The New York Times
May 10, 2004
Jobs for an Idle Legislature
Editorial
New
York's State Capitol is abysmally quiet these days. When asked, the more
straightforward legislators admit that zero, or as one put it, "zilcho,"
is going on. Gov. George Pataki, Joseph Bruno, the Senate majority leader,
and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver are somewhere behind the scenes, meeting
occasionally. They are said to be stuck over details of this year's budget,
now more than a month late. In the meantime, the other 210 elected representatives
are doing little more than pretending to be busy.
This is because of the warped Albany system in which nothing serious gets
done without the three leaders. There's no reason, except for the state's
destructive political patterns, that more cannot be accomplished. Here are
a few of the subjects that need attention:
¶Lobbying state agencies — where the big money contracts are — should
be done under the rules used for the Legislature, where people trying to
influence decision-making have to disclose how much they spend, and on whom.
Every legislator needs to start pushing to bring this one to final passage.
If not, challengers this year should start asking why.
¶A hurried agreement to improve the current broken budget system now
looks like nothing more than a public relations ploy, an effort to mute criticism
about the budget being late 20 years in a row. It's time to come up with
concrete details.
¶Time to agree on a bottle bill that reclaims all those nickels on cans
and bottles that aren't redeemed at the grocery store. The Coke and Pepsi
people don't like this one, but the taxpayers would.
¶Empire Development Zones, once a way to help businesses in poorer areas,
have now become an easy boondoggle for any firm that has powerful friends,
especially in Albany. The law must be reformed before it is renewed this
year.
¶New York's phantom public authorities control millions of dollars with
almost no public scrutiny, a problem the Legislature should fix quickly.
This underworld needs light and air.
The state also desperately needs the Legislature to focus on energy policy
and the siting of power plants. Bills to comply with the Help America Vote
Act and reform of the Rockefeller drug laws, now in conference committees,
need legislative pressure to become law. The insurance subsidy for 60,000
small businesses and lower-income homeowners needs to be renewed.
When there is so much to be done, it is shocking to see lawmakers roaming
around the Capitol lamenting the stalemate at the top. Patience stopped being
a virtue in Albany long ago.
© 2004, The New York Times Co.