY GENERAL AUTHORITY TO DENY TRANSFER OF FIREARMS TO TERRORISTS.

"The Attorney General may deny the transfer of a firearm if information obtained through the use of authorities under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1801 et seq.) indicates that a prospective firearm transferee is or has been engaged in conduct constituting, in preparation for, in aid of, or related to terrorism, and the Attorney General has a reasonable belief that the prospective transferee may use a firearm in connection with terrorism."

The Quigley amendment was defeated by a party line vote, 11 Democrats in support, 21 Republicans in opposition. Congressman Peter King, Republican of New York State and chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security, has introduced similar legislation, also pending before the Judiciary Committee and not yet brought to a vote.

The quest for authority to deny a firearm to a potential terrorist began in the Bush administration, but such a bill was twice rejected by Congress, largely because of opposition by the National Rifle Association, one of the most powerful lobbies in the United States. The chair of the House Judiciary Committee is currently Representative Lamar Smith of Texas, a state where gun ownership by individuals is highly valued.

The House decision was noted that afternoon by Mayor Bloomberg in a press conference dealing with the arrest of two lone wolf terrorists in Queens. He said: "Let me just point out that even as the NYPD continues to do such great work in this area, today there was a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives on a measure that would have prevented people on the terrorist watch list from purchasing guns. I'm sorry to report that measure failed. Our Coalition of Mayors Against Illegal Guns has urged Congress to pass such restrictions, and last night's arrest is a perfect illustration why."

In an April 28th Associated Press article, Eileen Sullivan reported that last year, according to FBI figures, 247 people on the terror watch list "who were allowed to buy weapons did so after going through required background checks as required by federal law." Her article is a thorough analysis of the issue, citing both sides. It is well worth reading; you can find the article here.

Chris Brown, a reporter for Media Matters, a liberal media watchdog, wrote an article whose title asks a question that is easy to answer: "WILL THE NRA KEEP SUPPORTING THE LOOPHOLE LETTING PEOPLE ON TERROR WATCH BUY GUNS?" It is a good example of advocacy journalism. Click here to read Brown's piece, which has links of its own.

There are people out there who strongly oppose this bill, which seems so sensible to many others. Their position is expressed by the National Rifle Association, whose staff has prepared a brief stating their case. Although we disagree with them, we want you to have the opportunity to read their arguments, some based on Constitutional and libertarian principles, others more pragmatic. Click here to read the NRA brief. From a professional point of view, it is a competent piece of work. We recall that in The Merchant of Venice, by W.S., Antonio says: "The Devil can cite Scripture for his purpose."

Each side in this controversy refers to the other as "extremists". It was not, however, leftist radicals who killed 169 people at the Oklahoma City federal building on April 19, 1995, deliberately marking the second anniversary of the Branch Davidian fire in Waco, Texas, which killed 54 adults and 21 children. That is the day before Hitler's birthday, April 20, a date the teenaged Columbine murderers commemorated in 1999 by shooting to death twelve fellow students and one teacher and injuring 21 others. Six people died when Congresswoman Giffords was shot on January 8 while greeting constituents in her Arizona district.

The arguments made by the NRA parallel in some ways those of leftist organizations who defend terrorists by claiming that their Constitutional rights have been abridged at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere by detention, interrogation, rendition and other practices intended to elicit information from those unwilling to supply it voluntarily. Like the NRA, these groups challenge the executive branch exercising its powers, and sometimes they prevail in the judicial branch, which is traditionally more sensitive to individual liberties than the branch whose elected leaders have historically felt a greater responsibility to keep Americans safe from harm, as, for example, when President Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus during the War of the Rebellion, or the War Between the States, if you prefer the Southern version.

Back to the present, the NRA's challenge to executive authority is manifest in the legislative branch, where its influence is strong, due to its large membership scattered in swing states, and its effective lobbying and political action. President Obama and the Justice Department are regularly accused of violating the rights and desires of gun owners. The NRA website says: "On the Second Amendment, Don't Believe Obama". The far left, on the other hand, depends for sustenance on occasional judicial victories. New York Civic does not rush to take sides in these political-judicial disputes, the Federal issues involved being far above our pay grade, a phrase that went viral after Senator Obama was asked his views on abortion in 2008.

The Quigley amendment does not forbid possible terrorists from purchasing guns, it simply gives the Attorney General the right to prevent such a transaction if he has "a reasonable belief that the prospective transferee may use a firearm in connection with terrorism." Does that not appear sensible? Most transactions are likely to be approved, but there is value in the Justice Department knowing which potential terrorists are buying guns.

We did not anticipate the result in the Judiciary Committee, but we should have foreseen it considering the legislative history of this matter. We know that any form of restriction on the sale or use of firearms engenders fierce resistance by a spectrum ranging from hunters to survivalists, possibly including both Birchers and birthers. What we did not realize was that, even when the prevention of terrorists from taking the lives of Americans is at stake, the right to transfer firearms still takes precedence.

God bless America. His blessing may be necessary for its protection.

Terminated

2011-05-05T16:52:00.001-04:00

Bin Laden Came to Timely End

Killer of Thousands Is Executed

By U.S., Home of Many Victims

Not to write about Osama bin Laden this week would be to ignore an event of historic importance.

He is directly responsible for the death of almost three thousand New Yorkers, a figure surpassed most notably by Hitler, who is primarily accountable for the tragedy of World War II. Mao Tse-Tung, Joseph Stalin, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam Hussein, Hafez al-Assad, and various African genocidal tyrants were also mass murderers, but usually employed more primitive means than the Nazi fuhrer and the Wahhabi devotee.

Bin Laden was terminated with extreme prejudice by well-trained Americans who, we presume, followed the instructions they were given. The thought that he should have been taken alive is naive. Who would try him? On what authority? How would a sentence be carried out? How much attention would he get for years while the legal system took its protracted course? What would the International Court of Justice opine on the matter? And what consideration did the thousands of innocent civilians receive before he sent the hijacked airliners to crash into their offices?

It was clearly in the national interest to dispose of the matter on the spot, and the result was presumably dictated by the elected official who is commander-in-chief. There is a certain irony in a Nobel Peace Prize recipient personally involved in the murder of an unarmed captive, whether in the presence of his daughter or not. But think of how many lives would have been saved if Bin Laden had been stopped ten years ago, before 9-11, when President Clinton authorized the removal of Bin Laden from the planet after the bombing of the U.S. destroyer Cole on October 12, 2000 (perhaps a jab at Columbus Day). Clinton later said that his order was never carried out because the United States was unable to establish a military presence in Uzbekistan and because American intelligence and law enforcement agencies refused to confirm that bin Laden had authorized the bombing.

On the photo issue, I completely agree with the President. As he said, we do not spike the football after a touchdown, nor should we create an iconic image for Bin Laden's followers to venerate. The conspiracy theorists will never be satisfied, nor need they be, for the further they depart from reality, the less credible they become.

Burial at sea was also entirely appropriate. No remains, no relics, no tomb, no shrine. Life began in the sea, and it is not the worst place to decompose. As the fate of Luca Brasi, who killed far fewer people than Osama bin Laden, was poetically described by his colleagues, "He sleeps with the fishes." Besides, if he is going to meet the 72 virgins who Muslim theologians say await him in paradise, the North Arabian Sea will simply be a stop on his journey.

"With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds" begins the last paragraph of Ted Sorensen's elegant inaugural address for John F. Kennedy. We cannot speak to bin Laden's conscience, or whether he has one, but we strongly believe history will judge him harshly, as a killer of innocents, not as a builder.

Osama bin Laden did not liberate anyone from tyranny. The Taliban regime in Afghanistan was harsh and oppressive, a medieval theocracy brutal to its own people. We predict that Bin Laden will be regarded over the years primarily as a mass murderer, who employed the ingenious method of hijacking jet planes whose tanks were filled with gasoline. He caused the death of thousands of innocents as part of a deluded conspiracy to re-establish the Caliphate and rule the world. The lesson of his life is how much harm one individual can do using modern technology.

Three years before 9-11, the bombing of American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya on August 7, 1998, with simultaneous explosions injuring thousands of people, primarily Africans, should have alerted the world to the menace of Bin Laden. In the two bombings 223 people were killed. Ironically, only twelve were Americans.

His battle with the world may come in part from sibling rivalry, he was the 17th of 54 progeny of his father, and if Mohammed bin Laden had not been killed in a plane crash in 1967, when Osama was 10 years old, there would have been more. The plane, a company-owned Beechcraft, was piloted by an American who misjudged the landing.

Osama's mother was reportedly looked down upon by her husband's 21 other wives (but no more than four at a time, pursuant to religious law.) She was of Syrian birth, while the other wives were Saudi Arabian. Who knows what effect his father's death or his mother's isolation had on Osama's personality, particularly his lack of regard for the lives of others?

It was also interesting to learn that, rather than wandering in the wilderness as Moses did, or moving at night from cave to cave to avoid detection, as many imagined, Osama was residing in comfort in a military town not far from Islamabad, with goats brought regularly for him and his entourage to consume.

Much more will be written about Bin Laden and his remarkable career. But if he had to bedescribed in one word on his non-existent tombstone, we suggest that "murderer" rather than "martyr" would be an appropriate appellation.

The world is better off without this sociopath, but much more must be done to assure that other mass killers, with even more powerful weapons, are not enabled through the apathy or ignorance of free countries, to pursue their destructive course. It has always been easier to destroy than to build, and as the years pass, weapons of mass destruction will be more dispersed. The combination of religious fanaticism and the capacity to destroy civilization present our planet with its greatest challenge since the extinction of our ancestors, the dinosaurs, sixty-five million years ago.

Condemned to Repeat It

2011-04-28T10:17:00.001-04:00

DCAS Swallowing DORIS

Would Slight City History

Councilmember Gale Brewer, who chairs the Council's Committee on Government Operations, held a public hearing this afternoon on an Administration proposal to fold the Department of Records and Information Services (DORIS) into the much larger Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS).

DORIS was created in 1977 by a local law championed by former Council President Paul O'Dwyer, adopted by the Council and signed by Mayor Beame in his last year in office. The agency's first commissioner, who served through the administration of Mayor Koch, was Eugene J. Bockman, who had been the Municipal Reference Librarian.

The records agency was always small, and has shrunk by half in the last decade. DCAS is a conglomerate of service functions, with many relatively unrelated municipal housekeeping duties. The records function would be about one percent of its activities.

