The Sienna Poll says that a majority of voters want to see the Democrats take control of the State Senate, something they never managed to do even when they had the Majority.
However, thanks to a systemic effort by the Senate GOP to use very trick in the book to deprive the majority of voters of the political results they favor, and the active collaboration of the Governor and Assembly Democrats to ensure that result, this poll is slightly less significant than one of those self selected cell phone polls on The Ed Show.
As to results, perhaps this is just as well; the Sen Dems do not collectively, or as individuals (with some notable exceptions), lack resemblance to a clown car.
Today, the Post gave the State Senate Democrats a well deserved kick in the nuts:
“Scandal hasn’t turned New Yorkers off to putting Democrats back in control of the state Senate.
A new poll finds 55 percent of voters would rather have the party of Pedro Espada, Hiram Monserrate and Shirley Huntley running the Senate again, while 36 percent want to keep it in Republican hands.
Espada and Monserrate are gone, both convicted of crimes.
Huntley lost a primary last month after being charged with falsifying documents to conceal payments to her niece and aide from a sham charity she created.
They helped run the Senate in 2009 and 2010 with fellow Democrats Carl Kruger, now in prison for bribery, and Kevin Parker, sentenced to probation, anger-management classes and restitution after assaulting a Post photographer in 2009.
And former and current Senate Democratic leaders Malcolm Smith and John Sampson, along with Sen. Eric Adams, were accused by the state inspector general in 2010 of favoritism, cronyism and political self-dealing in the doomed selection of a casino operator for Aqueduct Race Track….
The article even comes with a cute graphic outlining the crimes, alleged and otherwise, of Espada, Monserrate and Huntley.
The problem isn’t only that none of these folks will be serving in the Senate next year, the problem is, that in attacking only the Senate Democrats for corruption is like attacking only Chong, but not Cheech, for encouraging drug use.
This echoes the statement by State GOP Chair Fast Eddie Cox that Albany corruption is “definitely a Democratic problem.”
Called on the fact that Pedro Espada is not the only former State Senate Majority Leader convicted of corruption, Cox alluded to problems with the constitutionality of former Senate Republican Leader Joe Bruno’s conviction.
But, as Jim Dwyer has noted, the problems with the Joe Bruno (who is getting a new trial) and the culture which he still embodies, are not merely about allegations of illegality (upon which, as always, I will refrain from comment), but about the crimes which have been found to be legal, and the press's insane coverage of them.
JIM DWYER: …In the Senate, thanks to this tax-financed payroll, Mr. Bruno had hot-and-cold-running lawyers, drivers, secretaries, gofers.
Meanwhile, he also ran a private consulting business out of his office suite in the Capitol. The people who employed him sent his personal paychecks directly to his government office. So the $100,000-a-year secretary on the public payroll took care of $3.2 million in personal checks paid to Mr. Bruno, and all the attendant paperwork. The lawyers on that same public payroll had to meet with Mr. Bruno’s clients. All this has emerged at a federal trial under way in Albany.
The court case may describe crimes, or lawful greed or, as Mr. Bruno maintains, the ordinary, ethical practice of a part-time legislator, full-time businessman. Yet the Bruno story is about more than a trial, and more than one man’s lack of boundaries.
As a legislator, Mr. Bruno led a party that is in the minority in New York State but was in the majority in the State Senate, weaving the protective web of incumbency and gerrymandering. Major banks paid to keep Mr. Bruno and his people in place, casually writing checks of $50,000 or so for seasonal campaign galas. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars from his personal fortune to Bruno-run political funds, hoping to fortify Mr. Bruno’s shaky hold on power.
And two years ago, when the public was afforded a glimpse of Mr. Bruno’s sense of entitlement — he was being flown in state helicopters to political fund-raisers and meetings at racetracks — nearly all of Albany rose to his defense.
Like a few other senior public officials, Mr. Bruno could whistle up a state helicopter and State Police pilots pretty much anytime he wanted. In 2007, the logs of these trips were requested under the Freedom of Information Law by James Odato, a reporter with The Times Union of Albany. Drawing on the records, the paper published an article about Mr. Bruno’s frequent use of the helicopters when he had political fund-raisers and about police drivers taking him around when he landed.
At first, the story had a modest impact. Then Mr. Bruno complained he was the victim of police surveillance. A series of articles and editorials in The New York Post took up the theme that the revelations about Mr. Bruno’s travels were an evisceration of his civil liberties that bordered on Stalinism.
