The Buffalo News
Buffalo, NY
http://www.buffalonews.com/494/story/570025.html
The reformers have talked me down from the ledge. In fact, they contend that New York State is a democracy. Really.
That will shock anyone familiar with activities — some illegal, some that should be — recounted in The Buffalo News recently to illustrate the inept, corrupt and costly way New York operates.
Consider what passes for governance here:
Legalized bribery and extortion, which is what the campaign system amounts to. Buying loyalty with high-priced, do-nothing committee assignments. Running a front-operation that meets in the legislative chamber while all of the decisions are made in the back room.
It’s like watching the Sopranos do politics.
About the only thing Albany’s actors haven’t done is actually whack someone — unless you count the taxpayer.
But even when the needed reforms — campaign finance limits, independent redistricting, etc. — are apparent, how do you change a system when the ones who write the laws are the ones who benefit most from it?
“It’s a combination of public pressure, inside strategy and timing,” says longtime reformer Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research Group.
OK. But how do you get public pressure from people who can recite every statistic about every Buffalo Bill but can’t tell you whose legislative district they live in?
Horner won’t blame the victim.
“The Buffalo Bills and the Sabres, the public gets to observe them in an environment in which they understand the rules,” he said.
He contrasts that with the political arena, where voters don’t understand the rules, rarely see the players in action on TV, and there’s no newspaper section or newscast segment devoted entirely to state politics, as there is to sports.
“What I think would make the most difference [in Albany] is if we had a C-SPAN,” said Horner, referring to the cable public-affairs network that covers the inner workings of Congress.
Still, we’re playing chicken-and-egg here. How do you get a state C-SPAN if the people who would star in the horror show won’t let you plug in the camera? How do you get the public engaged enough to put on the pressure for that or anything else?
“Victories. There have got to be victories,” Horner said.
He sees hope in smaller triumphs such as laws that put on the Web — at least in partial form — information such as auto insurance costs or drug prices. He calls posting such data the 21st century equivalent of universal education and says it can whet citizens’ appetite for more transparency.
“Despite everything that’s written about a lack of reform, . . . legislators still do respond to what their constituents think,” says Karen Scharff, executive director of Citizen Action of New York. She said that many lawmakers themselves don’t like how they’re forced to operate now.
Two other developments also make this a time ripe for action. Scharff says the excitement surrounding Barack Obama’s campaign and the dire fiscal outlook have the public paying more attention. And Horner says Albany Democrats, who now control all three seats of power, will be pressed to produce because they can no longer pass the buck with so-called “one-house” bills.
“There are ways things can be done, and to the degree that the public is paying attention and demanding change, things will get done,” Horner said.
So it’s up to us?
But that’s OK; I’ll grasp at anything — even us — because I don’t like being out on the ledge. After all, it’s only a matter of time before they tax me for jumping.
