Corruption and Collusion:

The ‘Business’ of Government in New York

MAY 2016

CORRUPTION AT WORK
Three little words: “Pay to Play” perfectly describe the ‘business’ of government in New York State…in Albany and New York City…most greedily. The Governor and State Legislature, the Mayor and City Council understand and live by the rules of the game – you want a contract to do business here see my fundraising director.

Now to be perfectly honest Pay to Play has been part of New York for about two hundred years. We won’t bore you with the history but the history exists. It has become so ingrained in the political/governmental DNA that Sheldon Silver’s defense was based on the idea that what he did to enrich himself was just part of the way business is done in New York. While morally questionable, it could not have been illegal. He will spend some part of twelve years in prison thinking about it. The Judge in his case put it beautifully: there are laws against what he (and others) did and they were broken; the twelve year punishment was for a lifetime of corruption

Members of the State Legislature have done and are doing the same. As Preet Bharara, US Attorney extraordinaire, continues his work there will be others coming to a court of law very soon. The Governor’s closest colleague (and best hatchet man) – who served his Father as well – is now under serious investigation. Two of the three men in a room in Albany are going to prison. How much freedom is left for the third? Now that is the question. Calling the New York State Legislature the most dysfunctional in America was a kind use of the language and covers a whole lot of sins in other States across the country. It is no honor.

With all that going on from Albany…and right in the middle of criminal trials…the Mayor of New York blatantly asks two businessmen doing important ($$$$) business with the city for donations to help him elect three Democrats to the State Senate so he can be responsible for changing the balance of power from Republican to Democrat. Now what the Mayor was doing seems incredulous because he has been in politics (and only politics) throughout his life and knows the law. Yet he is so obsessed with being a power broker for Progressives, so blinded by his ambition for a second term, that he sees no harm in acting like one of the boys in seeking personal power and influence using somebody else’s money. (He seems to be blind to the fact that only 17% of eligible New Yorkers voted in the Mayoral election. The rest stayed home.)

The trouble is you can’t legally make those requests no matter how you try to cover them up. Yes there are actually laws against Pay to Play…they are not terrific but they exist. The games played are embarrassingly obvious. Watching these guys mess up what they try to do is like watching a bunch of little boys trying to play baseball. It is silly. The difference is that the big boys are playing with lots of money and influence and the lives affected are so often ours.

The Mayor’s clumsiness cannot hide the fact that like the Governor, his serious concern is power and influence. Neither man cares much about substance. Neither man understands education, for instance, but both are proud of the so-called quality universal Pre-K program that they put together for the four year olds in NYC. Mayor said “go” and the Governor provided the money. The Mayor forgets that little part and calls it “his” greatest accomplishment. But here is the truth no one seeks. No part of this Pre-K program has been tested for quality and the leader of the State Senate said the Mayor’s lack of knowledge about education in New York City calls into question his request for seven more years of Mayoral control of education. It took Mike Bloomberg twelve years to admit that he accomplished little with Mayoral control and John Flanagan who has served five years on the State Senate Education Committee said that DeBlasio failed his three and a half hour test at a committee hearing.

The Mayor and his people are under five different investigations by US Attorney Bharara…including one involving NYCHA – the slum called the New York City Housing Authority. He is looking into the quality of life and health for the half a million New Yorkers living in this monstrosity. You and I and television cameras can see that in a minute. What we hope he seeks is why billions of dollars have come and gone through NYCHA and things keep getting worse.

The official reason has become that the Federal Government has cut its budget….the surprise is that the Federal Government is giving any money to it at all.

The Governor leaked the news that the Mayor was asking for money from the ‘wrong people’. The Mayor was trying to break the power-hold that the Governor has on the State Legislature. He’s got a total Democratic Assembly. He always knows how they will vote. He has a carefully established Republican State Senate and he wants to keep it that way and works at it. He is the balance of power and wants that position as long as he is Governor.

COLLUSION
So all of this is known…to the people who pay attention, to the politicians and people who help them stay in office…to the media.

But there are questions to be asked regarding why the years of Pay to Play go on and on and on no matter who is in office.

The Republican Party in New York City is all but gone. If you are running for city-wide office in New York and are in a primary for the nomination, you need only reach 50,000 Republican voters in a city of almost 9 million people. Just 50,000 voters.

In New York State Republicans seem able to maintain their majority in the State Senate with the help of the Governor and some “independent” Democrats and while rarely heard, there are 43 Republicans in the Assembly to 103 Democrats. But that hold is tenuous. When Governor Andrew Cuomo needed four Republican State Senators’ votes to pass the Marriage Equality Bill, he asked Michael Bloomberg and Tom Golisano of Rochester to pledge money to the campaigns of those selected State Senators so they would cross over and vote for the bill. They did. It passed. For a number of reasons, only one of those State Senators returned to the Senate.

So the Republican Party remains strong in upstate New York as they do in Nassau County and yet their candidates for Governor against a power-player like Andrew Cuomo were two men who didn’t stand a chance to win the election. Wealthy businessman Carl Paladino, who would take a baseball bat to those in Albany (and you think the Donald has a ‘mouth’?) and Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino whose first words as the nominee were that he was against abortion and a woman’s right to choose. In New York State, no less…not South Carolina.

Why has the Republican Party informed popular upstate Congressman Chris Gibson that his interest in the running for Governor is unwelcome? Did they see someone they could not control? Or more importantly, did they see a man who stood a real chance against a two-time Governor sitting in the middle of a deeper and deeper scandal? We don’t know. But we wonder.

Is it possible that the Pay to Play DNA is so deeply ingrained in New York politics and government that all those who can influence the political landscape are comfortable once they get to work together to thoroughly maintain the ’status quo’?

If so, this is a level of corruption beyond the norm. Collusion takes the meaning of corruption far deeper than breaking the law and cheating the public. Now we are looking beyond the unethical into immorality.

If it can happen anywhere, it can happen right here in good ol’ New York.