January 2, 2007

This is Evening Two.  We do not yet know what changed today.
 
Day One was exciting, at least for reformers..  The inaugural address, which we watched on television, was conventionally stirring.  The five executive orders the governor issued were substantialexcellent.  We cite Danny Hakim's lead story in the Times; A1, c6
 
"Yet Mr. Spitzer's work began hours before the speech: He signed five executive orders before 9 a.m., including directives establishing new ethical guidelines for state workers, among them a ban on accepting almost any gifts, as well as new restrictions on lobbying and the use of state resources.  He also barred elected officials or candidates from appearing in advertisements paid for by state entities, a frequent practice of Mr. Pataki."
 
The orders also provide for prompt posting of state papers on the internet.   You can link to them here.
 
For four years we have written periodically about corruption in government, among other issues.   We do not like to dwell on one subject, and any corruption do-gooder runs the risk of being thought of as a scold.  But it is hard to argue on the merits with regard to substantive issues when you know that the people who are deciding these issues are likely to be doing so on the basis of personal reasons which may be criminal, or may be unethical if not illegal.   A form of  intellectual corruption is the pernicious vice of fiscal irresponsibility, in which the long term financial viability of the state is impaired for the immediate political benefit of governors and legislators who are rewarded by special interests.
 
Day One lived up to its high expectations.  The smidgen that was disappointing was the new governor belittling his predecessor's record, while Pataki, as the Times reported, "gamely listened."

We are no admirers of the Pataki administration, and have frequently expressed that view.. But are all the state's problems limited to the "past decade", quoting the new governor?.   Except for expanding health coverage and substantial park acquisition, the Pataki era had few achievements, and some failures, like losing control over Medicaid costs.  His appointees were highly political, and often underqualified.  "Pay to play" was the order of the day.  He was not overly attentive to his duties in Albany, and even less so when he began to dream of the White House.  But the place to make those points is on the campaign trail, not in an inaugural address which should bring people together.  We mention this as a caveat to the new governor.  Rule 19: "Be kind to man and beast."   End if you can their special privileges, their phony outside jobs, their sweetheart consultancies, their member item sinkholes, their inflated, undocumented expense accounts.  But be kind and gracious while you are doing that.  And do not lose your temper unnecessarily.
 
On the morning of January 1, Prof. Ester Fuchs and I were guests, discussing past inaugural speeches with Brian Lehrer on WNYC-AM (820, that's the frequency, readers).  Nelson Rockefeller, in 1963 at his second inaugural, spoke on the centennial that day of the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed many, but not all, the slaves.   The governor had just defeated Robert M. Morgenthau, the Democratic-Liberal candidate, to win re-election forty four years ago.  Yes, the same person.
 
Twenty years later, on January 1, 1983, Governor Mario Cuomo discussed national topics.  He decried inequities in American life. He attacked the Reagan administration for "the mistake of an excessive multiplication of nuclear weapons that denies us the resources we need."  His speech was the most eloquent of all the inaugurals we heard.  He said he would rather follow the policies of Rabbi Hillel and Pope John Paul II than those exemplified by Charles Darwin.
 
On January 1, 1995, George Pataki was sworn in, repeatedly denouncing big government.  He spoke as the ideological opposite of his predecessor, Governor Cuomo, calling for less government rather than more.  But in his twelve years in Albany, the state budget grew from 62 billion to 114 billion dollars.  Most of that increase was mandatory, and he cannot fairly be blamed for it.  But we certainly did not get smaller government.
 
Now Governor Spitzer has taken office, and his first effort will be creating ethical standards.  He will also have to create and stimulate compliance mechanisms.   Good conduct rules are not self-enforcing, they require vigilance in their application.  The Governor has taken a strong first step, applying rules of restraint to himself as well as others. Times will tell how effective the new rules will be in changing long-established customs of self-indulgence.
 
One cannot help but wonder about the missing man at the inaugural, the newly re-elected and newly deposed State Comptroller Alan Hevesi.  We felt his punishment, forced resignation and a felony conviction, was somewhat disproportionate to the offense, but he and his lawyers did agree to it for reasons we do not know.  Luckily, he is a Ph.D., not a lawyer, so he could not be disbarred.  We ask whether similar penalties will be visited on other State miscreants, of whom there is no shortage.

To sum up, the Spitzer administration brings to us the bright hope of reform of our dysfunctional State government.  In fact, the word "dysfunctional", now most frequently applied to families, appeared in the report on the New York State Legislature issued by the Brennan Center at NYU Law School.  It has become a code word for unsatisfactory conditions in state government.  The new  Governor said yesterday: “We chose pragmatism and ethics over partisan politics and dysfunction, and we demanded an end to gridlock.”

Credit here should go to Sam Schwartz, who coined the word ‘gridlock’ when he was a commissioner in New York City’s Department of Traffic. The word has gone mainstream.  Perhaps some day the governor will use the word I coined when I was at Parks,  “arborcide”, which describes the intentional and wrongful killing of a tree. It should be a misdemeanor to destroy a great oak or any of its cousins.  The new State Parks Commissioner, the superbly qualified and aptly named Carol Ash, should consider tree protection as one of her tasks.  Her predecessor, Bernadette Castro, who served twelve years, was an able public official who earned respect for her stewardship.

A penultimate note here: think of the gubernatorial succession as evocative of the great English novelist, George Eliot (1819-80).  You know, of course, that she was a woman, writing in the Victorian era when it was not customary for women to write under their own names.  George Sand (1804-76) was a Frenchwoman.  Charlotte Bronte (1816-55) defied that tradition when she wrote Jane Eyre, as did her younger sisters, Emily and Anne.   Rule 17-L:: "So endeth the lesson."

What happens in monarchies after death, regime change, happens in democracies after elections. One can summarize yesterday’s proceedings in eight words:  “The King is dead, long live the King."  We wish the new King every success, but he will need more than his formidable intellect to deal with some of the knaves who surround him at the castle.


#340 01.02.07   1173wds