Is the Budget Done?

Is the New York State Budget done, as Senate Democratic Conference Leader Sampson claims? (See here and here.)

Leader Sampson makes this claim despite the Senate's inability to pass a revenue bill.

Is he right? It depends on your point of view I suppose. Most things do these days.

But personally I'd say no.

Budgets require two things as a general rule: Money earned, money spent. As mentioned above, a key revenue bill remains un-passed, due to the public objections of Senator Stachowski and the less-public objections of Senator Thompson, Senator Foley, and Senator Breslin, who are holding out for some kind of change on how SUNY tuition works.

Senator Stachowski has become the public face of this particular battle, because he's the one actually stalling the revenue bill on this proposal's behalf. The other interested Senators appear to be willing to vote for the revenue bill and deal with SUNY tuition separately. Stachowski, however, is effect derailing the entire budget to deal with the SUNY tuition issue here and now.

So, no revenue bill. Yet, Conference Leader Sampson thinks the budget is “done.”

Is it? Frankly, I'm amazed someone so much as suggested that. The Capital Tonight article linked to above, and linked to again here, states that the Legislators aren't getting paid yet. Only a New York State Legislator could proclaim a job done when he is specifically having his paycheck withheld for not finishing that same job.

As far as I can tell the Governor's budget vetoes have knocked the State's budget back to the Governor's initial proposals, more or less, but the Governor's budget included some additional revenues. Anyone remember the “fat tax?” Even the Governor's austere budget needed that, along with other revenue items, or at least needed other revenue items to replace them. And, unless I've missed something, no replacements have passed. That's kind of what the revenue bill was about.

The State Comptroller has an “auditing” power under the State Constitution, and traditionally that power is used by the Comptroller to sound off on the State Budget in an annual report traditionally called the Review of the Enacted Budget. Sometimes the press refers to this report as the Comptroller “certifying” the budget.

The current Comptroller, Thomas DiNapoli, and at least one previous Comptroller, H. Carl McCall, have agreed that the Comptroller's “certification” of the budget is oft-exaggerated. Presumably, Comptrollers do not wish the political process to in effect assign their office responsibilities that they may lack the power to fulfill.

“There's a general conception,” Comptroller DiNapoli stated here,

“that I certify that the revenues are there, but that's beyond what we're called on to do," DiNapoli said. "The comptroller does not certify as to the validity of the budget appropriations and the presence of revenues. That's not a a power I have."

"Under New York law, we have a very limited role and it's limited to a determination that there are sufficient appropriations in budget bills for state operations and local assistance. That doesn't mean we make a decision that the revenues are there to back up those appropriations."

"The only certification is with repsect [sic] to whether they acted on budget bills so the legislative pay can happen."

The Comptroller is right, as far as I can tell. See Joseph Zimmerman's The Government and Politics of New York State 2008, pages 249-251, and Robert B. Ward's New York State Government 2006, pages 85-87.

While, the Comptroller may lack the power to actually block a badly-done budget that lacks revenues to back up the appropriations, surely the case this year, the Comptroller's Review of the Enacted Budget report has often not been shy about publicly taking the Governor and the Legislature to task for such budgets. To see what the reports look like, see the index of reports here.

Sometimes the Reviews are friendly. For examples, see the Reviews of the 2003-2004 and 1998-1999 enacted budgets.

Sometimes, though, the Reviews are less friendly. For example, the Review of the 2009-2010 budget in effect stated that the budget was technically balanced, but was on shaky ground, and was subject to the potential for mid-year changes. The Comptroller's office repeatedly warned of “structural imbalances.” The report opened with the following devastating lines:

The Enacted Budget for State Fiscal Year (SFY) 2009-10 clearly demonstrates the need for comprehensive fiscal reform. It relies on practices and patterns that result in poor fiscal outcomes over the long-term—recurring spending that outpaces recurring revenue, and the use of temporary revenues including federal stimulus funds to support ongoing costs. (Page 1)

The Review of the 2002-2003 enacted budget was similar.

While the budget as presented by the Division of the Budget is balanced it relies on fiscal gimmickry and dubious funding streams that may not materialize. (page 1)

Also very similar was the Review of the 1999-2000 enacted budget.

Most of the 1999-00 spending increases, when compared to the Executive Budget, are driven by current law and the legislative rejection of proposed cuts in education and Medicaid, rather than by program expansions. Even the large education aid increase was driven by the phase-in of multiyear programs and by general growth in current school aid formulas. The General Fund budget was balanced with virtually no spending cuts. (Page 1)

Also:

The level of non-recurring resources used in the enacted budget increases ten-fold from $64 million last year to nearly $600 million in 1999-00. This is particularly disturbing given the current robust economy. The use of significant one-time revenues to balance budgets was common practice during economic recessions. The use of non-recurring resources to fund ongoing spending exacerbates future budget imbalance. (Pages 1-2)

This year's budget, of course, from what we can tell from the press, leaves behind budget gimmickry and trickery for flat-out fantasy. The budget is so far from being done in any meaningful sense that the Legislators themselves aren't getting paid.

Is the budget done? No, it's not.

The Republican candidate for Comptroller, former hedge fund manager Harry Wilson, has called for Comptroller DiNapoli to not “certify” this year's budget. We've seen above that the Comptroller actually doesn't have the power to "certify" the budget per se. Wilson's implication that the Comptroller does have such a power reflects what might be a poor understanding on part of candidate Wilson of the office he seeks, and frankly makes me wonder about his hedge fund.

We've seen, though, that Comptrollers haven't been why about using the Review of the Enacted Budget report to highlight problems or issues in the State budget. As well they shouldn't be. New York State elects its Comptroller separately from the Governor for a reason, and that's to serve as a counter-weight. Comptrollers rarely have an electoral incentive to sugarcoat the budget review, certainly no more incentive than they have to sugarcoat their famous audits of State agencies and programs, even if the Comptroller and Governor are friendly. This year's Review should be an interesting read, and that's assuming the Comptroller even bothers to write one given the lack of a revenue bill.

