To say that New York state's government is dysfunctional almost makes me sound like a broken record. The NYCO blog, who regularly writes about the morass in Albany, pointed to an interesting piece in the Syracuse Post-Standard.
It mentioned the Democratic primary victory of Assembly candidate Jimmy Meng, of Queens, who hopes to become the first Asian-American elected to the state legislature.
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver [a Democrat] said the Legislature intentionally drew the district the first-termer Grodenchik [the incumbent who lost to Meng] represents with the hopes of sending an Asian-American representative to Albany.
"With reapportionment, we clearly had in mind to carve an Asian district and that's what prevailed today," Silver said late [last] Tuesday.
This little throwaway comment is very revealing and demonstrates while he's a terrible advertisement for the New York Democratic Party. As I've said before, Silver not only is an old-style party boss strongman, but he comes across as one. GOP Governor George Pataki probably owes a lot of his success to the fact that he's flattered by comparisons to Silver.
That the legislature is a master of gerrymandering is the most poorly kept secret in state politics. That the speaker would openly admit to gerrymandering, however, is pretty surprising. Usually, gerrymandering is one of those things that is done with a wink and a nod but never talked about openly by its practioners.
The problem for the mess in Albany, I lay blame on the feet of rank and file legislators. Sure, it's easy to pick on Silver and Senate Majority Leader Bruno and, believe me, I know they deserve it. But who are Silver and Bruno? They are elected by rank and file Assemblymen and Senators. They REPRESENT their caucuses.
If they are able to act as little tinpot dictators, it's the rank and file's fault for allowing it. If the Democratic Assemblymen really didn't like how Silver was running things, they'd tell him to fix things or else get voted out. They had the chance to get rid of Silver a few years ago but they didn't have the guts and abandoned Michael Bragman, the insurgent candidate. The rank and file needs to understand that Silver and Bruno are dependent on them, not vice versa.
NYCO doesn't quite agree with me. He wrote:
Yes - but did Bragman really stand for change and good government, or did he just want Silver's throne?
I'm not very convinced that anything really would have changed if he had succeeded in ousting Silver. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, etc. But I agree with you that the problem is not just Silver, but his favored ones and how the rank-and-file legislators don't really feel empowered by their constituents to stand up to them.
I understand his point, but you have to start somewhere.
While Bragman may or may not have been fundamentally different than Silver, his election would've sent a message that the rank-and-file are willing, for once, to assert themselves. They would've asserted that they need to be allowed to do their jobs. That alone would've helped things at least a little bit.
Then Bragman would know that if the rank-and-file were willing to get rid of Silver, they could do the same to him. And most importantly, it would've given the rank-and-file a little confidence to assert themselves by reminding that, contrary to popular belief, the dog can still wag the tail. That alone would've been a start.
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