The Adminstration witnesses supported the merger, the bill having been introduced at the request of the mayor. The independent witnesses generally opposed the bill, although some would accept it if there were written safeguards against cannibalization of the smaller agency. The problem is that, no matter what the words in the bill may say, the surviving agency in these circumstances is likely to do as it pleases. It can always plead financial exigencies, complaining of externally imposed budget reductions. These are real, but can usefully serve as an excuse for noncompliance with statutory requirements. Rule 18-X-6: "The Devil [OMB] made me do it."

As a co-sponsor of the Local Law 49 of 1977, adopted while I was a City Councilman-at-Large (Liberal-Manhattan) and as a member of the Archives advisory board created pursuant to that law, I have taken a long-term interest in the municipal history and the city library and reference services. This area has been degraded by persistent underfunding, making it almost impossible to perform its statutory duties. There is no obligation in the 2011 proposal to increase personnel or funding in the event of a merger. Although there could be minor efficiencies through cross-performance of duties, they are dwarfed by the impending tasks of digitilization of records.

My testimony was that the merger came out of a green eyeshade (stereotype for myopic city employee or consultant) looking for an agency to eliminate to save nickels and give the impression that government was being streamlined. In this case, the agency to be abolished is very small and no specific cost savings are anticipated. Among the public witnesses today were Christine Ward, the New York State archivist, Prof. Richard Lieberman, head of the LaGuardia and Wagner archives at the City University, and Brian Andersson, former commissioner (2002-10) of DORIS. The administration was capably represented by DCAS commissioner Edna Wells Handy and Eileen Flannelly, who is deputy commissioner of DORIS. Ms. Flannelly is a grand-niece of Paul O'Dwyer, younger brother of William O'Dwyer, 100th mayor of the City of New York (1946-50). She has a background interest in municipal history. The DCAS commissioner for the first eight years of the Bloomberg era was Martha K. Hirst.

Ironically, when we called DORIS this afternoon for historic information on the advisory boards, we were referred to Mark Daly, who is a public relations officer for DCAS. We had spoken with Mr. Daly a few weeks ago in connection with the non-publication of the Green Book, a city directory published annually since 1918, but not issued for the last several years. Sadly, Mr. Daly was unable to assist us with all of our questions, although DORIS staff is instructed to direct press inquiries to him, as the press officer for the anticipated agency. This is what happens when a big fish swallows a smaller one. It is a law of nature.

What really happened here was that DORIS was regarded as "low hanging fruit", an agency that could be made to disappear without public concern, and with an existing agency assuming its functions. It is true that savings were minimal, but it would appear in the media as if government were being streamlined, which is legitimately desired by the public. Twice at the hearing an Administration spokeswoman referred to "firemen and teachers being fired" as a reason funds were difficult to find for records preservation.

The chair of the Council committee, Ms. Brewer, was patient throughout the hearing. Over the years, she has shown considerable interest in records preservation, the municipal library, making information available to the public, and transparency in city government. She chaired a task force on technology.

The fate of this bill will reflect the views of Council Speaker Christine Quinn, and the extent to which Ms. Brewer will be able to influence the Speaker. This is not an issue of the political left versus the right, or the poor versus the rich, or one borough or interest group against another. It is simply a question of open government, citizen access to data and public records, and who has responsibility for preserving the historic heritage of city government.

That task does require money, and for years funding has been woefully inadequate for the purpose. Whether abolishing the agency in charge while imposing no standards or requirements for anyone else to do the work, remains to be seen. We believe it will never be seen because it is impossible. The genesis of and rationale for this bill is that someone saw a box on an organization chart he thought he could eliminate without anyone caring.

The Council's disposition of this bill will show if anyone, in fact, does care about the city's history. No one can support it who is not taking the king's shilling, not that there is anything wrong with that, should it be proffered. But no one should be foolish enough to believe promises that have never been kept.

The Council should specify and expand the duties of DORIS, rather than consign it to limbo as a minor subsidiary of the agency that buys shoe polish, toilet paper and other necessities. It should stand up for history, if it wishes to be remembered by anyone.

To Do Or Not To Do

2011-04-22T14:29:00.001-04:00

Guide for Agency and Business Managers:

Much That You Are Told Just Isn't True,

What You Are Not Told May Be Decisive.

On April 18 we wrote an article on the decision making process in government. We noted at the time that the great majority of our columns deal with specific situations, generally situations which have gone wrong, problems the authorities have failed to solve, or improper influence being exerted to shape a decision on an issue.

We asked our readers to let us know what they thought about such columns, and whether they wanted us to continue with that kind of analysis. We received no negative comments, and enough favorable ones, to justify our return to discussing some of the more practical aspects of public administration.

The question we ask first is: How do public officials make decisions on issues before them?

The beginning of the answer is that they usually do what they are told to do by their superiors in the chain of command, or they do what they have done previously on the same or similar occasions. There is a reporting relationship between public officials, more clearly specified in the uniformed services, but existing in all agencies. You know who your boss is, and so does your supervisor, right up to the Deputy Mayors who report to an elected official, the Mayor.

Sometimes, the formal chain of command does not reflect the realities of the situation in a particular agency. This can happen for a number of reasons. One is that a new person is appointed with different strengths or skills than those formally required. Rather than revise the organization chart and submit it to various staff agencies which may want to play with it, either to justify their existence or to throw their weight around, the wise commissioner, in his mind, conforms the chart to the new reality. This is inconsistent with Rule 31-N: "There is no such thing as a mental note." But it is in conformity with Rule 27-B, one of a handful of rules that originated directly with Mayor Bloomberg and therefore deserve particular adherence: "Beg forgiveness, not permission."

The potential conflict between caution and action is also reflected in the difference between the Nike rule and the Nancy rule. The Nike rule, known formally, as 8-J, is "Just do it." The Nancy rule, 9-J, is "Just say no." Since many passages in the Bible contradict each other, one should not be unduly upset at the variance in our Modern Mishna.

Of course, the essence of judgment comes in knowing when to follow 8-J, and when to obey 9-J. That is not a decision that can be made in advance, because it obviously depends on the fact situation one is facing, and the resources available to solve the problem. When a commissioner, or a general, or a private sector executive, is faced with an issue, it is usually the case that not all the facts which would bear on the decision are available - sometimes a relatively small part of the picture is clear, sometimes the situation in the field is hopelessly obscured, and the reaction by others to the decision may be difficult to predict.

In many cases, the information you have before you is tainted. Misleading statements or allegations may have been made by adherents of one side or the other, or occasionally by both sides. Often the answer is described in Rule 30-T: "The truth lies somewhere in between." Although that rule is usually true, it does not tell you just where the truth can be found.

It is also quite possible that people who work for you have their own interests in the matter, which conflict with each other's and possibly with yours. Staff members who want you to make a particular decision, for good reasons or bad, are likely to emphasize or exaggerate the data which favors their position, and deny, ignore or denigrate information which contradicts their views.

Sometimes misinformation, or disinformation as it is called when the false data is deliberately disseminated, is relied upon by the decision maker, who does not know that what he has been told is false or distorted. That's why it is important for the decision maker to know his people, and to have formed an opinion on their credibility. This can be done by asking them questions and evaluating their replies.

Here is an example: Ask someone a question which he cannot answer, either because he does not know the answer or because there is no answer. Does he guess at an answer? Does he dodge the question and say something irrelevant? Or does he answer wisely and admit that he just doesn't know? Much of the so-called skill of management comes down to judging people, their confidence and their credibility, and learning to what extent you can rely on them.

What is also required in making assumptions is a keen sense of what is likely to be true, and the ability to judge how close to plausibility what you have heard appears to be. That does not mean that the unlikely is impossible, but if data is totally inconsistent with one's expectations, one should start by examining the discrepancy. It is not yet a rule, but it has been said, particular with regard to Bernie Madoff: "If it's too good too be true, it is." Perhaps it should be 25-M.

In evaluating what someone tells you, it is sensible to provide some margin for puffery, self-protection and defense of one's staff. Hardly anyone tells the exact truth, and if someone does, you may have reason to be concerned that the gift of precise recollection will some day be turned against you.

These attributes are difficult to quantify, and they vary from person to person and often depend on relatively extraneous factors: time, mood, hunger, thirst, temperature (rooms used to interrogate prisoners, for example, can be heated or cooled in order to make the prisoner less comfortable). A great deal can be done legitimately, far short of waterboarding, to induce people to be more accurate in their recollections of past events.

That is why it is so important, in running an agency, to get to know your people as individuals, and not just the handful that immediately surround you and cater to you. Talk to people when you see them, sometimes ask them questions as to what they are doing. It is too easy for a commissioner to act like a monarch, the master of all he surveys, the direct emisssary of His Majesty the Mayor (regardless of who is mayor). Such an official often unconsciously limits his conversation to people who serve at his pleasure, urgently desire his good will, and are unwilling to say or do anything which they believe carries with it the risk of jeopardizing their relationship with their master.

It has not quite jelled into a rule, but I believe that the higher up one gets on the food chain, the less likely one is to be told the truth. To take the most grotesque example, which Nazi official would be likely to tell Hitler that Germany was losing the war? To a lesser degree, this principle applies around the office.

How to deal with this situation? First, select people you can trust, preferably through shared experience. If you do not have that authority, which is often the case, test the people to find out whether they are truthful and trustworthy. Second, encourage open discussion and full disclosure on their part. Praise those who speak frankly, and express some displeasure at reports which strike you as exaggerated, self-serving or unlikely to be true. Let your staff see that you value truth and accountability, and make modest disclosure of your own past experiences and reverses. You do not have to be a mystery person like a Freudian psychiatrist. Be as normal as you can manage.

These simple admonitions may seem manifest to some of you. However, they are not intuitive for most people. It is much easier, in a meeting situation, to accept whatever someone says, rather than challenge it. Silence, often interpreted as acquiescence, makes the meeting go more smoothly, and avoids hurt feelings which can mutate into negative words and actions. Moreover, if you speak up, whatever you say can be potentially interpreted as hostile to a group with which the target identifies, whether it be one realted to ancestry, religion, nationality, gender or sexual orientation.

Part of the decadence of today's social order is that too many people see themselves as representatives of a group or tribe, rather than as individuals responsible for their own decisions and their own conduct. Supervisors feel compelled to adopt the same values, because they know that any decision they make, especially on personnel, is subject to review, and they may be accused of retribution or racism or anything that can be fitted into a counterclaim.

Unfortunately, to report or act against misconduct means that one often puts oneself at risk of retaliation, under cover of the law. In the past, we have generallly interpreted retaliation to acts by officialdom to punish employees for union activity or for making complaints to the authorities. Retaliation by employees can also be a motive for aggressive actions against supervisors for doing their jobs faithfully. The result is that fewer disciplinary actions are taken and more dereliction of duty is countenanced. Who wants trouble?