One thing is clear, however, it's likely to be difficult politically for the Legislature to campaign on having accomplished a budget that a Comptroller they appointed to fill a vacancy in the office, and who is a former Legislator himself, doesn't feel comfortable signing off on. And, really, how could the Comptroller's Review this year be positive, especially with no revenue bill?

Is the budget done?

I'm amazed any State Legislator would say so. It's telling that Conference Leader Sampson, who as a lawyer employed by a law firm probably doesn't need his legislative salary, was the one to say it.

Newsflash: Yes, Richard Ravitch's Appointment is Legal

I periodically read in the “blogosphere” that Richard Ravitch is, despite a ruling of the New York State Court of Appeals to the contrary, an “illegal” Lieutenant Governor. Basically, some bloggers sometimes feel that the Court erred in the Skelos v. Paterson decision of September 2009, granting Governors of New York State the right to fill an opening in the position of Lieutenant Governor through appointment.

It is of course anyone's right to disagree with the Court's legal or policy reasoning. That would be an opinion, to which one is entitled. But to say that Ravitch is an “illegal” Lieutenant Governor is, simply, a defiance of reality, not an opinion. You are entitled to your own opinion, not your own facts.

In our system, the State Court of Appeals is the final arbiter of official interpretation of the New York State Constitution. End of story. As far as I can tell, if for example another State agency openly defies a Court of Appeals ruling, they are in violation of the law

If we here below disagree with a Court of Appeals decision, we have two choices aside from just speaking out (which of course is also our right). One is to lobby our elected representatives to change the Constitution. Two is to lobby our elected officials to only support nominees to the Court of Appeals whose interpretations of the Constitution are closer to our own.

A similar system, of course, exists at the federal level, wherein the U.S. Supreme Court is in effect granted the power of officially interpreting the U.S. Constitution. Sometimes, the Supreme Court hands down ridiculous decisions. One example would be Dred Scott v. Sanford (60 US 593, 1863), which affirmed the Constitutionality of slavery, despite its being an affront to the fundamental American values on which our Constitution was based. Another would be the recent decision declaring that a prisoner in police custody had to specifically declare his right to remain silent, merely remaining silent wasn't invoking your right to remain silent. Of course, once you open your mouth to say something, you're waiving your right to remain silent. Another example would be Plessy v. Ferguson (163 US 537, 1896), which affirmed the Constitutionality of racially segregated schools.

Ah, but when I was a student, about a million years ago, it was popular to teach Brown v. Board of Education (347 US 483, 1954) which, in effect if not in formality, reversed Plessy and declared the racial segregation of schools to be unconstitutional and mandated the integration of schools, in a similar light. Brown, one of the most important and central Supreme Court rulings in American history, was disparaged in a depressing way.

Disagreeing with the high court of whatever the relevant jurisdiction of is a common pastime in America. Disagreeing with the Court of Appeals on the Lieutenant Governor matter is but one example. For years and years, wrote legal scholar James Pope, organized labor had developed what amounts to an alternative constitution, wherein the U.S. Constitution specifically granted the right strike (James Pope, “Labor's Constitution of Freedom,” Yale Law Journal, 1997).

I suspect that a similar article to Pope's could be written about gun rights advocates, and to a lesser degree about Conservatives in general. In the Conservative “alternative Constitution,” the 10th amendment grants all powers “not specifically delegated” to the federal government “to the States,” as opposed to how the language actually reads:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

People sometimes like to read in “expressly delegated” and leave off “or to the people.”

Now, one could say that an alternative Constitution has developed in New York State, wherein it is not legal for a Governor to appoint a Lieutenant Governor.

The power granted to courts does, sometimes, frighten me. Some of the decisions cited above, Plessy and Dredd Scott, for example, were spectacularly bad calls, for the Constitution, for the Supreme Court itself, and for America. One of the founding fathers of New York State, Robert Yates, advocated against the ratification of the U.S. Constitution under the pen name Brutus. One of his arguments, which proved to be quite prophetic, was that the Supreme Court would have the sole power to decide the Constitutionality of laws, and to interpret the Constitution, and there would be no appeal from it. (For more detail, see Jackson Turner Main's 1961 book The Antifederalists: Critics of the Constitution, 1781-1788, and Herbert Storing's 1981 book What the Anti-Federalists Were For.)

“Brutus” was of course exactly right about the potential power of the Court. It is telling, I think, that when Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to James Madison in 1787, appeared granting a kind of veto power to the Supreme Court (similar to but not quite the same as what we now call “Judicial Review,” the ability of the Supreme Court to nullify legislation on the grounds that it violated the U.S. Constitution), that it was specifically to be with a possible 2/3 override by the Congress, highly similar to their override power over the Presidential veto.

But, the concerns of Yates and Jefferson regardless, this is the system we have. I'm sure there have been several examples of openly defying the Supreme Court's view of the U.S. Constitution (or of the Court of Appeals' view of the New York State Constitution) for that matter. In fact I think I remember hearing some years back about how the Secret Service consistently defies standard Court interpretation of the statute that prohibits threatening the life of a U.S. President, treating every threat as illegal when, the Courts say, it's supposed to include only threats that have some likelihood of being carried out.

However, the biggest example of openly defying Supreme Court interpretation of the Constitution that I can think of then-President Andrew Jackson's defiance of Worcester v. Georgia (315 US 515, 1832).

The result of Jackson's defiance, by the way, was the Cherokee Indians' famous Trail of Tears.

I find it to be potentially telling that one of the most prominent examples of open defiance of the Supreme Court was so catastrophic, and is so poorly regarded today. President Jackson had raw power at his fingertips, and the Court didn't. And at the end of the day that's really all Jackson's defiance was about. Arguably, it was the same dynamic that led to the Trail of Tears in the first place. We (America) had the power, they (the Cherokee) didn't.