After all, who would want to live in a country where a politician can’t command state helicopters and police for what are essentially political fund-raising junkets?
Finally, the state’s attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, began an investigation. His report quickly disposed of any questions about the legitimacy of Mr. Bruno’s helicopter travels; under the rules in place, even a modest fig leaf of official business could justify them. The vast bulk of Mr. Cuomo’s report was devoted to the question of how the Bruno flight logs were disclosed. It turns out, unsurprisingly, that they were leaked by the office of Mr. Bruno’s bitter adversary, Eliot Spitzer, who was then governor. The governor’s staff pretty much issued a gold-plated invitation to the Times Union reporter to ask for the documents.
So The Times Union was cast as a stooge for reporting the information about the trips. Now, though, with the hindsight about Mr. Bruno’s sense of entitlement afforded by the federal trial, the helicopter saga is particularly revealing. The scandal was defined not as the possible abuse of public resources by Mr. Bruno, but as malignant leaks by the governor’s office. The truth of the matter was not the problem, but telling the truth was."
Of course, as always, I made many of these points far, far earlier.
Mr. Bruno was the architect of a completely corrupt, but thoroughly legal system, which robbed the voters of the state not only of their tax revenues and the benefits for which they were supposed to pay, but of democracy itself in any meaningful form (something this year’s redistricting continues).
The fact that Bruno may or may not have attempted to enrich himself (whether in a legal manner, or not) is almost incidental.
It is a system so replete with Bruno’s fingerprints that he can be personally found at the center of what was, at least until last week, the rankest stench involving the Senate Democrats.
It was not “Nucky” Sampson who put in place the process for choosing which lucky company would get to implement “Racetrack Empire.”
It was “Commodore” Joe Bruno.
And, just to be clear, the depraved culture and unchecked power of the Senate’s Republican Conference Mr. Bruno led also gave birth to other convictions including departed Senator turned almost County Executive Vincent Leibell, and the late and the late and unlamented Lucchese soldier, Guy Velella (Carl Kruger only lived in ”Gaspipe” Casso’s house; Mr. Velella seems to have supped at the Lucchese Family table).
And, it should also be noted that the shakedowns which are technically legal continue to this day, unabated.
But the problem with Republicans calling Espada and Monserrate (and let me add their collaborator Carl Kruger) a specifically Democratic problems is more than a systemic one.
If indeed Espada, Kruger and Monserrate were a problem (and they were), then they were a problem largely enabled by Republicans.
Let us review.
As I first noted in 2007, the Senate’s Republican Majority should be toast in the long term, and no one knows it better than they do. Their once robust majority has gradually evolved into a naturally occurring retirement community of old men sadly serving out terms of life imprisonment without parole on their way to the elephant’s graveyard.
It survives in a hothouse environment supported by the artificial sunlight of member items, “member services”, legislation sold to the highest bidder, malapportionment and inertia; its greatest enemies are actuarial tables and changing demographics.
The Republicans known this, but have which has gradually evolved over the last decade or so:
Run 'em as Dems, keep em as Dems, but have their votes to organize the Senate if the Dems ever take the majority.
Back in 2007, I gave it a name.
"The Kruger Plan".
The facts are simple. The Senate Republican majority is doomed in the long-term unless they find a way to corral some non-Republicans into either switching parties or voting with them to organize. This was their long-range strategy for many years. They find "Democrats In Name Only" and run them in prohibitively Democratic districts, so they can hold them in reserve in case the Dems ever take the majority.
Back in 2007, I gave twelve examples of this; four of them were Carl Kruger, Pedro Espada, Ruben Diaz and Hiram Monserrate.
Here is my line about Kruger:
“Example #11: Carl Kruger; already bought and paid for, many times over, but like a case of the clap, or Nancy Larraine Hoffman, Kruger is the gift that keeps on giving. Worth an article all his own; will get one soon.”
As I’ve documented earlier, a race in 2002 set new precedents for how far Joe Bruno could go in buying off local Democratic party officials, with no one taking any steps to enforce discipline. This was the race where incumbent Vinnie Gentile’s district was decimated in reapportionment, as the Republicans prepared to beat him with Bay Ridge Councilman Marty Golden.
The 2002 race where Golden won election was an historical landmark. It was nothing new for Brooklyn Democrats to endorse Republicans for President, Governor and Mayor, but never had Brooklyn Dems jumped ship, en masse, to desert a local incumbent. Nonetheless, one had to forgive them, for they only gave up their support after hours of torture being forced to contemplate huge piles of cash, pork and patronage.