We see this problem in social service programs and in Medicare and Medicaid. Desirable programs are abused by corrupt service providers. The protections of due process make it difficult to prevent dishonesty and fraud. In these circumstances, as in so many areas involving government, the law is on the side of the crooks. In part this is because law enforcement is restrained by due process, as it should be, however those who violate the law are unconcerned with statutory inhibitions. They simply take what they can get. They are beating the system.

The most prevalent vice among public employees, however, is not corruption but idleness. When a particular task is completed, people often do nothing until the next task is assigned. One can always volunteer when one's own work is done, but new employees who do that soon learn from their seniors what the work habits are in a particular unit. Sometimes they are good and sometimes they are bad.

Over time, just as water seeks its own level, the rate of activity approaches the lowest common denominator of the units involved. The late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote of "defining deviancy down". That is sadly the norm in areas of the public work force.

In some agencies, and with regard to some tasks, the work to be done is strictly defined. A motorman, for example, must drive his train from one end of the line to another, no matter what his disposition may be on any morning. Sanitation employees have a route to cover, which they can do well or poorly, but can get in trouble if they do not complete. Letter carriers have precise locations to reach and exact tasks to perform. The time they save by doing their jobs quickly is usually regarded as their own.

Some employees, like firefighters, work in response to specific requests. The level of coverage is measured by the time it takes, after the alarm is sounded, to reach the site of the fire. Consideration of the cost-benefit ratio of additional fire houses is clouded by the emotional factor that longer response times may lead to the loss of life. That, plus the strength of the firefighters' union, the desire of communities for visible protection, the presence of a fire station as a safe haven on a block, and the presence of strong males who could protect the public, contribute to intense public resistance to closing firehouses. We have about 218 firehouses in the city, many built a century ago when most houses were built with wood, which, as we know, burns.

As in many areas of human activity, laws with noble purposes are twisted by wrongdoers and their lawyers to protect bad behavior and discourage actions which would be helpful to the purpose the agency was created to accomplish. To some, the government of the City of New York is a giant pinata, and the object of their efforts is to extract as much of its contents as possible for themselves.

The defense of the city treasury is itself expensive, and takes funds away from direct service delivery. Yet it is essential to protect the city from even further spoliation than it already suffers. People do not guard public funds as zealously as they protect their own. The Soviet Union made that discovery when it forced Russian peasants into collective farms, which never produced as much as the individual farmers were able to grow on their own small plots. Millions of people starved to death in the Stalin area, in part as a result of this misjudgment of individual motivation.

The secret of good government, or sound management, is to have individual desires and ambitions coincide with, rather than oppose, benefit for the general public. Too often in our structures the opposite is true, and in those situations the public usually loses out, because no state is powerful enough to imprison everyone, and if the power were there, who would be left to do the work? It is easier for tyrants to prohibit certain activities than to compel them, although even Prohibition proved extremely difficult to enforce.

There are many variables in all these situations, far more than we could name. Certain principles of human behavior can be identified. We are certain there are others, of equivalent importance, and we seek them. Here are six:

1. People act in what they believe to be their own interest, even though in many situations they are mistaken.

2. People tend to defend their relatives, friends and neighbors against external authorities, if they have the opportunity to do so.

3. People often do not believe the words of elected and appointed officials, because frequently they have turned out to be false.

4. People resent wealth and success in others which they feel to be undeserved, based on connections rather than merit.

5. People want their children to do well, and will make some sacrifices to achieve that purpose.

6. People have a sense of fairness, and do not like others who attain or retain power by violating common standards of decency.

Suggestions as to other principles of behavior are invited from our readers, and may be added to the list.

Anyone with particular knowledge of how these principles apply to the operation of public agencies is encouraged to share thoughts and observations with us. You may write anonymous, pseudonymously, initially or under your own name. Your wishes will, of course, be respected.

The Politician's Dilemma

2011-04-18T12:26:00.001-04:00

Political Decisions Can Be Costly,

Even When Made on the Merits.

For nine years we have been writing about New York city and state government. For the most part, when one writes a column, it is to call public attention to a situation which requires correction. Relatively few columns are devoted to the praise of an individual or agency, unless such good work has been bookmarked by those with authority.

This does not mean that we view the government as doing badly on the whole. If one were to do a thorough review, one would find different scores for different agencies, just as a report card could find a student strong in some areas and deficient in others. There are some leaders in government who possess exceptional merit, and there are others whose functioning is below par. Sometimes they are propped up by deputy mayors, City Hall staff, or their own deputy and assistant commissioners, who they either appointed or inherited, or were imposed on them by actors either seeking to help or undermine the hapless commissioner.

It also happens in government, and I assume in business, that there are honest people doing good jobs, who draw the disfavor of others who covet their offices, their lands, their staffs and the public attention the good guys may or may not receive. Competitive Type A people who are appointed or elected to public office frequently desire to increase their influence and their authority, and power being to some extent a zero-sum game, their ambition can only be fully accommodated at the expense of others. Sometimes those others have given offense or provoked adverse reactions, but it is more the case that the casus belli was simply their existence. How, for example, did Luxembourg provoke Nazi Germany?

A great deal of internecine warfare in city government is conducted in secret, because it is considered poor form to publicly attack anyone in the same administration, unless the mayor has given the signal for the dogs to bite. That is a highly unlikely eventuality, since almost everyone serves at the pleasure of the mayor (a few officials, like members of the Housing Authority, serve for fixed terms).

Some mayors want everybody to be part of one big happy family, but even in such families there are conflicts between siblings. In unhappy families children may stick together to protect themselves and each other from their parents, provided that the parents do not exacerbate matters by playing favorites. Problems of overlapping jurisdiction or territorial incursions can be brought to broader attention at the mayor's cabinet meetings.

Those meetings, which may or may not be important in forming and implementing policy, do bring people together in one room, and one can always learn from the interactions of the mayor, his principal subordinates, and the remainder of the herd, people who at any given time may be in varying states of favor with their organizational superiors.

A problem faced by any chief executive is that he is limited by the information he receives, particularly from those close to him or who have access to him during the day. If one is in conflict with another commissioner, and the other fellow is at City Hall, or is in a field in which the mayor has particular interest, one is disadvantaged in any dispute because the mayor will have heard much more of the other fellow's side of the story than he has of yours. One deputy mayor described the actions of his rivals as "pissing in the mayor's ear." The mayor may or may not realize that he is being worked over, depending in part on whether the smearer is as subtle as a serpent. Each actor presents himself as the devoted instrument of the mayor's wishes. The trouble comes when the mayor is wrong.

Some public officials are said to have enjoyed the competition between members of their staff, and may even have stoked some disputes, or at least not tried particularly hard to avoid or ameliorate them. Limiting our description to those who have passed away, we cite Franklin D. Roosevelt as a President who did not terribly mind infighting by his staff and cabinet members. One may argue that truth emerges from the prism of different views, or one can retreat to the maxim, "Too many cooks spoil the broth."

One of the weapons that is employed in office politics is leaking to the press, as well as the false allegation that others have leaked to the press. It is a clever defense for the leaker to blame the leak on his target, and if he has greater access to the mayor than his victim, he may prevail. We recall one particular case where an innocent commissioner was dismissed peremptorily because of a stale newspaper story that had, in fact, been cleared with City Hall. This was not a conspiracy directed at the commissioner, who had in fact given no offense, but he was collateral damage in City Hall's effort to control the situation.

Decent and honorable people serving in high office can be, and often are, victims of misinformation. A very important part of the skill set required is a keen sense of to what extent what you are told is likely to be true. The higher up one rises on the food chain, the less likely one is to be told the truth. Saddam Hussein is said to have shot on the spot a cabinet member who reported facts he did not want to hear. The plaintive cry, "Don't shoot the messenger", has a basis in reality. Lack of information by the chief has led to continuing wars, campaigns or programs, long after it became relatively clear that the strategy employed was not effective.

Government decisions are made more complex because they have a political side to them, and there is often a cost in making a correct decision. The decision in 1980 to close Sydenham Hospital, an obsolete facility in Harlem which was replaced by a much newer one, caused considerable distress in the community because Sydenham was the first voluntary hospital in the United States to have African-American physicians on its staff. The hospital building was aging, and did not meet contemporary standards for a hospital even thirty years ago. Deputy Mayor Robert F. Wagner, Jr. and public health professionals recommended the closing of the hospital, which was also regarded as providing inferior care for its remaining patients. The dispute was in part stirred by people who would never use the hospital themselves if they were ill. Mayor Koch later said that he regrets closing the hospital, although the decision was made on the merits. In any event, the hospital would certainly have closed years ago, as many newer hospitals have been shuttered.

One must also consider the likelihood that if the people are going to throw you out of office if you act on the objective merits of a particular issue, you may desire to try to keep your job so you and your devoted and hardworking staff can continue the good work which has been shown in many other areas. Political self-immolation is not required over basically local decisions that generate strong emotions among those who disagree with your position. There is also the problem that eventual outcomes of particular decisions can be difficult to predict reliably at the time when the decision (to build or not to build) must be made. If an obsolete police station or other facility is closed now, and the replacement is not completed by the next election, that may impact voters' attitudes toward the decision and the official held responsible for it.

We have discussed a number of aspects of the decision-making process in this essay, necessarily relatively superficially because of length limitations. We will return to the subject if our readers are interested. Let us know.

A Missing Link

2011-04-14T13:47:00.004-04:00

Wherefore Art Thou, O Green Book?

We've Waited Three Years For Thee.

New York City's Green Book, which has been missing in action for three years, will reappear in July, according to the commissioner in charge of preparing, editing and printing it.

The Green Book is an invaluable compendium of federal, state, and city agencies and executives, including addresses, phone numbers, and an outline of responsibilities. It has been published by the city, and sold to the public, for the last twelve mayoral administrations. It is an annual directory, just like the telephone book, the World Almanac and other works of reference with periodically changing data.

"The need of a comprehensive directory of city departments has long been recognized, but has remained for the present administration to issue the first edition," said Supervisor of the City Record Peter J. Brady in 1918. Note how Brady credits his boss, Mayor John P. Hylan, who had defeated reform Mayor John Purroy Mitchel in 1917.

Mitchel, who had been known as "The Boy Mayor of New York", died at the age of 38 in July 1918, less than seven months out of office, when he fell out of a single-seater scout plane he was piloting over Lake Charles, Louisiana. He held the rank of major in the Air Service, which preceded the Army Air Corps, which preceded the United States Air Force. As the Times reported, his seat belt was unfastened at the time of the accident.

A handsome monument to Mayor Mitchel is located at 90th Street and Fifth Avenue, near the entrance to Central Park. The area is used by the New York Road Runners Club, and a statue of Fred Lebow is nearby.