One may disagree with Ravitch's appointment, on Constitutional or policy grounds. Or even just because you don't like Ravitch. Or maybe you want Senator Malcolm Smith to be Governor if David Paterson dies. (Though I can't guess why anyone would want that.)

But, please, don't call the appointment illegal. It's legal. How do we know it's legal? Because the Court of Appeals said so. You can argue it shouldn't be legal. You can point out reasons why it shouldn't be legal. You can disagree with the policy. But you can't say it's illegal and be consistent with reality.

That's the system we have. Judging by the Trail of Tears case, we appear to do better when we go with the system, and seek to change a law that we view as wrong, than when we try to somehow pretend a law isn't really a law when we disagree with it.

(Re-)Considering the Disgraced: Spitzer vs. Bruno

To put it as kindly as I can, at this point it's clear that both former New York State Governor Eliot Spitzer and former New York State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno have more negatives than positives. Each man appears to be corrupt in his own way. Each man appears to suffer from what I've termed "The Entitlement Syndrome."

Measuring the two against each other, though, is less difficult than one might think. I can't quite decide what's sadder, the mere fact that Bruno clearly comes off better, or the fact that of the two Bruno's the only one who's been convicted and sentenced for his illegal conduct.

Eliot Spitzer served as Governor from the beginning of 2007 through March of 2008. His brief reign was marked with acrimony and scandal, and he was finally forced to resign in disgrace. Joe Bruno, by contrast, had a distinguished, long career as a Senator before taking the Majority Leader spot. He took that spot in 1995 and served until he resigned, under a cloud but on his own terms, late in 2008.

After Eliot Spitzer was forced to resign in disgrace, the press repeatedly handed Bruno opportunities to gloat. Wisely, however, Bruno, at least publicly, remained at once gentlemanly and cautious. Bruno expressed concern for the Governor and his family, during this difficult time. Bruno carried on the machinery of government, passing the Senate's draft of the State Budget quickly on the heels of the scandal breaking.

By contrast, Spitzer, already long out of office by the time Joe Bruno was convicted and sentenced, responded to Bruno's troubles with ridiculous gloating. Spitzer, you see, knew Bruno was on the take all along. Spitzer, with his keen investigator's instinct, could tell right away. Not addressed by Spitzer is that he was also engaging in illegal conduct himself at the time, and thus was familiar with some of the warning signs.

Bruno's crimes were the type you had to build not just a factual case for, but a legal case for. Prosecutors had to show that not certain conduct occurred, but that the conduct fit the definition of some crime or other. They did it well enough that I began watching the trial as a Bruno supporter and soured on him day by day. By contrast, however, Spitzer's conduct was clearly illegal. There was no legal argument to be made, one could only dispute the fact pattern. And Spitzer didn't dispute the fact pattern, at least not publicly that I saw. We'll never know the details of why Spitzer was not prosecuted, and it's best that I not voice my strong suspicious, but it should be clear, however, that there was no doubt whatsoever that what Spitzer had done was actually illegal.

Bruno's legislative achievements over many years as Senate Majority Leader were numerous. Spitzer's legislative achievements during his brief, terrifying reign consisted largely of Workers' Compensation reform, ethics reform, and one on-time budget. I'm informed through conversations with knowledgeable folks down at the State Capitol building, and by going over old documents, that Workers' Compensation reform had been in the works for years and years before Spitzer's reign, and that the final bill had considerably more input from the State Legislature than from Spitzer and his people. The Spitzer-era ethics reform has been something of a disaster, with the head of the Public Integrity Commission already having to defend the Commission's existence, and the Commission issuing such bizarre, thoughtless, senseless edicts as what I've termed the “Mocha Protocol.” Spitzer also had a record of quasi-legislative Executive Orders to consider, but these didn't amount to much either.

Bruno was a self-made man, who rose from the streets of Glens Falls to the corridors of power. I have little doubt that Spitzer wouldn't have gotten anyplace without his father. The best evidence of this is the fiscal shenanigans Spitzer and his father used during Spitzer's first run at Attorney General. Regrettably we must go to ever-not-quite-reliable Roger Stone as the primary source of this, as he's been the only one really highlighting it to any degree. And, then of course, there's the fact that after resigning as Governor, Spitzer ran right back to Daddy as his primary source of income.

And we won't even begin to get into Spitzer's role on Wall Street as Attorney General, where his juvenile “sheriff” act, I have argued, forced unethical and perhaps illegal conduct even further underground, where it was harder to ferret out, while simultaneously driving good, needed Wall Street analysis jobs to India.

I come here not to praise Bruno, but to help bury Spitzer, whose bizarre, snide “I knew it all along” act is pathetic and disgraceful.

And, therefore, in its own way, quite fitting.

The Entitlement Syndrome

• Introduction: The Entitlement Syndrome

There is much in New York State's brutal political scene that I find noble, perhaps mostly the way, as observed by Political Scientist Sarah F. Liebschutz, it's driven by conflict and cooperation between the contrasting forces of competition and compassion.

I have taken note, however, a third force at work in the Empire State's politics. It takes the form of a disease, or contagion. I suspect the disease has been around for awhile, festering in the dark corners of the Capitol Building and causing an occasional outbreak, but these days it appears to be particularly virulent. While I know a fair amount of New York's fascinating political history, I can't reliably tell you if the contagion has ever been as bad as it is now.

I call the contagion the Entitlement Syndrome; a distinct and destructive sense of entitlement among many in New York State's political class.


• The Syndrome in Albany

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Democratic Conference Leader John Sampson are both “of counsel” at prominent New York City law firms. As near as I can tell, being “of counsel” at a law firm means they get to do hardly any work for large fees and never ever once have to disclose a client list. That many of those undisclosed clients have business before the State Legislature is pretty much a foregone conclusion. Hey, you need legal representation anyway, right. Assuming you can afford it, why not retain either Silver's firm or Sampson's firm or both? At the very least, it sure can't hurt your chances with the Legislature.