Five members of the Democratic State Committee jumped ship, as did an incumbent Councilmen, Assemblyman and, incredibly, a Democratic State Senator.
That Senator was Carl Kruger, and he brought along with him such allies as the Garson Crime Family (whose membership at one point had a husband on Kruger’s staff and a wife on Golden’s) and Bruce Ratner’s consigliore Bruce Bender.
Kruger pretty much ran Golden’s campaign and elected him to the Senate.
As I’ve also noted, from 2002, onward, Kruger was a virtual member of the Republican Conference, basically getting serviced out of their allocations for any shortfalls in staff or member items, and getting some of his bills passed without David Paterson or Malcolm Smith having to beg for it. They even stopped running candidates against him.
Then, in 2007, he upped the ante.
Eliot Spitzer and Malcolm Smith were working assiduously to get two Republican to vote with the Democrats to reorganize. They needed two to jump at once, because no one wanted to do it alone.
The more credible it was that the majority would changes hands, the more likely Republicans would have been to jump, and things looked excellent.
Until Carl Kruger saved Joe Bruno‘s hide.
In a brilliantly executed coup de grace, Bruno brutally forced Kruger to accept appointment to the Chairmanship of the Senate’s Social Service Committee by holding a $12,500 a year check to his throat (The threats of extra staff and member items caused additional hyperventilating) .
By accepting this position, Kruger allowed Bruno to send his conference a powerful message:
“Don't bother jumping ship; I have Democratic votes, and you'll end up in the minority.”
Kruger had taken the wind out of Smith's sails, and he got a prize for it.
As I also noted, this was the beginning of the end for Spitzer. Kruger had blown his best shot at turning the Senate, and with it, his best opportunity for enacting his reform agenda.
As documented by Lloyd Constantine, the failed effort to turn the Senate was the beginning of the end, as Spitzer’s efforts became more and more desperate. There was Choppergate, and an effort to get the Sen Dems to complain about Bruno to the IRS (which Kruger dropped the dime about).
If one is to believe Constantine, the despondency over Bruno is what led to the prostitutes. Spitzer, already softened by Choppergate, could not survive another scandal.
All traceable in its way to Carl Kruger.
We should also note Kruger’s role in facilitating Joe Bruno’s crucial relationship with the repulsive Independence Party.
So overcome was Kruger by his hyperventilating over Bruno’s money, that Bruno got Kruger to hide Independence Party Vice Chair Tom Connolly on his payroll.
It was a truly emblematic illustration of how the Albany bi-partisan ruling establishment really works..
In 2006, facing an imminent Spitzer-Hilary blowout of monumental proportions, Bruno was worried that not even the reliable incompetence of David Paterson and friends could save his party from the unhappy accident of voters starting at Spitzer and voting straight down the line.
But thanks to the IP, there existed a ballot line where a voter could cast their votes for Spitzer and Hillary, and then continue down the line and be able to support every single solitary Senate Republican whose existence might be threatened by a Democratic landslide, as well as every Senate Republican candidate who has even a theoretical chance of taking a Democratic seat.
That year, the Independence Party has become Joe Bruno’s trump card; a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican State Senate Campaign Committee (RSSCC), essentially run out of the RSSCC offices, providing Republicans with life jackets to save them from the likely Democratic tsunami.
And it worked. At least one Republican seat (Serph Maltese’s) was saved by the IP line.
And Carl Kruger was now helping Joe Bruno to continue making it happen.
Then in early 2008, when a Special election enabled the Democrats to go after a seat in the North Country, litigation ensued over the IP line. Representing the interests of the pro-GOP Connolly faction (whose leader was ensconced on Kruger’s payroll) was Kruger’s Counsel.
And, for the most part, the IP is still a crucial part of the Senate GOP campaign operation, largely paid for at tax payer expense
After the fall of Spitzer, Kruger pretty much continued to function as a member of the Republican Conference, up until the point where the Senate became Democratic by one vote.
Then Kruger, with the help of Monserrate and Espada (plus Ruben Diaz). set up the “Amigos,” using his balance of power to throw the Senate into chaos until he became Chair of the Finance Committee.
Extortion, pure and simple.
Later, the next summer, when Amigos Pedro Espada and Hiram Monserrate attempted to repeat the trick, Kruger basically served as their negotiator with the Senate Democrats, helping to make Espada the Majority Leader.