From 1918 on, the Green Book was published regularly until the current administration took office. In the nine years of the Bloomberg era, the book appeared annually for four years, culminating in a volume with a saffron cover, which was an hommage to the artists Christo and his wife, Jeanne-Claude, whose work, The Gates, was exhibited in Central Park for two weeks in February 2005

The city then missed two editions in a row for the first time in the book's history. Since the 2008-09 edition, a tribute to PlaNYC, another mayoral initiative, the presses have been silent for another two years.

Commissioner Edna Wells Handy, a career public servant, is the new commissioner of the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, succeeding Martha K. Hirst, who served over eight years. Ms. Handy told us today that the next print edition of the Green Book will appear in July 2011, which is just three months off. An on-line edition may appear earlier, which would be of enormous value to the public, particularly people who have to deal with city agencies.

The 311 telephone line, launched by Mayor Bloomberg in 2003, was created to handle inquiries from people who did not know what agency could help them. It has fulfilled that function, but often is compelled to refer callers to the agency with jurisdiction, where assistance might or might not be available. At the same time, many agency information numbers were eliminated, so even people who knew who to call were shunted into 311.

The New York Times described the plight of the Green Book three weeks ago in an article by David W. Chen, AN UPDATE OF NEW YORK'S OUTDATED DIRECTORY? THE WAITING CONTINUES. You can click here to read Chen's witty and engaging piece. Subscribers to the Times have unlimited access to its website; visitors get twenty views per month.

Mr. Chen wrote: "So why, then, no new Green Book? The answer, according to the Bloomberg administration, has nothing to do with the current economic malaise. Nor does it have anything to do with any plans to put the Green Book online. And there is certainly no evidence that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg either wants to delay publication or has made this a lower-than-low priority.

"Instead, the official explanation is that there have been too many things to update, first after the 2009 citywide elections, then after the 2010 elections."

Elections have been held each November since before the Green Book was born in 1918. The high rate of re-election by incumbents in gerrymandered districts makes changes based on election returns relatively modest.

Mayor Bloomberg's deserved reputation as a skilled manager makes it unlikely but not impossible that such an historic change from the policy of annual publication would escape the notice of someone at City Hall.

Then again, it is possible that Mayor Mitchel was unaware of the fact that seatbelts in an airplane must remain fastened, particularly if the pilot is the sole passenger.

The law of gravity is less forgiving than the laws of politics.

Best Served Cold

2011-04-12T17:56:00.002-04:00

Before Most of You Were Born,

Big Fish Swam in State Politics

NOTE: A few of you already know most of this history, but the majority will pick up some information which is no longer widely disseminated in 2011. It helps us to know what happened years ago, and how history sometimes repeats itself and sometimes does not. The dispositive rule in some cases is 25-W: What goes around, comes around, or, put more briefly and crudely, 15-P: Payback is a bitch.

New York City politics has changed considerably in the last half century. For one thing, the characters are of diminished stature. For another, more have been unseated by prosecutors than by electoral rivals.

Perhaps the most important mayoral election in the post-World War II period came in 1961. There was a full-dress, take no prisoners contest between the five Democratic county leaders, and the reform wing of the Democratic Party, whose candidate for Mayor was the two-term incumbent, Robert F. Wagner. Mayor Wagner was the son of the illustrious senator from New York, who as a committee chair, gave his name to the National Labor Relations Act (the Wagner Act) and played a pivotal role in the passage of the Social Security Act, adopted in 1935 in Franklin D. Roosevelt's first term. The Social Security Act of 1965, passed under President Lyndon B. Johnson, created the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

Manhattan Borough President Wagner was first elected mayor in 1953, with the support of two Democratic county leaders, Carmine DeSapio of Manhattan and Congressman Charles Buckley of the Bronx. The other three leaders, in Brooklyn, Queens and Richmond, supported the incumbent mayor, Vincent R. Impellitteri, candidate of the Lucchese family, for re-election. Impy lost, by a 2-1 margin.

In 1957 all five leaders supported Wagner for re-election, which he won easily over the New York City postmaster, but by 1961, he had fallen out with DeSapio in particular over a Senate nomination, and had sorely disappointed the other four by not appointing their followers to jobs and judgeships.

The five counties united with a slate for the top three offices in city government. The respected State Comptroller, Arthur Levitt, a Brooklynite, ran for mayor; State Senator (and later Queens District Attorney) Thomas Mackell ran for City Council President, and Joseph DiFede of the Bronx vied for comptroller. The ticket followed the time-honored tradition of recognizing three boroughs and the three most prominent ethnic groups of the era: the Jews, Italians and Irish.

Mayor Wagner, who lived in the Yorkville section of Manhattan and whose ancestry was German and Irish, responded to DeSapio's challenge by building his own ticket, relying on career civil servants, although they did have political ties. For Comptroller, he chose city Budget Director Abe Beame of Brooklyn, and for Council President, Deputy Mayor and former Sanitation Commissioner Paul Screvane of Queens. As luck would have it, the Wagner slate covered three major boroughs and the same three ethnic groups as the DeSapio ticket represented.

The reformers' campaign featured Eleanor Roosevelt and former Governor and Senator Herbert H. Lehman, who attacked DeSapio and his fellow leaders as bosses. DeSapio was also a crook, and was convicted and served two years in Federal prison for bribery of Mayor John Lindsay's Water Commissioner.

In 1992, Mayor Ed Koch, who had defeated DeSapio three times in races for Greenwich Village district leader, said: "He is a crook, but I like him... He always gets the most applause when he is introduced at Democratic dinners."

In 1955, at the peak of his power, DeSapio was on the cover of Time magazine, was appointed Secretary of State of New York State by his governor, Averell Harriman, and was pushing Harriman, whose family owned the Union Pacific railroad, for President of the United States in 1956. In supporting Harriman for governor, DeSapio pushed aside Congressman Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., whose mother took the slight with extreme prejudice to DeSapio.

Why, we ask, were those political figures who strode the state a half century ago, so much more memorable than what we have today? The Republican Party has descended into nominating nonentities for governor, such as Pierre Rinfret in 1990 and Carl Paladino in 2010, who dragged down their running mates. The Democratic Party had an unfortunate seizure during the Spitzer and Patterson years, and now appears to be on the road to recovery.

The weakness of governors has led to the relative empowerment of the state legislature, called by the Brennan Center for Justice the "most dysfunctional" in the United States. That was in 2004, before a parade of felons and misdemeanants brought the Senate and Assembly into even further disrepute.

The political history of New York State is not taught, except at the college level. We believe it is important for people to know what went on in the middle of the twentieth century. Were things better then? There was more corruption in the old days, but less of it was discovered. We don't know that for a certainty, but it is a rule of human nature that people in general and politicians in particular are attracted to money. It requires constant effort to clean out the Augean stables. There is an ebb and flow of wrongdoing. We believe that, in 2011, integrity, even if it is not liked, is more likely to be respected.

The United States Attorneys for the Eastern, Southern and Northern Districts of New York State are doing the job that many local district attorneys have not carried out. Their latest trophy, Brooklyn Senator Carl Kruger's taped phone calls, appear to justify the thousands of hours of listening. There is no reason to believe that Kruger and Assemblyman William Boyland, whose prosecutions follow the cases of Bruno, Seminerio, McLaughlin, Gordon, Velella, Hevesi, et al., are the last alleged thieves in Albany. Former Senator Pedro Espada, Kruger, and Boyland are awaiting trial, and have pleaded not guilty. This is sometimes, but not always, a prelude to plea bargaining by the defendant, but it is difficult to see how a bargain can be reached without requiring jail time.

Black Thursday

2011-04-12T17:52:00.001-04:00

Mayor Fires Chancellor Black

After 97 'Unsatisfactory' Days

We were surprised today to learn that Mayor Bloomberg dismissed his hand-picked Schools Chancellor, Cathie Black, after 97 infelicitous days as chief of New York City's school system. The mayor did not set a speed record, however, in dismissing a commissioner who did not work out.

That distinction falls to Mayor Edward I. Koch, who took just 74 days to fire Robert J. Milano, whom Koch had appointed Deputy Mayor for Economic Development at the start of his first term in 1978. Milano died in February 2000, and Koch said today that they parted ways because Milano wanted to expand his agency and Koch wanted to shrink it.

Ms. Black was never able to counter the wave of negative judgments that followed her appointment by Mayor Bloomberg on November 9, 2010, a scant hour after the departure of Joel I. Klein, who had set a record for length of service. Klein was chancellor for more than eight years, Bloomberg having appointed him on July 29, 2002. Ms. Black also set a record, for brevity of service.

In general, Mayor Bloomberg has been praised for the quality of his appointments to high city positions. He has a Committee on Appointments, led by the highly respected former Deputy Mayor (under Koch), Nat Leventhal. The Black selection was out of character and did not follow the normal pattern of vetting potential candidates. It is suspected that the mayor was more than willing to dispense with the services of Chancellor Klein, whose luster had been dimmed by Federal statistics indicating that the academic achievement of New York City students was not as great as Mr. Klein had led New Yorkers, including perhaps the mayor, to believe.

The beleaguered mayor deserves some credit for firing Ms. Black before she became a further embarrassment. He showed that he could dismiss his own appointees, even if that leads to the conclusion that he made an error in hiring them in the first place. It should also be pointed out that although this is the tenth year of his mayoralty, it is the first time that such an inappropriate appointment was made, and he corrected it on his own.

We were highly skeptical of the Black appointment from the start, and wrote about it twice. On November 10, we wrote, under the headline KLEIN OUT, BLACK IN. DOES SHE KNOW HOW TO TEACH THE 3R'S?:

"One would imagine that if one were seeking to fill the most important school superintendency in the United States, some person could be found who was both a brilliant manager and had some experience in public or private education. The appointment was not required to have been announced within minutes of the news of Joel Klein's resignation to enter the field of publishing."

On November 12, under the headline, UNWEIGHTED BY EXPERIENCE, CATHIE BLACK SEEKS WAIVER. WILL MAYOR'S WISH PREVAIL?, we wrote:

"No truly independent screening panel of educators is likely to conclude that no experience whatsoever in their professional field is adequate preparation for the most difficult and complex job in local public education. If they felt that way, they would be expressing the view that their own professional qualifications had little value, and that any corporate executive could fill the positions they now hold...

"It could be said that the chancellor, a person whose importance is comparable to that of the police commissioner, should be a person of impeccable and undisputed credentials, a Horace Mann of the 21st century, if such a person could be found and persuaded to take the job. To select a chancellor with no background whatsoever in education is certainly a daring leap of faith."