Former Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno was recently sentenced to two years in federal prison for “theft of honest services.” He set up a business consulting firm, but produced little or no written products for his clients, and routinely mixed up his State and private business interests.

I'm sure most readers are familiar with the recent, bizarre incident at a Senate Finance Committee meeting, wherein Senator John DeFrancisco expressed an ignorance of racism in the State contracting process. Senator DeFrancisco's ignorance, however, was quickly eclipsed by a nearly-violent, angry outburst by Senator Kevin Parker.

It should be noted that Senator Parker, in the words of reporter Liz Benjamin, “has a history of anger management issues.” Kenneth Lovett goes over some of these issues here, in a story on a Senator Parker outburst against fellow Democrat Diane Savino. (In that story, please note how Senator Carl Kruger, whom Senator Parker threatened during the Finance Committee incident, was egging on Senator Parker in the Senator Savino incident. No real purpose to pointing this out other than the amusing irony.)

Senator Parker's response to Senator DeFrancisco is all the more fun when one considers that it wasn't just a single outburst. Senator Parker was a seething cauldron of hate for days afterward, accusing Republican State Senators of being “White Supremacists,” before he finally issued a half-assed apology.

Note the following excerpt from a speech Senator Parker made on the Senate floor, as cited by the Times:

To the extent that my words last week brought commotion and emotion to this house in ways that may distract or divert us from the important work of the people of New York State, work that’s so important for all of us, I offer my sincerest apologies for my zealous advocacy.

That isn't really an apology at all, as far as I can tell.

In other entitlement news, two State Legislators were overheard at the capital whining over their lack of a pay raise. This, in the middle of multiple fiscal and ethical crises and with a State budget well over a month late.

The Entitlement Syndrome is not only limited to individual politicians. It can infect interest groups too, for example the State government worker unions. Anyone who is familiar with my comments, here and elsewhere, knows that I am a big fan of labor unions, but the Entitlement Syndrome has torn through New York State's government employee unions, ravaging their characters, turning them from noble organizations into train wrecks waiting to happen. No union should ever favor layoffs over furloughs, and that's basically what they've been doing.

We could, I suppose, go on and on. We haven't once discussed former Senator Hiram Monserrate, current Senator Pedro Espada, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, or Governor David Paterson.

The common thread here is the Entitlement Syndrome. It causes the victim to feel untouchable, to make him or her feel deserving of public office, of money, of power, of privilege. No one can touch me, the victim thinks, so why should I think about what I'm saying or what I'm doing. It causes victims to draw attention not to their beliefs or causes, but to themselves. It causes loss of the sense that actions have consequences, and a loss of the sense that it's important to get along, at least superficially, with the people you work with every day, even the ones you hate with a passion.


• The Syndrome Outside of Albany

It is frightfully easy to blame the Entitlement Syndrome on Albany, on its culture, on the sense of isolation from reality that, I am informed, can easily set in there. It's thus easy to see ethics reform, campaign finance reform, term limits, and a whole sad litany of standard “reform” ideas as a cure for the Syndrome.

Consider, however, the fact that Carl Paladino is not from Albany. (The link is not to a particular story, but rather to the Carl Paladino “category” on the Daily News's Daily Politics political blog.) Consider the fact that Mr. Paladino appears to consider himself qualified to run for Governor despite his racism, sexism, propensity for forwarding bizarre and offensive E-Mails without a care in the world, and overall lack of any kind of good judgment. Mr. Paladino appears to have one standard response to these stories when they come out, and that is that he's not politically correct and that these matters are all distractions. He is, in brief, attempting to turn behavior that, if any of us were engaging in it, would be considered a sign of a serious mental defect, into a political asset.

Clearly, Mr. Paladino is suffering from the Entitlement Syndrome.

Another victim is Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy. Executive Levy isn't from Albany either, though he did a brief stint there as a Member of the Assembly. Yet, he also suffers from the Entitlement Syndrome. In addition to his switch from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party, and his not understanding that his new fellow Republicans might, gasp!, not accept him right away, see this story from Liz Benjamin. Levy says he'll “shake up Albany,” and refers to himself as a “real man.” We've heard similar talk before, from a man named Eliot Spitzer.

Any man who feels the need to refer to himself as a “real man” is, in most instances, not.

Once again, a man who sees himself as entitled, who pounds his fist on the table when he doesn't get what he wants. If that's a “real man,” aren't there enough of that species in Albany already?


• Conclusion

I can only guess how the Entitlement Syndrome developed and how it spreads. It clearly is not limited to Albany. In fact it appears to be spreading rapidly, throughout New York's political class. Almost every prominent New York State politician and interest group appears to have it, to one degree or another. The examples I've cited are far from being the only ones.

I have no idea how to stop it.

Legislative Pay Raises?

A rare display of bipartisanship occurred at the New York State Capitol Building earlier this week: A Republican State Legislator and a Democratic State Legislator commiserated over their lack of a pay raise.

The Republican complained that he ("he" could mean "he or she") “had been promised” a pay raise when he was first elected; from the context it appeared to me that the “promised” pay raise was part of how he was persuaded to run for the Legislature. The Democrat sighed sympathetically, agreeing that the lack of a pay raise was “ridiculous.” The conversation continued along similar lines as the Legislators moved out of my hearing range. I didn't follow them.

This was not some private conversation I spied on. The Legislators were talking openly, and in public. I was right around a corner, I saw them just before I fully rounded the corner, and I could hear them clearly. They couldn't see me, but there were about five people in the immediate vicinity whom these Legislators could clearly see, assuming they were paying any kind of attention to their surroundings.

If I heard it, others had to have heard it, and I'm willing to bet more Legislators than these two have recently engaged in similar conversations, especially as the story about the recent, now-rescinded, gubernatorial staff pay raises broke or was about to break.

What on earth could possess any Legislator to openly discuss a pay raise for themselves in this climate, I can't imagine.

