State Senate Coup Exposes Albany’s Lack of Order
ALBANY — As New York’s governor, David A. Paterson might be expected to act as the leader of his party. But when two renegade Democrats handed control of the State Senate to the Republicans, he said there was little he could do but vent.
“I have no way to actually dictate the process, other than to use this forum to express my feelings about it,” Mr. Paterson, a Democrat, said at a news conference on Monday.
The governor was not the only one flailing.
Last week’s coup in the Senate may signal the final breakdown of New York’s long-declining political order, in which governors and senators were once feared and powerful county leaders provided a check on ethnic feuds or individual ambition. Even veterans of New York’s rough-and-tumble political scene seemed shocked at the revolt, which left the balance of state power in the hands of two freshman senators, Pedro Espada Jr. and Hiram Monserrate, and a rogue billionaire, Tom Golisano, who helped organize their defection.
Old political coalitions have frayed and the once-powerful party organizations are in decay. Three of the state’s senior posts — governor, junior United States senator and comptroller — are filled by unelected figures who are either politically unpopular or unknown to many voters.
The Democratic Party is dominant here, but it lacks a strong central figure with the stature, authority or will to impose discipline. The Republican Party is cohesive, but shrinking.
The result, some say, is a virtual free-for-all of opportunism and self-dealing.
“It’s like feudal Japan,” said Blair Horner, the legislative director of the New York Public Interest Research Group. “There’s a weak emperor and strong warlords.”
New York is not the only place where the state capital is reeling, as plummeting revenues strain budgets and rattle politicians. In California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature were rocked by voters’ rejection of ballot measures to fill a yawning budget gap, and must come up with a solution before the state runs out of money. In Illinois, Gov. Patrick Quinn, who took over after his predecessor, Rod Blagojevich, was impeached after being accused of trying to sell off a United States Senate seat, is struggling to corral legislators to get behind an income tax increase.
But in New York, there is a mix that has injected the system with a particular instability: a diminished governor, a fragile Democratic majority in a State Senate where the leader, Malcolm A. Smith, has struggled to assert control, and weak campaign finance laws that allow the wealthy to play outsize roles.
“I don’t think we’ve ever seen a time where the parties were so weak and the Democratic Party was so factionalized,” said George Arzt, a Democratic consultant. “Even with its huge plurality, it’s still not in charge.”
It is a long way since the days of Nelson Rockefeller, the three-and-a-half-term Republican governor who ruled New York virtually as emperor. During the 1970s, Gov. Hugh L. Carey forged alliances with unions and business leaders that brought New York City and the state back from the brink of insolvency. When Gov. George E. Pataki was elected in 1994, he engineered his own Senate coup to install as its leader an ally, Joseph L. Bruno.
Now, weighty matters — mayoral control of New York City schools, a vote on legalizing same-sex marriage, the burden of local property taxes — are at the mercy of a small handful of dissident lawmakers whose allegiances seem to shift by the hour.
Mr. Paterson, a former Senate minority leader, has limited tools to keep rank-and-filers in line. The budget squeeze has left few goodies for him to dole out to favored lawmakers, and his dismal poll numbers make any threat of retaliation against those who defy him seem empty.
“The worst thing that he could do is probably endorse them,” Mr. Arzt said of Mr. Monserrate and Mr. Espada, only half joking.
A thin majority is not always an obstacle to wielding power. Mr. Bruno, who led the old Republican Senate majority until last year, had no more votes than the Democrats did for much of this year, yet faced little threat of insubordination. Mr. Smith, in his brief time in the same post, has never gained his footing.
Other prominent Democrats appear unwilling or unable to play party leader.
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is the undisputed master of the legislative process in Albany but has limited power to impose party discipline beyond his own chamber. The state’s most popular elected official, Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, is feared and respected. But Mr. Cuomo, who may challenge Mr. Paterson in a primary next year, has little to gain by asserting himself now, and must tread carefully, given that his office may be drawn into the legal battle over the Senate coup.
The state’s senior United States senator, Charles E. Schumer, helped clear a path for the newly appointed junior senator, Kirsten E. Gillibrand. But Mr. Schumer has largely resisted becoming bogged down in more local power struggles. The organization built by Hillary Rodham Clinton, Ms. Gillibrand’s predecessor, has largely dissipated.
“Somebody needs to pull the sword out of the stone,” said one Democratic political operative, who spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to anger Democratic leaders. “You have little duchies and barons and no way to have a strong king, except in the Assembly.”
The sense of drift extends into city politics. The New York City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, is a Democrat from one of the most liberal districts in the city, and she presides over an overwhelmingly Democratic Council. But she has largely embraced the agenda put forward by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, an independent, helping him push through a measure last year to change the term limits law, which provided the mayor and Council incumbents the chance to extend their time in office by four more years.
Since then, Democratic leaders seem powerless to stop Mr. Bloomberg from hiring virtually every experienced Democratic operative in the city, including some who were expected to work for the likely Democratic nominee, William C. Thompson Jr. And Mr. Bloomberg, a Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-independent, has gone shopping for ballot lines as if browsing the tie racks at Barneys.
“The political culture of the state and the city has become less and less rigorous,” said Bill de Blasio, a city councilman. “It’s become a place where there is not much sense of accountability.”
The breakdown in Albany is all the more striking given that just three years ago, voters elected Eliot Spitzer with an overwhelming mandate to clean house.
Mr. Spitzer, of course, resigned in disgrace, and was replaced by Mr. Paterson. And at the end of last week, Mr. Spitzer’s reform agenda felt far off as Mr. Espada, the Senate’s new president, led Republicans in producing a key to force their way into the chamber, which had been locked by the Democrats. And Mr. Monserrate seemed once again to be playing free agent, entertaining offers from both Democrats and Republicans as he wavered about whether to stick with the new majority he helped install.
“I think we’re seeing a meltdown,” said Edward I. Koch, the former New York mayor. He added, “I believe it’s not only disgraceful, but it makes New York look like a banana republic.”
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
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