The leap of faith has not led to a happy landing, and the plug has pitilessly been pulled on the publisher. President Kennedy and thousands of others have said that public service is the highest calling, if it is done wisely and well. If it is not, one finds another person to serve. The republic will endure. So will Ms. Black.

The task now falls on Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott. We have known him for many years, and we like and respect him. This will be the most challenging task he could possibly attempt. We hope he succeeds.

One piece of advice for Mr. Walcott: Call Diane Ravitch and Sol Stern. You don't have to do everything they say, but you should listen to them carefully. They can tell you a lot about the system for which you are now responsible. They are not bound by the mistakes of the past, and neither should you be. There are over a million children out there for whom you should be a great hope. Do everything you can not to let them down.

90 Days to First Base

2011-03-31T16:53:00.002-04:00

A Turn for the Better

In State Government

For nine years, we have been writing about city and state government, from the point of view of someone who has been very fortunate to have enjoyed (more often than not) fifty-three eventful years in New York City public affairs, in the executive, legislative and judicial branches, as a civic group's watchdog and as a blogger.

The substance of the 748 articles, all of which are available on our blog, www.nycivic.org, tend to be related to fiscal responsibility, public and private corruption, and the performance of elected officials. There is widespread discontent with the state legislature and the performance of its swollen and self-serving solons. We have also seen arrests and indictments of city and state officials for dishonesty (with an occasional rap for assaulting a girlfriend, a newspaper photographer, a staff member or a police officer).

Public attention focuses on notorious cases, based on the importance of the accused and the dimension of the misconduct. The case of former Governor Eliot Spitzer is a textbook example. The governor is the most important public official in the state, although the United States Senators may have more national influence. The governor's behavior was not that grievous a criminal offense because it was sex between adults who were more than consenting.

The Mann Act is a prosecutorial weapon to obtain guilty pleas from people who do not want to go to trial on a charge punishable by a longer sentence. The law was originally The White Slave Traffic Act of 1910. It prohibits the interstate transportation of females for 'immoral purposes'. The first person prosecuted under the act was the first African-American heavyweight boxing champion of the world, Jack Johnson, who had an affair with a white prostitute, whom he later married. Johnson was later rearrested for an earlier crossing of a state line with another woman, who testified against him. He was found guilty and sentenced to a year and a day in prison, the maximum under the law.

What was really shocking in the Spitzer case was the absurdity of it all. Why should a governor with an attractive, intelligent and devoted wife jeopardize his reputation, his family's good name and his successful career for momentary carnal gratification? And why pay thousands of dollars for a service available at far lower cost? What this shows is a person so possessed and self-deluded that he really was not fit to be governor. One could not rely on his judgment on important issues because of the enormous lack of self-control he repeatedly demonstrated.

Even so, the legislature would not have impeached him for his dalliances if they didn't hate him already, for his bullying and threats, and the general contempt he showed for all of them. The contrast with Andrew Cuomo is striking. He may or may not have any higher opinion of his colleagues in government than Spitzer had, but he knows what to say and what not to say to keep people happy and to get them to do what he wants them to do.

When the accused governor asked Speaker Sheldon Silver about his prospects if the Assembly were to consider his impeachment, he was told that he would receive no more than a handful of votes against impeachment. (I wasn't there at the conversation, of course, but it has been widely reported and not contradicted. The statement has the ring of truth.) The sexual indulgence simply provided an excuse for the dysfunctional legislature to rid itself of a pesky governor, who would put the rest of them in jail if he could.

Unfortunately, the forced resignation took state government out of the frying pan into the fire. It would be too painful to recount the errors, misjudgments, false and misleading statements, intrusions into criminal cases, appointments and dismissals of personnel, not to mention other embarrassments that marred Governor Spitzer's successor's term.

The strong start by Governor Cuomo has raised some hopes that the state may, after all, be governable. The sight of Republican leader Skelos and Speaker Silver, along with their minority counterparts in each house, shows that it is possible for people to work together, in their own interest of course, regardless of party.

One must not forget, however, that the state's basic problems remain unsolved despite the remarkable agreement by its leaders. The financial problem looms every year, and pension and interest costs may continue their upward spiral. The cuts in education and social services will have some cost, but failure to stem the constant increases in these big-budget items would be inexcusable.

Looking back to 1995, Governor Pataki's first year, he too reduced the budget. Then the state reverted to its constant upward climb in expenditures. We hope that the new Governor Cuomo will not be a one-year wonder, but will continue to exhibit fiscal responsibility despite the demands of state employees. What is not said is that there are other ways to cut the budget, locating and excising unnecessary or excessive expenditures, without closing down programs which are essential to physical or mental health and competently administered. It takes more work to cut with a scalpel than with a meat-axe, but if the result is superior service at lower cost, the effort will be worthwhile.

Day 90 - Some things have changed.

Herding Cats

2011-03-28T17:19:00.003-04:00

Glory Be. Big Three Agree.

Foresee Albany Tranquility

The Post's front-page headline this morning, PIGS FLY, reflected the skepticism and cynicism that some New Yorkers feel at the report that the governor and legislative leaders had agreed on a state budget five days in advance of the April 1 deadline. The Times' headline was predictably more sedate: ALBANY STRIKES BUDGET ACCORD TO CUT SPENDING. The News' block head was HAMMER TIME, a catch phrase used by '80s rapper M.C. Hammer.

There was some wonderment at the timely bipartisan agreement, considering that the Senate is Republican and the Assembly Democratic. In fact, however, it would have been more difficult to reach agreement if both houses of the legislature had been controlled by the Democrats. In that eventuality, the party leaders would have no one to blame but themselves for their failure to submit entirely to the demands of the interest groups who contribute so handsomely to their campaigns. This way, they can blame the opposition party. Rule 18-X-6 applies here: "The Devil made me do it."

The state budget proceedings are generally fraught with misrepresentation by the participants. How can a ten billion dollar projected deficit disappear overnight without new taxes or new borrowing? The mayor and the governor are in direct conflict, as their predecessors have been for over fifty years or more. The worst battles were between two Republicans, Nelson Rockefeller and John Lindsay.

When one consults experts as to who is telling the truth with regard to financial claims, one is told that the two sets of numbers are both accurate, but are derived from different baselines, and therefore impossible to compare.

The possibility remains that the deal will fall apart over the next few days, as each party tries to derive maximum advantage under the frame of reference agreed upon. In that event, the high popularity of the governor in the polls, combined with the low regard shown for the legislature, should give Andrew Cuomo the upper hand over the refractory solons, a number of whom are ethically challenged.

Conventional wisdom has it that the outcome is ordained by the fact that the State Constitution gives the governor great power over the budget. Speaker Sheldon Silver and former Senate President Joseph Bruno tried to amend the State Constsitution in 2007 to give the legislature power over the governor on the state budget, but their plan was defeated at the polls.

Former Governor Paterson had the same authority that Governor Cuomo has now, but did not make the fullest use of it. There are critical theories as to why this was the case:

l. He was unaware that he had power over the budget.

2. He knew he had the power, but was indifferent to making the effort to use it.

3. He knew he had the power, and he wanted to use it, but did not know just how to do so.

4. He didn't want to upset any of the special interests in the Democratic Party, or be responsible for any budget reductions that would impact negatively any of his perceived communities and supporters.

5. He wanted to use it, but was so grateful to the legislature for not seeking to pursue him for various ethical misjudgments that he did not want to ruffle their feathers by a major disagreement over his authority.

6. Not being a friend and mentor of the Chief Judge, he feared the outcome of litigation over the issue.

7. No longer having available the services of Fr. Charles J. O'Byrne, his competent and trusted confidant, he feared that his case would not be adequately or professionally pursued.

8. He thought it might injure the Democratic Party to have a public quarrel of this nature with the Speaker.

9. Any combination of the first eight reasons.

In fact, Governor Paterson did affirmatively make use of his Constitutional authority in 2010. He acted after the April 1 budget deadline expired, by sending continuing resolutions to the legislature which included various budget reductions, some of which affected issues of public policy.

If the legislature failed to approve his resolutions, the government would have to shut down for lack of funds, causing some disruption to the public and in effect locking out state employees. Governor Paterson had success with this tactic, which Governor Cuomo is widely believed to be ready to use again to achieve the reductions and policy changes which he, and a majority of the public, generally believe to be desirable.

At this point, the close of his third month in office, Cuomo is off to a healthy start. "Day One: Everything Changes", the slogan of the Spitzer administration, is in the dustbin of history. By his third month, Spitzer was at war with the Senate and the Assembly. It was a war he was not destined to win.

With regard to Cuomo, so far the public likes what they have seen of him. He has handled himself well, speaking with both force and restraint. He was particularly good with regard to the strange intrusion by the Roman factotem into his private life, a 21st century reprise of a 16th century dispute between a pope and a king.

We don't have enormous confidence in the budget data that any politician offers, although by the laws of probability, some set of figures must be more accurate than others. It is said that the only true news in some papers is the obituaries, and the only true budget reductions come when people are separated from the payroll, or when prisons actually physically close. That has not yet come to pass, and we do not wish unemployment on anyone, especially in these difficult times. It is difficult, however, for ordinary people to figure out how it is that multi-billion dollar budget goals are proclaimed to have been achieved while personnel costs remain largely untouched and pension costs continue to rise.

Meanwhile, it is better to see both parties on good behavior than to watch them snipe. Governor Cuomo deserves credit for, at least temporarily, restoring good manners to the Capitol. We hope he stays calm. Remember, the governor proposes, the legislature appropriates, but the governor has the last crack at what the agencies spend. He cannot add to appropriations, but he can subtract, particularly in the event of financial emergency, which we have been told is the present exigency.

FYI, the California state budget deficit this year is estimated at $25.4 billion. We are not alone.

BTW: Former City and State Comptroller Alan Hevesi's sentencing on a felony conviction was postponed today after Judge Lewis Bart Stone sent the case back for assignment to another judge because of a potential conflict of interest between the judge and Hevesi's lawyer. Hevesi pleaded guilty on October 7, 2010. He had resigned as State Comptroller on December 22, 2006, after a prior conviction for an unrelated felony.

Lastly, for information about herding cats, click here.

The Wages of Sin

2011-03-16T16:14:00.000-04:00

Pensions for Crooks:

Are They Justifiable?

One of the perennial questions that arises in government is whether dishonest public officials, if convicted, should forfeit their pensions. There is considerable sentiment that an officeholder, whether elected or appointed, who has betrayed the people he was paid to serve faithfully should not be rewarded after he leaves government, because he did not deserve the compensation he received from the state or the city while he was enriching himself.