The funny thing is that under normal circumstances I would probably agree with this pair of Legislators. Despite the disparaging portrait of the State Legislature painted by former State Senator Seymour Lachman in his book Three Men in a Room, from talking to people and hanging around at the Capitol it does indeed appear to me that those Legislators who bother to work at all do in fact work hard, and probably deserve more money than they are getting.

And I, personally, would rather not draw elected officials solely from a class of people who can afford to acquire and hold office. I'd rather have a more open field to select from. No one save the corrupt should ever have to look upon public service as their greatest career mistake.

Further, when Legislators are underpaid relative to the demands of the job, they can be tempted by outside income, and sometimes that outside income can taint political outcomes, taint the people's faith in the process, and can lead to criminal activity.

Under normal circumstances, thus, I'd be sympathetic to the idea of a Legislative pay raise.

Present circumstances, however, are far from normal. New York State is in the middle of severe, system-threatening fiscal and ethical crises. I could easily go on and on for pages about all the troubles New York State faces, but instead I'll focus on the most obvious: The State Budget is over a month late and the budget extenders haven't exactly been peaches and cream. These two Legislators were, literally, whining about not having pay raises while simultaneously failing on what is arguably their primary responsibility.

Under normal circumstances, I'd be sympathetic to a pay raise for State Legislators. Under current circumstances, however, so much as thinking about it, let alone talking about it publicly, is disgraceful.

I recommend that the leaders of the four legislative conferences advise their members to not discuss this issue publicly for the next couple of years. Save the money to avoid bankrupting the State. If you discover you have the money to spend that you didn't realize you had, I'm sure your constituents can think of things to spend it on that'll do the State, and yourselves, a lot more good than raising your own pay will. If you must spend it on yourselves, invest in competent staff, something which it appears all four conferences are severely lacking in. There's also bridges that need fixing; a lot of them. And I'm sure a lot of people would like to avoid Thruway tolls or mass transit fares going up.

Basically, anything would do more good right now than raising your own pay. Raising your own pay right now, or even talking about it, doesn't even help yourselves. Don't let the thought enter your minds, let alone openly discuss it in public areas, until maybe the State is no longer on the brink of fiscal, ethical, and political oblivion.

New York and Wall Street. Or, More Cocaine Please.

What does cocaine make you feel like? Comic George Carlin supposedly once said cocaine makes you feel like having some more cocaine.

Money, especially money from Wall Street, and in this context “Wall Street” means the financial sector generally, is like cocaine for politicians. It makes them feel like having some more.

Wall Street's big money came largely during the Governor Pataki, President Clinton years, when legal and regulatory changes rendered the finance sector largely unwatched. We've seen the results. Wall Street cash flooded New York State's coffers in the form of tax revenues. What does a big influx of questionable Wall Street money make a New York politician feel like? Like having another, bigger influx next year.

No intelligent, reasonable, well-informed person can possibly think that Wall Street should remain as largely unregulated as it has been. The only halfway-reasonable argument for it, at this point, is that regulation itself is bad, and that almost nothing should be regulated, let the market rule. Sometimes, extreme libertarians on college campuses call themselves "anarcho-capitalists," and at this point only those people can possibly look at an unregulated Wall Street and nod their heads in approval.

Wall Street, unregulated, would bring the capitalist system itself to the brink. And how do we know this? Because it did, at least twice now. The Great Depression, and just a few short years ago. And please don't tell me that Wall Street needs another Sheriff, like Eliot Spitzer. Spitzer hurt, not helped. Wall Street doesn't need a Sheriff, it needs an adult.

How does cocaine make you feel? Like having some more cocaine. How does having all that Wall Street-driven tax revenue make a politician feel? Like having some more Wall Street-driven tax revenue. And spending it. And keep spending it, even when it's no longer there to spend.

New York State Governor David Paterson and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg like to point out the degree to which New York State and New York City depend upon Wall Street for revenue. Both politicians have emerged as champions of Wall Street even when much of the rest of the country has turned on it. Don't the people understand, they ask, that New York State and City depend on Wall Street? We need more bonuses. Less regulation. More revenue.

New York has a right to be proud of the financial industry. But what are Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Paterson really championing?

What does cocaine make you feel like? What happens when you have no more money to spend, and you have the need to feel that way again. Is your drug dealer still your best friend when your money's gone? Anyone remember that movie from the 80s, Less Than Zero?

I am no fiscal conservative. But a State needs a tax base that's stable in order to do expensive, liberal things. Derivatives, naked short selling, wild speculation, huge bonuses to CEOs who don't do anything resembling their jobs, and the like, the stuff of unregulated Wall Street, are not a stable tax base.

Recent Marist polls show that New Yorkers have largely turned on Wall Street, see it as part of the problem, not the solution. I'm not one of those who always sees “the wisdom of the American people.” More often than not I share James Madison's fear of mobs.

But on this one, I think the voters have it right. Wall Street is the problem in that they conned everyone into mistaking a semi-legal ponzi scheme, which is really all Wall Street was since the middle- to late-1990s, for stable growth. There's plenty of blame to go around, of course. Politicians are paid to know better, yet ignored the warning signs, and voters have consistently favored politicians who have told them what they wanted to hear rather than those who sound alarm bells.

But, at the end of the day, having an unregulated Wall Street is simply asking for trouble. The federal government cannot continue to play the part of the cocaine addict's rich uncle, taking pity and paying off the dealer while the addict makes vague promises about getting back into rehab for the fifth time.

Have we learned this lesson yet? Or do we still feel like having some more cocaine?

On (Not) Surviving Orchestration: David Paterson in New York's Political History

• Introduction: Of Orchestration

The time was 21 January 2010, the Governor was (and at the time of writing still is) David Paterson. He said the following:

“Drumbeats remind me of orchestras and orchestras remind me of orchestration,” Paterson said, offering a zinger to which reporters could not suppress a snicker. “This whole idea that all of these people got this idea at one time is rather hard for me to believe, and what I would just point is that while they’re beating drums, I’m a drum major and I’m working very hard and I’m going to get this budget done, and they can do whatever they like.”Paterson was alluding, of course, to Cuomo. He did not mention him by name, even when asked a follow-up question about whether the “orchestration” was for Cuomo or against his budget.

