"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have"
Thomas Jefferson

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Perfect Illustrations Of Albany Dysfunction

Whether or not you favor congestion pricing, whether or not you even care about congestion pricing it does not matter, the point is the lack of debate and vote on the issue.

The issue was discussed in the back room, behind closed doors and there was no vote on the floor of the Assembly.

Speaker Silver is quoted yesterday as saying; “many of them (Democratic members of the Assembly) just don’t believe in the concept”, ok, let the members of the Assembly speak for themselves through a vote.

Speaker Silver and his staff are reported to have given the brush off to Bloomberg’s staff, which is standard operating procedure for the Assembly leadership. My way or the highway mentality, no discussion.

Snippets of Mayor Bloomberg's press release;

"It takes true leadership and courage to embrace new concepts and ideas and to be willing to try something. Unfortunately, both are lacking in the Assembly today."

“If that wasn’t shameful enough, it takes a special type of cowardice for elected officials to refuse to stand up and vote their conscience– on an issue that has been debated, and amended significantly to resolve many outstanding issues, for more than a year.”

Silver says no vote, no hearing, no nothing including no democracy in this state.

An issue as important as congestion pricing is; it never made it to the floor for vote. A single man in Albany should never have this much power and control, that is essence of the problem in Albany.

Further, Democrats on the Senate side were shut out, no access to bills that were to be voted on.

Is this anyway to run New York State government, it is an embarrassment.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Your comments on the Assembly Dems taking a pass on this were right on? But why let the Sen Dems off the hook? Republicans were on the floor and ready to vote, but the Dems wouldn't come out of hiding -- even from reporters.

If the issue were truly about budget transparency, why didn't Malcolm Smith hold a press conference and say so?

IV, don't mistake dysfunction for calculated political strategy -- when you're in the minority, you're not used to the glare of public attention when it comes to taking tough votes. Easier to just run and hide -- then let the worldn pin the blame on Shelly.

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