The pension forfeiture has been a powerful incentive over the years to keep police officers honest. A crooked cop is one of the worst enemies of good government, since physical protection is a basic service provided by local government, and officers who take bribes either to protect wrongdoers or to enforce the law not only violate their oath of office, but they undermine both the concept and the reality of equal justice under law.

The issue becomes murkier when we consider the different varieties of criminal conduct. For example, some acts which are clearly crimes are unrelated to the employee's official duties. A city worker kills his wife, and is sent to prison. All during his career, he has been making contributions to the pension fund. Those savings should, in fairness, go to his children, whose mother is dead and whose father is in jail. His crime should not impoverish the innocent children, who have already been victimized. This leads to questions of where to draw the line.

The case of former Supreme Court Justice Victor Barron of Brooklyn, who continued to collect an $89,094 pension during the two years he was imprisoned for demanding a substantial bribe from a litigant in order to settle a case that was before him, was considered particularly offensive. While the state was paying for his room and board in prison, it was also compensating him handsomely for what had been corrupt service. Who knows how many other bribes Barron received before one lawyer complained to District Attorney Joe Hynes, who subsequently launched an investigation?

Is a public pension a form of deferred income, which vests in the pensioner's family, or is it a reward paid at the conclusion of one's public service for faithful performance of duty? There is a provision under which city employees can defer income to 401(k) accounts, and that money is clearly theirs, except that it may be used to pay a fine. As to the justification for forfeiture of a pension, which is primarily the city's money, the case is perhaps murkier.

One great advantage of the city's right to deny a pension to a dishonest employee is that it enables lesser settlements to be made in cases of misconduct. There are some sins or indiscretions or serious errors of judgment for which a fine of thousands of dollars would be an appropriate penalty. That could provide for the recovery of misappropriated funds and serve as a deterrent to others not to engage in similar misconduct. If the pension were to be immune from recapture, there would be no incentive for the employee to pay or settle the claim against him; he could simply retire and collect his ill-gotten gains for the rest of his life, as could his wife, if she were his beneficiary. They could laugh all the way to the bank, or to Florida if they wanted their income to go farther.

There is a great variety of crimes that have been committed by public employees, both on the job and off the job. For instance, a social worker or HRA manager may wrongly certify someone as eligible to receive benefits. If this is done because the employee mistakenly believes the applicant is entitled to or worthy of benefits, whether food stamps, rent reduction, monthly subsidies, or enrollment in a particular program, that is one kind of error. If the employee himself receives personal benefit from that decision, whether cash, sex or unearned privileges of any nature, the situation is much more serious, and punishment should be more severe. If the case should justify dismissal, the issue of pension forfeiture should be considered as a potential part of the penalty, depending on the circumstances.

There should not be an ironclad rule in these cases, where the extent of the penalty should depend on the motive of the wrongdoers, the seriousness of the offense, the number of people victimized, denied their rights, or unjustly enriched or deprived, the length of time the conspiracy continued, the defendant's willingness to co-operate with the authorities, the value of that co-operation, to whom pension benefits may be allocated if the defendant's interest in receiving those benefits is revoked, as well as other facts which may be unique to the situation. No one rule can cover all the cases, but pension forfeiture should be within the range of available outcomes, depending on its gravity.

Often cases of this sort deal with people who have already messed up their lives, one way or another. Rule 16-J: "Nobody does it once" applies here, and people who are apprehended for one specific offense have usually committed others which did not come to the attention of the authorities. When I was at Parks, and a disciplinary proceeding was being held for an employee, the union lawyer would often argue that his client had had a spotless record for twenty years, and it was unjust to punish him severely for a single misstep. People familiar with the circumstances knew for a fact that the employee had been engaging in similar misconduct for years, and this was simply the first time the agency put its resources into catching him.

Should the hearing officer and the Commissioner keep those facts in mind, or should they consider this as a brand new case against a first-time offender. Is there a presumption of innocence when there has been no previous proceeding? Can a hearing officer consider what everyone knows, or is he bound by the record of this particular case? If he is bound by the record in determining guilt or innocence, when it comes to the penalty phase, is he required to assume that every act of misconduct is a first offense?

How many hearing officers, particularly those in middle management at the agency, can be deterred from findings of guilty or serious penalties by the fact that they must co-exist with the employees on trial and their union representatives? It helps no one's career to be identified as unsympathetic to working people, even if the misconduct of which they are accused consists of not working. The union leaders are likely to be around longer than the commissioners who come and go with the political winds. They remember who their friends are, people who are lenient with their members without regards to the facts of the cases they are assigned to judge.

Big Fish Is Hooked

2011-03-11T18:57:00.002-05:00

Out of the Closet

And Into the Cooler

The forces of good scored a major victory in the indictment of State Senator Carl Kruger, Assemblyman William Boyland and six accomplices in a bribery ring that goes back five years.

Until now, corrupt legislators had been picked off by the authorities one at a time, and their venality, although felonious, was relatively limited in its scope. This time a big fish has been nabbed, along with his bottom feeder associates.

The investigation was helped over the years by co-operating public officials seeking lighter sentences. Brian McLaughlin was the first to go; he gave up the late Anthony Seminerio, who was taped in expletive-laced conversations with Kruger's confederates.

We wonder how many more legislators, particularly from Brooklyn and Queens, are shivering at the prospect of future undesired contact with law enforcement agencies. The Aqueduct casino conspiracy of 2010, although well publicized, has not yet led to indictments. Since the plot was foiled, there may be insufficient grounds to send the plotters upstate. If they should be incarcerated, however, they will be counted as residents of their home districts downstate, thanks to their Democratic colleagues in the legislature who wanted to minimize Republican districts upstate.

The daily press gave substantial and well-merited attention to the arrests, which we do not need to retreat. We will, however, provide links which will inform you of the accusations, and articles about the case:

First is the 53-page criminal complaint, obtained by Preet Bharara, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, a position formerly held by Robert Morgenthau and Rudy Giuliani. Note the intercepted telephone conversations (p22 et seq.) between the alleged conspirators, including an Assemblymember who died in prison.

Among the other published accounts of the defendants' activities, both criminal and extra-curricular, are:

GAY POL'S $1 MIL "BRIBE" OUT-RAGE by Bruce Golding, Rich Calder and Dan Mangan (Post)

STATE SEN. CARL KRUGER AND ASSEMBLYMAN WILLIAM BOYLAND SURRENDER TO FEDS TO FACE BRIBE RAP by Scott Shifrel and Greg B. Smith (Daily News)

GRAFT CHARGES DEPICT KRUGER'S LAVISH LIFESTYLE by Nicholas Confessore and Michael Barbaro (New York Times)

ABOUT THAT CARL KRUGER CASH by Celeste Katz (Daily News)

THE ALBANY RACKETS (Editorial - Post)

INDICTED STATE SEN. KRUGER IS THE POSTER BOY FOR SLEAZE THAT AFFLICTS NEW YORK'S LEGISLATURE (Editorial - Daily News)

For nine years, we have railed against public corruption, starting with former Councilman Angel Rodriguez in our first column (3/21/02). Whenever one wrongdoer is found out, however, it seems that another rises to take his or her place. The system is remarkably enduring.

We believe that most public officials are honest and decent. Unfortunately, many are held in low regard because of the derelictions of their colleagues. It is also true that very few officials are concerned with the misconduct of their fellow legislators, they are much more comfortable ignoring fraud or corruption by their next door neighbors and running mates. These don't commit crimes themselves, but they are quite tolerant of those who do. There is no honor code in Albany.

Most New Yorkers are relatively satisfied with the people who represent them. This is in part because over the years they have received publicly-funded mailings or relied on constituent services. They may have met their local representative in the park.on the street, or in a church or synagogue. Voters may identify by gender, orientation or ethnicity with the name they see on election posters.

In addition, challengers to politicians are usually even less well known than the incumbents. That is why the re-election rate is so high, and why legislators have more to fear from prosecutors than from electoral rivals.

Nonetheless, the indictments are good news. We are aware that an indictment is merely an accusation, and a jury must be convinced of the defendants' guilt. Kruger has hired a fine lawyer in Benjamin Brafman, who while representing him will no doubt divest his client of a good portion of his allegedly ill-gotten gains.

We suggest you read as much as you care to of the US Attorney's complaint, and particularly the transcripts of the defendants' telephone conversations. A reasonable person would be hard pressed to develop a scenario under which the alleged conspirators would not be at fault.

It will probably take over a year before this matter is disposed of. We have on occasion quoted an old Greek saying, which was rendered in English in 1640 by George Herbert: "The mills of the gods grind slow, but they grind exceeding fine."

Let justice be done.

Echo and Narcissus

2011-03-09T17:42:00.002-05:00

Politicians Expect Submission

From 'Friends' and Reporters

In politics, as in most areas of human endeavor, people make decisions for a variety of reasons. In the course of human events, some turn out to be correct while others will be wrong, partially or entirely. Either the intended result will not be achieved, the cost will be too great, or unanticipated events will lead to consequences which will change the situation so much that the outcome, even though it was desired, will be unfavorable.

With some matters, one will be unable to tell for years, if ever, whether a decision was right or wrong. In other cases, a decision may advance the interests of one group and not be helpful to other equally worthy groups, and the intervention may or may not turn out to be in the overall public interest, or in the interest of people who are struggling to survive, establish and maintain families, and educate their children.

We are not talking about great ideological divides: socialism v. capitalism, pro-life v. pro-choice, religion v. secularism, etc. In these areas, people have different ideas as to what should happen, in many cases shaped by their own upbringing, their fear of eternal damnation, their belief in an afterlife, their social conscience and their views on public expenditures. Different ideologies and demographics help to define public opinion, which is subject to change depending on economic conditions, public events and military operations. These groups have different ideas of where the country is going, where it should be headed, and how it should get there.

As an organization, we are primarily concerned with state and local government and finance. We believe the quality of life in a city or state depends to an unexpected extent on the competence, commitment and integrity of its public officials, elected and appointed. We comment on decisions made by municipal officials, mainly mayors, and assume that their intentions are generally honorable, although many make their first priority their own re-election and electoral advancement, promotion to higher and more publicized offices or financial enhancement.

New York Civic is a good government organization. Our goal is to promote the honest and efficient government of the City and State of New York. There are many issues that arise in the course of administering a large city. Our resources are limited and we cannot participate in all or even most of them. What we try to do is to define and illuminate issues where an apparent injustice exists, or where there is conspicuous waste of public funds and make suggestions as to how these wrongs can be eliminated.

Judging each issue on what we believe to be its merits leads to the situation in which we periodically, sometimes intensely, differ from people we ordinarily respect. This causes politicians some distress, because many demand total agreement from those people who they consider friends. Actually their notion of friends is more of a Facebook definition than actual friendship with an individual. The relevant comment, attributed to President Truman, is "If you want a friend in Washington, buy a dog."