Governor Paterson was of course probably correct. That any given Governor of New York State, let alone the least popular one in recent memory, would have political enemies who would conduct an orchestrated campaign against him can scarcely come as a surprise, to Governor Paterson or anybody else.

This kind of thing would happen anyplace there was politics, which is to say everywhere, but it's especially true in New York State, where the political class is known to play rather rough.

However, to follow the Governor's not-inappropriate metaphor through, Governor Paterson's enemies may have provided the orchestration, but the Governor himself helped to write the tune. David Paterson has earned a spot in one of New York State's oddest political traditions: Governors who were not only out-maneuvered by his political enemies, but behaved in a self-defeating manner, handing their enemies the tune for their own orchestras to play and effectively out-maneuvering themselves about as well as their enemies could hope to out-maneuver them.

Why this occurs, how someone could rise to be Governor of New York State and make these kinds of errors, is a puzzle with no answer I'm aware of. That it occurs, however, is scarcely deniable.

And no it isn't yet another symptom of New York's much-ballyhooed political decline. Two of my examples reach back to New York's hallowed antiquity, and involve Governors who met their fates at the hands of the infamous political machine known as Tammany Hall.

• The Politics of Constitution-Making: Governor DeWitt Clinton

The time was 1821, the Governor was DeWitt Clinton, and the issue was whether or not New York State should revise its Constitution. The then-current Constitution of 1777 was, as historian Gordon Wood tells us, “a constitution in tension” between old world aristocratic principles new world democratic principles. The farmers of that Constitution created various constitutional mechanisms in order to resolve the tension.

Wood called these mechanisms “ingenious,” and in a way they may have been, but to the contemporary eye they simply look odd. The Council of Appointment, for example, was a body of Senators, appointed by the Assembly, which handled appointments to high-level administrative positions. Currently, these appointments are simply made by the Governor, subject to Senate review and confirmation. There was also the Council of Revision, which consisted of the Governor, the Justices of what was then called the State Supreme Court and is now called the State Court of Appeals, and the Chancellor of the Chancery Court (a judicial position that no longer exists). The Council of Revision had the veto power now possessed by the Governor. The Governor was the only popularly-elected member of the Council of Revision. Not only were the various judges on the Council not elected, but the judiciary of the Constitution of 1777 was a direct holdover from the colonial days.

The Constitution of 1777, written by folks who were alternately hunting and being hunted by the British Army, and yet also wished to maintain the colonial aristocracy where possible, had worked as well as could be expected for a number of years. But by 1821, historians agree, a consensus had developed among both ordinary folks and the State's political class that it was time for the Constitution to be amended to better fit the democratic era.

Then-Governor DeWitt Clinton was a former Tammany Hall operative who had since turned on the Hall and tried to stake out an independent position. Governor Clinton and Tammany Hall agreed that the Constitution of 1777 needed extensive revisions, or needed to be rewritten entirely, but the Governor didn't want to hand the Hall a victory if he could possibly help it. The Governor thus found himself in a bind when a bill, supported by the Hall but responding to statements he himself had made, calling for the holding of a Constitutional Convention passed the State Legislature in November of 1820. Governor Clinton used his vote on the Council of Revision to help veto the bill. The Council, speaking through Chancellor James Kent, argued that it was undemocratic for the Legislature to seek to hold a Convention without holding a popular referendum on the issue first.

Because, you see, the Constitution of 1777, though written in large part by the aristocracy it partially sought to preserve, somehow represented the will of the people. The irony here, the political language of democracy being used to stand in the way of drafting a more democratic State Constitution, is hopefully obvious. Historians also tell us that it was widely believed at the time that the people by and large supported holding a Convention.

If the situation was ironic for the Council or Revision as a whole, it was especially so for Governor Clinton in particular. He had already stated his support for a Convention, and the Tammany bill largely mirrored public statements he himself had made. (He'd never to my knowledge stated that he preferred amending the Constitution through referendum.) And of course Clinton was the only elected official on the Council of Revision. The fact that he went along with the Council's vote, and the obviously disingenuous public reasoning behind it, didn't speak to his favor.

The Council won temporarily, however, as the Legislature did not override the Council's veto. Rather, the Legislature simply passed another Convention bill in 1821, this bill requiring a referendum first. The Council, backed into a corner by their own reasoning, allowed the bill to become law. (Chapters 190 of the Laws of 1871, with a Chapter Amendment, Chapter 246 of the Laws of 1821.) The referendum was held. The people voted overwhelmingly to hold a Convention, thus suggesting that the historians are correct that the people's will was overwhelming and likely was known to the political class. The Convention was held, and a new Constitution was written. The Councils of Revision and Appointment were both easily done away with.

Governor Clinton, having gone back on what was probably one of the most critical, if under-rated political stances of his career, was not nominated by his party to run for Governor. In a further, insult, the changeover between Constitutions shaved shaved 6 months off Clinton's term.

History has actually been kind to DeWitt Clinton. He's known in large part for his work on the State canal system, and some years after these events he would regain the Governorship. However, his own actions, combined with Tammany Hall's orchestration against him, in addition to making him have to look for work, denied him at least two important honors: To be the first post-Colonial Governor of New York with the power of veto and the power of appointment, two of the most important powers a Governor can hold; and to be Governor in 1825, when the project he's best known for today, the Erie Canal, was completed.

It's a lot easier for your enemies to orchestrate against you when you hand them a tune to play. Governor Clinton did just that, by turning his back on a measure he supported in order to avoid the appearance of handing his enemies a victory. In taking this action, Governor Clinton handed his enemies a still-bigger victory: His own political head on a platter. (Though, in politics, one can eventually recover from decapitation, as Clinton did.)

One would think New York State Governors would learn from Clinton's error. But one would be wrong.

