It’s a New York state of mess.
The New York State Senate — a corrupt, incompetent body even by the humiliatingly low standards of state government — has been in turmoil all week because two Democrats defected, flipping a narrow 32-30 majority from the Democrats’ favor to the Republicans’. The Democratic response to this was to whine, scramble, fussily insist that they were still in charge, turn off the lights in the Senate chambers and, finally, lock the Republicans out. Now the whole thing is tied up in court, one of the defectors (who was arrested last year for allegedly slashing his girlfriend’s face with a broken glass) is waffling, and the intrigue of the day swirls around keys to the Senate chambers (“Republicans used a mysterious set of keys to force their way into the Senate chamber for the first time since their leadership coup on Monday,” The New York Times reports today).
Beyond the dramedy of such buffoonery, perhaps the most compelling part of this story is how and why the coup happened. The Times‘ Danny Hakim and Nicholas Confessore had a great piece on this earlier in the week. Essentially, a billionaire business executive named Tom Golisano spent millions during last year’s election to put the Democrats in power. Once they won, he was mad that they wanted to raise taxes on the rich. He came to visit Malcolm Smith, then majority leader of the State Senate. Smith wisely spent the entire meeting fiddling with his BlackBerry and barely listening to his patron.
That meeting led to the dramatic collapse Monday of the Democrats’ grip on the Senate majority as a frustrated Mr. Golisano secretly planned with Republicans to persuade two Democrats to join them in ousting Mr. Smith.
Sure, Smith’s actions were impolite, provocative and stupid. Still, is this really how our government works? I’m not exactly a naive idealist, but I’m troubled by how most coverage of this story seems to accept with little more than a sigh that this is how our government is run, that a billionaire miffed by a politician’s social slight can stage a coup with massive policy implications, that his money has bought him not only the power to fund candidates who are later beholden to him, but to later topple their government, without an election, when it displeases him.
Even the Times‘ best columnist, Gail Collins, who’s take on Albany is consistently hilarious and smart, seems resigned that these are simply the rules of the game.
This is a truly shocking story. In this country, even presidential candidates nod thoughtfully while their deep-pocketed donors explain how all the nation’s problems can be traced back to the devaluation of the zloty. A six-term senator with an ego the size of a brontosaurus will sit mute, in apparent fascination, while the heir to an oil fortune reveals his plan to reduce crime by chopping off the fingers of shoplifters. Anybody who has been in politics for more than six minutes knows that the cardinal rule is to look interested when a rich guy is telling you his thoughts.
Very well. Some rich guy bankrolls your campaign, and you feel like you owe him a thing or two. Fine. But something’s rotten when he’s able to boot you from power and flip several clowns in the legislature without so much as a single vote being cast.
At least the people get it. Check out these folks protesting at the Senate in Albany, chanting “Senate not for sale” and “Voters not donors.” The Senators wading through the mob look like they’re on a perp walk. Power to the people.
(Photo: nouveau / flickr)