People you know or know about come in many categories: We will name a few, and remember that there is considerable overlapping. There are your relatives, friends, buddies, colleagues, fellow congregants, acquaintances, contributors, supporters, socialites, celebrities whose names you know, fellow ethnics, subscribers to the white pages, other candidates' contributors lists, corporate officials, lobbyists, students, former and present lovers.

There are also negative people: enemies, rivals, bullies, those jealous of you, those who don't like your face or your race, your principles or your beliefs, your family or your friends, or anything else which gives them an excuse to reject you.

Hopefully, there are many more people in the first category than in the second. But friends and supporters are likely to be more distressed than strangers when you do not agree with them on a particular issue. Their displeasure is intensified if they themselves seek or hold public office, and believe that your dissent on an issue is an expression of disloyalty or ingratitude to them. I have learned that the more frequently you agree with some people, the more upset they are likely to be if a disagreement is uncovered or develops in a particular situation.

Politicians in particular confuse friendship and approval with loyalty on particular issues. Some are more comfortable with people who disagree with them 90 per cent of the time than those whose disagreement rate is 10 per cent. Thinking of themselves as Caesars, they feel beset by brutes.

Just as friendship is often tested and sometimes terminated in an employer-employee relationship, it can similarly be strained in a politician-journalist relationship. If the honest writer feels a personal obligation to tell the truth, he will occasionally find himself out of step with his friend, the office holder.

Politics is a particularly narcissistic profession, the players I know, like actors or athletes, are usually often preoccupied with themselves and their own performances. If any of them are reading this, be assured that this observation does not apply to you. Self-absorption is part of the way they achieved the success they enjoy. Those people see disagreement on an issue as a personal affront, equivalent to betrayal by a friend. They think of the time they spent with you as having been wasted, even if you thought they were being amused, and that you were doing them a favor by listening to their self-praise and tales of how they outwitted others. To many players, a friend is a listener.

Ego is enhanced by riches. Great wealth, or even comfortable circumstances, tend to reinforce anyone's belief that they are better than other people. Just as clever people tend to judge others by their wit, paying less attention to their judgment; rich people judge others by their pocketbooks. This is more tolerable when the rich have earned their fortunes, but if their money is inherited, acquired through marriage, or stolen, the arrogance of wealth is particularly offensive.

The degree of self-involvement and adulation varies widely from person to person, and I do not wish to condemn the class of which I am proud to be a member. It is also true that over the long run the public sees through the phonies, although they may have through seniority, gerrymandering and intimidation climbed into positions in which they are relatively secure. Life is not particularly easy for the truth seeker. Then again, why should it be?

You may have noted that we have named no individuals or particular issues in this article. That is intentional. Our purpose is not to single out people or specific situations, but to draw attention to a condition in which people's professional judgments are modified or remain unexpressed because of their desire not to offend a source, a patron or a friend, and not to be excluded from what appears to be a charmed circle. The situation is probably worse in Washington, D.C., where politics is the principal business, and social acceptance is a function of presumed importance and the possibility of advancement to even greater glory.

The lessons we have drawn from recurring experiences with the pillars of society are relatively simple, and have been stated over the centuries by wiser people than we. Here are a few:

"Place not your trust in princes." Rule 26-P, derived from Psalm 146, verse 3. "Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation." Occasionally mistakenly attributed to Niccolo Machiavelli, author of "The Prince" (1513). In fact, his work is a handbook for princes.

"Be kind to man and beast." Rule 19. "Oh be kind to your web-footed friends, for a duck may be somebody's mother." A parody of "The Stars and Stripes Forever" by John Philip Sousa (1897).

"Gratitude is for favors yet to be received." Rule 35. Senator Robert F. Wagner told it to his son, Mayor Wagner, who told it to his son, Deputy Mayor Wagner, who told it to me. A related saying on the subject of patronage is that every job you fill gets you nine enemies and one ingrate.

"I am His Highness' dog at Kew. Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?" By Alexander Pope, from his "Epigram, engraved on the Collar of a Dog, which I gave to his Royal Highness" (Frederick, Prince of Wales).

The 30% Solution

2011-03-09T10:49:00.003-05:00

50% Grab Cut to 30%

But It's Still a Chunk

Of Principals' Junk

Last Thursday we reported about an injustice at the Department of Education, a decision by Tweed to confiscate half the money principals had saved from their budgets to deal with the severe cuts expected in the FY 2012 budget, which begins July 1.

The clawback was denounced by the principals of the affected schools, who said that their efforts at economy had been rewarded by headquarters seizing half the money the saved, unless they spent it by March 18. That would encourage wasteful spending to beat the deadline.

Yesterday the city retreated, by reducing its bite out of the schools' savings from 50 to 30 per cent. The story is told on A22 of today's Times in an article by Fernanda Santos, under the headline CITY AGREES TO TAKE LESS OF SCHOOL PRINCIPALS' BUDGET SAVINGS. Her lede:

"The New York City Education Department said Monday that it would allow principals to roll more money than anticipated from this year’s budget into next year's, but that they would still have to return some unspent money to the school system headquarters.

"Knowing that budget cuts were quite likely, many principals tried to stash some of this year's money, but Schools Chancellor Cathleen P. Black informed principals last month that the city would take 50 cents for every dollar they had managed to save. They protested that they were being punished for frugality, and on Sunday, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said during a radio interview that they had a point.

"The chancellor and the mayor met on Monday afternoon at City Hall. Afterward, the Education Department announced a compromise: The principals would have to return 30 percent of the money, or, as the department explained in a brief statement, the money would 'carry a 70 percent' in the school year that begins in September.

"Principals were not exactly appeased..."

The rest of the article contains the principals' objections and the chancellor's rationalization for her action and volte-face, and the mayor's approval of the result.

In our article Thursday, we speculated (we do not know) whether the original decision to take back the money which had been promised to the schools came from the chancellor or the Mayor. We thought that if the clawback came from Ms. Black, the mayor would have no trouble over-ruling her, since she is his creature. If the Mayor really wanted the cuts made, he would be unlikely to retreat completely. That is not his nature, nor is his obduracy necessarily a negative when dealing with matters of principle.

The 30 per cent solution is somewhat mystifying. The obvious compromise is to cut the baby in half, changing the clawback from 50 to 25 percent. The extra nickel being withheld is a symbol of who rules the roost, and it is not the principals, even though most of them were originally chosen by the Tweedlings. The amount of money at stake here is not great, the 5 percent difference comes out to $4 million citywide out of a budget that exceeds $21 billion, or less than one-fiftieth of one per cent, which is truly minuscule, except as a demonstration of power.

If Tweed wanted to change the rules of reimbursement, it should have done so for the next fiscal year, rather than allowing principals to make savings and at the last moment telling them they could not spend half the money they saved unless they bought tchotchkis within two weeks. That looked silly to everyone, and caused some embarrassment to the new Chancellor, whose reputation is based on her cost-cutting achievements as a publisher of Hearst magazines.

The mayor came to the rescue Monday afternoon with what appeared to be a compromise. The odd figure (30 percent) may be intended to convey the impression that the result is based on some rational computation, rather than simply patching over a mini-storm caused by promulgating an arbitrary scheme which undeniably would disappoint many more people than it would please, as well as carrying the odor of adults breaking their promises to children.

The money itself doesn't amount to a hill of beans, considering the huge size of the education budget. The switch shows that the mayor is responsive to reasonable criticism. The lesson for Tweed is to fight for principles, not against principals. This suggests Rule 21-W-1: "When will they ever learn?

Tweed Still At It

2011-03-04T11:12:00.002-05:00

Tweed Undercuts Principals

By Grabbing Half Their Nuts

We tend to write about what we view as major injustices, which means that minor injustices receive short shrift.

The Department of Education can briefly and appropriately be referred to as Tweed, referencing its abode at 52 Chambers Street, a building whose construction enriched the Democratic county leader at the time to an extent unmatched until the advent of CityTime 140 years later. The schools had been run since 1940 out of 110 Livingston Street, in Brooklyn, an address that in time became a metaphor for waste and bureaucracy. Rejecting figurative suggestions that it be blown up, the city sold the building and it is now a convenient if uninspired condo.

Those educrats not pensioned off reconstituted themselves in Tweed, a 19th century relic at the northern end of City Hall Park. Seized by idealism, the Tweedlings set up a City Hall Academy, a charter school to share their building and remind its occupants who they were supposed to serve. The children shortly afterward disappeared and the Academy was relocated. One doesn't use an executive suite for manufacturing, even in education.

The move to Manhattan does not appear to have drastically affected the thought practices of the Tweedlings, who reorganized the school system several times in a few short years. Their claims of educational achievement were debunked by state officials last July, and the longest-serving chancellor departed in December.

Although this is not a cosmic issue, it deserves more public scrutiny than it has yet received. What the Tweedlings have done this year is to renege on an agreement which allowed school principals to defer a small percentage of the annual appropriation for their school until the next year, to enable them to retain teachers or offer new programs. These are expenditures they would be unable to afford unless they were allowed to keep some unspent funds.

One of the key goals of education reform under mayoral control was to increase the authority of principals, while at the same time holding them responsible for the success or failure of their students. The principal was to be treated as the CEO of a school, not as a bureaucrat at the bottom of the Tweed totem pole.

This year, Tweed has notified the principals that one-half of the money they have saved and set aside will revert to headquarters if the money is not spent this year. The deadline for "use it or lose it" is now March 18.

The arbitrary decision to cut in half the small percentage that the principals can use to alleviate next year's budget shortfall flies in the face of Mayor Bloomberg's sound fiscal management, where he set aside two billion dollars to meet the revenue deficit that was anticipated with the Great Recession. The reason the city has fared so much better than the state government is that while the state legislature continued to spend recklessly as the crisis deepened, the mayor and the city council had foreseen the fiscal disaster and provided for it to the extent that they could.

The decision to renege is attributed to Schools Chancellor Cathie Black, who according to the Post, "dropped the bombshell in her weekly letter to principals telling them half the funds they manage to set aside for the next school year will be diverted to the DOE's central coffers."

A timeless fable that casts light upon this dispute, "La cigale et la fourmi" ("The Grasshopper and the Ant") was told by La Fontaine in the l7th century. The parable recounts the story of a grasshopper who spent the warm months singing, while the diligent ant dedicated his time to gathering food. Come winter, the grasshopper finds himself starving and begs the ant for help, but the ant instead admonishes him for his improvidence.