• William Sulzer: Tammany Man, Would-Be Reformer, Disgrace

The time was 1912, and New York's Governor was a stone-faced fellow by the name of William Sulzer.

There was every reason to think that William Sulzer was an astute politician, who knew the politics of New York State very well. He had successfully navigated the Empire State's always-treacherous political waters since 1889, when he assumed a seat in the State Assembly. He served as Speaker of the Assembly from 1893 to 1894. In 1894 he successfully ran for U.S. House of Representatives, and held a seat there from the beginning of 1895 through the end of 1912. In 1912, he ran for Governor, won, and took office in 1913.

He had previously enjoyed the support of Tammany Hall, but after becoming Governor Sulzer suddenly turned reformer and decided to take on the Hall, leading to a feud with Tammany's “Boss,” the ruthless Charles F. Murphy. The newspapers of the time described secret and confrontational meetings between the Sulzer and Murphy. It's potentially telling that Sulzer appears to have taken the train to New York City for these meetings more often than Murphy took the train to Albany.

The feud started out being over Sulzer's refusal to take Tammany “suggestions” for appointees, Highway Commissioner for example, but soon moved into fighting over legislation, and the fight played out in various bills passed by the Legislature and vetoed by Sulzer, including an early Workers' Compensation proposal and a bill to enact direct primary elections.

The latter issue was particularly salient. Sulzer had openly supported a direct primary, but considered the bill passed by the Legislature to be watered down from his own proposal. Sulzer vetoed the legislature's bill, and delivered a veto message that two Political Scientists called “caustic,” but from their own description excessively confrontational sounds like a better term. Sulzer angrily rejected proposals both from the Legislature's Tammany-controlled Democratic majority and the Republican minority, though part of his “caustic” veto message had chided the Democrats for not listening to the minority, and called the Legislature into Extraordinary Session (what the newspapers call “special session”) to pass his own bill. Which of course they did not do, and he couldn't actually make them do. You know, the whole seperation of powers, checks and balances thing.

In addition to Sulzer's policy objections, however, it can be fairly presumed that Sulzer didn't want to be perceived as handing a victory to Tammany Hall and Charles F. Murphy.

This story should sound familiar. In Sulzer's backing away form a measure he had supported in part to avoid handing his enemies a victory we can see a shadow of DeWitt Clinton. In his being so “caustic” and openly confrontational, we can see a foreshadow of Eliot Spitzer. Neither of these shadows, one in front and one behind, are good omens for Governor Sulzer's fate.

Taking on Tammany Hall is hard enough when one is a genuine reformer. A Tammany-supported Governor biting the hand who fed him, however, is an especially bad idea. In Sulzer's case, Tammany Hall knew where Sulzer had buried a few corpses. Presumably in part because they'd helped him with the burial.

Soon enough, revelations came out about Governor Sulzer that made him look rather less like a reformer than he'd have liked. He'd committed perjury in Vermont, for one thing. For another, he had stolen funds from his own campaign to invest in the Stock Market. He had also openly threatened to use his veto power not just against legislation he didn't like, but against legislators who had defied him. (At the time this was apparently a bigger deal than it would be now.) He was finally impeached by the State Assembly and removed in a trial after judgment by the State Senate and the Justices of the State Court of Appeals, mostly for the campaign finance violations.

Conventional wisdom holds that Governor Sulzer was a genuine reformer, who was railroaded for defying Tammany Hall, by a Tammany-controlled, corrupt Legislature. There is surely an element of truth to this. Tammany Hall was definitely orchestrating against Sulzer. They made no secret of it, and even if they had tried to keep it a secret, it would have been widely guessed. And the Hall's corruption is as-legendary in most circles as there genuine contribution to democratic principles and popular political mobilization is in other circles. And I suppose it's likely that Sulzer's anti-Tammany effort was at least in part sincere. Otherwise why take it so far?

However, as was the case with Clinton before him, the orchestration of his enemies cannot alone explain Sulzer's downfall. At least some of the Justices of the Court of Appeals also appear to have voted to remove Sulzer, along with the Tammany-controlled Senate. I recall nothing in what I've read to suggest that the Justices were Tammany-controlled. Many of the legislators of course doubtlessly were. But if Sulzer's being an innocent-man-wrongly-accused was as obvious at the time as we like to pretend it is now, why did the Court of Appeals go along?

Ultimately, “Plain” Bill Sulzer, as he was sometimes known, was not a reformer. He was a Tammany Hall operative who saw the light only after a long career in politics. He openly defied people he had to have known knew exactly where to look for material to use against him.

Was Sulzer the victim of orchestration? Surely. But, like DeWitt Clinton before him and others after, Sulzer owes his downfall not only to orchestration but also to his own political failings. It's frightfully easy to paint Governor Sulzer as a hero, as I fear Governor Spitzer may be painted as a hero in the coming years.

But was Sulzer a hero? Or simply inept?

It depends, I suppose, on who is writing the history, and why.

• Eliot Spitzer: Enough Said

Governor Spitzer's downfall is well-chronicled elsewhere. See my own thoughts on Spitzer if you want or need some links to the details.

Like Clinton and Sulzer before him, that Spitzer had enemies, and that these enemies were orchestrating against him, was undeniable. That he was largely responsible for his own downfall, however, is also undeniable. I have seen no reasonable suggestion of anything else. Even Roger Stone's famous tip to the FBI, which the FBI denies was the deciding factor in investigating Spitzer, wouldn't have amounted to anything had Spitzer's own actions hadn't been of potential interest.

And Spitzer performed all these actions in the middle of bitter and highly public fights with the Legislature, when literally all eyes were upon him.

That, I feel, is what puts him in the pattern I am outlining here.

• Governor Paterson: The Accidental Governor

The time is where we started, the present, and the Governor is David Paterson, oft-referred to as the "Accidental Governor" due to his elevation following Spitzer's resignation. Ironically, though, Paterson's plans for being elected in his own right have been scuttled by a swirl of scandals and circumstances. Though the drumbeat for Paterson's own resignation has calmed down some at the time of writing, no one thinks the drums have gone away entirely. They're just, perhaps temporarily, quieter.