As I’ve noted, the whole two act fiasco was perhaps the greatest New York political disgrace of our lifetime, and Kruger, Espada and Monserrate were the ring masters of that three wing flea circus.
During the 2010 primary cycle, I compiled my pieces documenting the really ugly history of the Amigos into one really long piece, so I will gloss over most of those details, and just refer you there.
Suffice it to say, that Republican cooperation with, and enabling and enhancing the power of Carl Kruger, Pedro Espada and Hiram Monserrate is all over that story like stink upon shit.
Let us particularly dwell upon Mr. Espada.
Espada’s own checkered history of sordid dealing with the Senate GOP Joe Bruno goes way back.
At one time, Espada became a member of the GOP Conference. To return to the list referenced earlier:
“Example #3: Get Pedro Espada to change parties while maintaining his Democratic enrollment so he can still run in the Democratic Primary. The Democrats actually stopped this one by beating Bruno at his own game by running DINO Ruben Diaz. Diaz, Espada; both have Jewish messiahs, but one follows Jesus and the other Fred Newman.”
And the low point of the Amigo adventures was when Dean Skelos nearly succeed in making Espada President Pro Tempore of the State Senate, just one heartbeat away from a Governorship held by a blind man with drug issues.
Tom Robbins describes the man Dean Skelos put a heartbeat away from the Governorship:
Former Bronx state Sen. Pedro Espada Jr. was in Brooklyn federal court this month, looking trim and sharp in a black suit. A onetime amateur boxer, Espada was there for a status conference on his federal indictment on charges that he and his son embezzled more than half a million dollars from his Bronx health care clinics. “I’m feeling great,” he announced outside the courtroom. “Never better.”
That’s Pedro Espada for you: Chin up. No shame. Ready for the next bout. If there was a championship belt awarded for Leading Scoundrel of the State Legislature, Espada would win it hands down. This is a man who used funds from his clinics-for-the-poor to pick up his $110,000 restaurant tab, then stiffed his own tailor for the custom-made suits he ordered. He rates a category all his own. Espada was such a relentless schemer that even his own constituents rejected his re-election bid for the Senate last fall….
…In one confrontation, an enraged Pedro Espada is seen reaching into his pocket and throwing crumpled dollar bills at chanting protestors. If you freeze-frame the tape on Espada's snarling face, a reasonable question arises: How did someone like this become an important lawmaker?
But while he’s no longer working the angles in Albany, the case of Pedro Espada Jr. still represents our clearest profile in political dysfunction. Even Brooklyn state Sen. Carl Kruger, Espada’s closest political ally, who was arrested last week in his own high-stakes, pay-to-play corruption probe, did his best to stay carefully (if unsuccessfully) below the investigative radar.
Not Espada. He flaunted it. His role models, he proudly proclaimed, were Ramon Velez, the scandal-scarred South Bronx political baron who also lived like a potentate off of his government-supported health clinics, and Rev. Louis Gigante, who built a nonprofit housing empire aided by pals of his brother, top gangster Vincent “The Chin” Gigante.
Given his fate, we’re not likely to see Espada’s type of brazen performance again anytime soon. But it’s worth taking a good look at how he prospered, who backed him up, and what his story tells us about our crippled state democracy.
For starters, let’s note that it’s only thanks to the voters in his northwest Bronx district that Espada isn’t still strutting the Capitol aisles. Law enforcement investigators from at least three agencies — the state attorney general, the FBI and the IRS — were combing through the records of his Soundview Healthcare Network at the time of his fall primary. A separate investigation by the Bronx district attorney was underway into where he really lived — in his ranch house in leafy Westchester County where he spent most of his time, or in the small Bronx apartment he claimed as his legal residence.
Anyway, during that entire Amigo fiasco, Dean Skelos was willing to give into extortionists to gain power, he was willing to paralyze the State to keep power, and he ultimately rejected bi-partisan power sharing as a solution to the mess he‘d gotten us into.
Unwilling to share power, Skelos ended up with none of it, which was surely an appropriate sentence he deserved to keep serving, and would have, but for the avarice and idiocy of his opposition, which, in itself, was enabled by the juicy pots of money like “Racetrack Empire,” left lying within temptation’s reach by Joe Bruno.
If Kruger and Espada can be said to embody the worst of Albany corruption, then it can be fairly said that they embody a problem which is at least as much a Republican problem as a Democratic one, and arguably even more so.