I feel it is appropriate to cite the tale here because we had to memorize it in Mr. Clement's French class at Junior High School 52 in Inwood. Later, I learned the fable was first written by Aesop twenty six hundred years ago, but since we were taught French and not Greek, we had to read La Fontaine's version.

The predicament of the formic principals was well related by Sharon Otterman in the February 17 New York Times, PENALTY FOR NEW YORK CITY PRINCIPALS WHO SAVE.

Her story concluded with this quote: "Ed Tom, principal of the Bronx Center for Science and Mathematics, a small high school, said he faced losing $125,000 from the $250,000 he had planned to save for next year enough for a year's afterschool program. 'I am in shock,' he said. Speaking of the central offices of the Education Department at Tweed Courthouse, he said. 'This money rightfully belongs to the school community, it doesn't belong at Tweed."

The Post's education reporter, Yoav Gonen, wrote for the February 18 paper, under this headline: FRUGAL PRINCIPALS FEEL BLACK'S 'PINCH'. His lede: "Frugal principals who manage to squirrel away rainy-day school funds to offset pending budget cuts are livid over a Department of Education bid to pinch half their savings."

Gonen quotes Sean Walsh, principal of IS 291 in Brooklyn. "This is insanity. It's saying whatever you put into this deferred account, you only get 50 percent back without any rationale as to why and what it would be doing to support the system as a whole."

The Post spoke to other principals, and reported: "Many were outraged about being punished for exhibiting the same sound fiscal management that Mayor Bloomberg has repeatedly touted as the impetus for Black's appointment as chancellor."

City Councilmember Elizabeth Crowley of Queens held a press conference today with several other elected officials at P.S. 128 in Middle Village protesting the Tweed directive. "Taking 50% of our schools' reserves will to do little to close a budget gap but will have a big impact on the programs schools can provide for our students," said the councilmember. "We are telling the Mayor and the DOE to not cut our schools reserves - it's bad education policy, it's bad management policy and it's bad budget policy. The DPPI [Deferred Program Planning Initiative] has allowed our schools to be fiscally responsible and ensures that money meant for our local schools, stays in our local schools. For the DOE to tap into schools' budget funds and blame budget deficits is disingenuous." Four elected officials joined in her statement.

It is hard for us to believe that Cathie Black ordered this policy shift on her own, breaking faith with the principals who are considered the cornerstones on which Mayor Bloomberg's program to reform the schools is built. Across the five boroughs, the total amount saved by the principals was around $80 million. Why should Black impair her own credibility by taking less than $40 million (the 50%) away from the schools to return to headquarters, when the Department's total budget exceeds $20,000,000,000? (That is twenty billion dollars, if there are too many zeroes to count.) Also, the fact that the principals have until March 18 to spend the money means there may not be any financial savings at all, just a lot more school supplies and toilet paper purchased.

The closer one looks at this episode, the odder it appears. One would think that this administration, in particular, would want to encourage initiative by principals through giving them a small percentage of their school budget to save for a rainy year, 2011-12. Why should high officials undermine themselves by tampering with prior promises? What is really the reason for this flip-flop, which has irritated so many people who are devoted to the schools?

There are two theories. Either this policy perturbation originated in City Hall, or it did not. Was Cathie Black being set up to take the fall? Assuming good intentions, and rejecting unproven conspiracy theories, let us believe that the decision was made at Tweed, either by Ms. Black or one of her staff members. If that be the case, the mayor can straighten out the situation in a flash - that is why we have mayoral control of the schools, which we all supported in 2003, and continue to support today because whether or not we have increased literacy, we do have more accountability. The mayor is clearly accountable, as he wanted to be.

If this mess originated with Ms. Black, she should be reminded that this is not the Hearst Corporation, which is a hierarchical corporate structure in which the views of underlings count for naught. There are over a thousand principals here, men and women generally deserving of considerable respect, who do happen to have educational credentials to justify their appointment. Why should these leaders be subjected to what amounts to a purse snatching?

If this scheme came from one of her staff, he or she should receive the same due process the Intifada principal was given, and assigned duties in which misjudgments will not cause public embarrassment and create ill will.

It is an extraordinarily difficult task to teach children, many from deprived backgrounds, to read, write and cipher. A frightening story that appeared today on the Times's website (which presumably will be in tomorrow's paper), CUNY ADJUSTS AMID TIDE OF REMEDIAL STUDENTS, by Lisa W. Foderaro, casts light on just how great are the challenges the Department of Education faces, if it is to make its graduates literate.

It is fair to suppose that the best ways to teach may not yet have been discovered. The point of today's article is not to take DOE to task for the performance of its million students; we may not know any better than they do on that subject. What we do know is that it makes sense to keep one's word, and not to take away what has been given, not to alienate the people you rely on to lead, and not to conceal what is being done or who has done it.

If one conducts oneself properly and obeys the rules of civilized behavior, people will be more likely to believe that what one is doing on more important matters is credible and makes sense.

The appropriate words here are those that Mayor Bloomberg for years has addressed to every commissioner just after he has appointed them: "Don't [mess] it up."

They're Off!

2011-02-24T18:17:00.000-05:00

2013 Mayoral Sweepstakes:

Field of Five Is Hot to Trot

Politics is usually more about the next election than the last one. So it is not surprising that the Republican candidates for the presidency in 2012 are off and running. The candidates for the New York City mayoralty in 2013 are close behind.

Considering political campaigns as conducted on a four-year cycle, we are now in the second lap of the race to succeed Mayor Bloomberg. The winner will become our 109th mayor (the first, listed in the Green Book, was Thomas Willett, in 1665). To go to more recent history, Fiorello Henrico LaGuardia, regarded by some as the city's greatest mayor, was the 99th. The interjacent eight mayors, and the number of years they served, are O'Dwyer-5, Impellitteri-3, Wagner-12, Lindsay-8, Beame-4, Koch-12, Dinkins-4 and Giuliani-8.

The most notable aspect of this list is that, in an overwhelmingly Democratic city, where Democratic candidates for comptroller, public advocate, borough president (except Staten Island), and the great majority of state legislators and city councilmembers (currently 46 out of 51) are Democrats, it is the candidate running on the Republican Party line who has won the last FIVE mayoral elections. The five Democratic losers, in chronological order, were David Dinkins, Ruth Messinger, Mark Green, Fernando Ferrer and Bill Thompson. As you can see, they represented varied ethnicities and both genders.

The race will be determined either by the Democratic primary in September 2013 or in the election that follows in November. Fund raising is well under way, because in the absence of actual results, who is the front runner is determined by standing in the polls and the amount of money that has been raised. These are the intermediate statistics of political contests, and as reports of current preferences and achievements, their publication influences future events, like contributions and declarations of allegiance.

It is human nature to want to identify with future winners, both for financial advantage for individuals and their businesses, many of which involve decisions to be made by city officials (on the merits, of course), or for their personal satisfaction in identifying themselves with public officials and believing themselves to be instrumental in the success of those they have favored. Invitations to Gracie Mansion don't hurt, either.

DIGRESSION: The best known aphorism making this point was recalled by President John F. Kennedy on April 21, l96l, at a press conference just after the Bay of Pigs debacle, when he said: "There is an old saying that victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan." Another JFK quote, on April 10, 1962, followed a US Steel decision to raise the price of steel by $6 a ton after Kennedy had pressured the United Steel Workers to accept modest increases in an effort to keep inflation down. Kennedy said: "My father always told me that all businessmen were sons of bitches, but I never believed it until now." In his book, "A Thousand Days" (1965), historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. says the remark was made privately, but soon reached the newspapers. People do talk. END

Back to the mayoral contest. To find prospective candidates, the logical place to begin is with other citywide elected officials and former officials. A brief rundown of the current field:

1. Comptroller John Liu holds the office most often used as a springboard for a mayoral race. Six out of the last seven comptrollers were defeated when they ran for mayor (Gerosa, Beame, Procaccino, Goldin, Hevesi and Thompson). Beame won on his second try, eight years later. Hevesi was subsequently elected State Comptroller, but was unable to complete his term because of legal issues.

2. Public Advocate (formerly City Council President, and before that President of the Board of Aldermen) Bill de Blasio will surely be a candidate. Five of his predecessors lost bids for the mayoralty: Newbold Morris, Paul Screvane, Paul O'Dwyer, Carol Bellamy and Andrew Stein (who ran for a year but withdrew before petitioning). One won, Vincent Impellitteri in 1950, who became Acting Mayor after William O'Dwyer's sudden departure for Mexico, a country beyond the reach of subpoenas, to which President Truman had suddenly appointed him as U.S. Ambassador. His younger brother, Paul O'Dwyer, was elected Council President eight years after he lost for mayor in 1965.

3. One Council President ran second to Nelson Rockefeller for governor, Frank O'Connor, who had been district attorney of Queens County. We recall Rule 26-S: "Second place is the first loser." But there is a bright spot - the man who was handily defeated by O'Connor in the 1965 Democratic primary ended up as a four-term United States Senator from New York: Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

4. Borough Presidents: Two recent mayors have been Manhattan BPs : Wagner and Dinkins. Three MBPs have lost mayoral races: Stein, Ruth Messinger and Virginia Fields. Crossing the bridges, Bronx BPs Herman Badillo and Fernando Ferrer were both defeated in numerous races for mayor, but Seth Low, former mayor of Brooklyn and president of Columbia University, was elected mayor in 1901. He served one two-year term.

5. Council Speaker: 0 for 2 - Peter Vallone lost a mayoral challenge in 2001, and his successor as speaker, Gifford Miller, lost in 2005. Both were impelled to run by term limits, which prohibited their re-election. Vallone refused to over-ride term limits without a referendum. When the vote was taken in 1996, term limits were upheld.

6. Other elected mayoral springboards: William O'Dwyer was district attorney of Kings County when he was elected mayor in 1945. Ed Koch was a Congressman from Manhattan, and had previously been a City Council member, when he was elected mayor in 1977. John Lindsay was a Congressman from Manhattan, from the same district that Koch was later to represent, when he was elected mayor in 1965. Lindsay subsequently came in third (behind Liz Holtzman and Bess Myerson) in a Democratic primary for the United States Senate seat in 1980 that was won by Al D'Amato.

Five potential, probably presumptive, candidates who as of today have filed with the campaign finance board for the 2013 election cycle are Public Advocate Bill de Blasio ($346,541), NYC Comptroller John Liu ($513,471), Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer ($1,018,081), Council Speaker Christine Quinn ($3,134,698), and Congressman Anthony Weiner ($4,871,539).

This article deals with the fortunes and misfortunes of previous mayoral candidates, and provides a brief look at their current campaign treasuries. It does not discuss the merits of the candidates. The point we make is that, whether you know it or not, the race is well under way. And there are only two years and seven months before the primary.