Governor Paterson pointed out, as quoted above, that the drumbeat against him has the feel of an orchestrated campaign. He's right on how it feels, and is probably right on the substance as well.

However, did Governor Paterson rise to the occasion and meet the political challenge? Did he meet his enemies' orchestration with orchestrations of his own?

No he didn't. Instead, as profiled in the New York Times, he appeared to be lazy, inefficient, and disinterested. The Governor, having unexpectedly defeated many years of conventional legal wisdom in New York State, managed to appoint his own Lieutenant Governor, only to largely marginalize the talented and experienced operative, Richard Ravitch, that he appointed.

Governor Paterson had set an extremely important precedent but didn't seem all that interested in benefiting from it himself.

Further, Paterson has further taken actions that, even if were completely legitimate, he had to have known would be wildly misinterpreted. One example would be being seen at a steak house, in New Jersey no less, with a lady not his wife. Perhaps the lady was just a friend, as Paterson indicated, but that isn't the issue. What is the issue is that Paterson should have known better. He should have taken others with them to eat, he should have brought work to the restaurant, should have taken any number of actions. But he didn't.

And then of course there's the potential use of the State Police, and his own personal power as Governor (in the form of an ill-timed and pointless phone call) to silence a lady who had accused an aide of his of domestic abuse. Even if Governor Paterson's, and those of the State Police for that matter, were perfectly legitimate, which seems unlikely, the point is that Paterson had to have known it would appear not appear legitimate.

After all, he himself pointed out that there was an orchestrated campaign against him. Why not give the campaign as little material as possible?

Governor Paterson's many other missteps have been well-chronicled elsewhere. See here and here.

The closer to right Governor Paterson was about the campaign against him being orchestrated, the dumber he was for not behaving as a vulnerable Governor who is being orchestrated against should behave. You need to be careful, knowing, and diligent. You need a talented, educated, and experienced staff who is not afraid to tell you what you don't want to hear.

Voters no longer ask for exemplary behavior from politicians. It is, however, a bit much for a politician to behave so self-defeatingly.

• Conclusions

The fates and circumstances faced by Paterson, Spitzer, Sulzer, and Clinton were not identical by any means, but all exhibited similar patterns. All had enemies, knew they had enemies, and yet behaved in self-defeating manners. And none of them got to remain Governor for as long as they would have liked.

New York is not a naïve state. It doesn't ask a lot of its politicians, it is even willing to tolerate contradiction as long as it can be sold as nuance.

But one pattern is surely clear: New York does not want its Governors to be incompetent as politicians. When one considers the amount of power New York grants to its Governors, this really isn't unreasonable. The least that can be expected as Governors of New York State is that they should be able to survive orchestrated campaigns against them. Or, at the very least, not hand the orchestras the tune to play.

When New York's Governors fail to live up to this pretty reasonable expectation, there's a high price to be paid.

And, really, that's how it should be.

David Paterson's answer should not have been to whine about orchestration. It should have been to beat Andrew Cuomo at the game.

Or, at least, to not seem to throw the fight.

• Sources

Albany Exile. “Eliot Spitzer: A Response to Something Posted on Yahoo Answers.” Notes From an Exile (blog). 22 September 2009. http://albanyexile.blogspot.com/2009/09/eliot-spitzer-response-to-something.html

Charles Lincoln. State of New York: Messages from the Governors. 1909.

Charles Lincoln. The Constitutional History of New York (many volumes). 1906.

Danny Hakim, Serge F. Kovaleski, and Nicholas Confessore. “As Campaign Nears, Paterson Is Seen as Increasingly Remote.” The New York Times. 18 February 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/nyregion/19paterson.html?pagewanted=1&hp

David Hossack. Memoir of DeWitt Clinton. 1829.

David M. Halbfinger. “The Accidental Lieutenant.” The New York Times. 26 February 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/nyregion/28ravitch.html?pagewanted=all

“DeWitt Clinton.” http://www.eriecanal.org/UnionCollege/Clinton.html

Dixon Fox. The Decline of Aristocracy in the Politics of New York. 1976

Dorothie Bobbe. DeWitt Clinton. 1962.

Evan Carnog. The Birth of Empire: DeWitt Clinton and the American Experience. 1998.

Frank Prescott and Joseph Zimmerman. The Politics of the Veto of Legislation in New York State (2 volumes). 1980.

Gordon Wood. The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787. 1998 (2nd edition, originally published in 1969).

Jay W. Forrest and James Malcolm. Tammany's Treason: The Impeachment of Governor Sulzer. 1913.

Jeffrey Toobin. “The Dirty Trickster: Campaign Tips From the Man Who's Done It All.” The New Yorker. 2 June 2008. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/06/02/080602fa_fact_toobin

Jimmy Vielkind. “Paterson: I smell ‘orchestration.’” Capitol Confidential (blog). 21 January 2010. http://blog.timesunion.com/capitol/archives/21819/paterson-i-smell-orchestration/

Matthew Nestel, Frederic U. Dicker, and Dan Mangan. “Dave Paterson's Latina lovely.” The New York Post. 18 January 2010. http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/dave_latina_lovely_sRI4hN1iRjRomshAacs3PM

John Horton. James Kent, a Study in Conservativism. 1969 (2nd edition, originally published in 1939).

Samuel P. Orth. Five American Politicians: A Study in the Evolution of American Politics. 1906.

The Erie Canal. http://www.eriecanal.org/

United States Congress. “Official Biogrophy of William Sulzer.” http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=S001065

William K. Rashbaum, Danny Hakim, David Kocieniewski, and Serge F. Kovaleski. “Question of Influence in Abuse Case of Paterson Aide.” The New York Times. 24 February 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/25/nyregion/25paterson.html?emc=na