Category: News and Opinion

Another argument made in support of continuing Judicial Conventions and not having Primaries choose candidates for State Supreme Court Justice has to do with diversity on the bench. Just a few days ago, a Democratic Party activist told me he believed that if Primaries picked them, there would never be another Black or Hispanic Supreme Court Justice elected in Manhattan.

To try to determine how true that is, I decided to look at Countywide Primaries for judgeships in the last 10 years since the Supreme Court Districts in New York City are the same as the 5 counties (except that Brooklyn and Staten Island are a combined district for Supreme Court).

When news broke that the incoming Spitzer administration has set up a website for the submission of resumes and ideas, I briefly considered submitting the former. Very briefly. A moment’s reflection made it clear that, even if state wanted to hire me, a return to public service would be bad for my family, my career, my mental health, and even my ability to make a contribution to my community. That is what a 20 year history in government, generally as a policy analyst/city planner, tells me. Based on more positive experiences outside public service, however, I would like to offer my assistance to the incoming Spitzer administration in another way. Any information I have compiled and analyzed, any information I will compile and analyze, and any suggestions I have or will come up with in my spare time are yours, gratis. Absolutely free. That is a suggestion I made to the “ideas” inbox. If someone reading this wants my resume, just fish my e-mail address out of there and ask me for it. If anyone else is interested in a warning about the nature of a public sector career, read on.

That's what the newspapers are saying, with the assumption that Bruno and Silver, paid by lobbyists to keep existing fiscal priorities and self-interested in keeping existing political procedures, are united in opposition. I hope not.

But Spitzer does have another option, one alluded to by Bill Hammond of the Daily News: get people like Tom Suozzi, Tom Golisano, and perhaps even Mike Bloomberg behind at least part of his agenda. All three have shown an interest in structural change, and the first two have shown a willingness to go after the powers that be rather than just sucking up to them. Even Mario Cuomo called for a constitutional convention the last time it was on the ballot.

One of the loudest arguments in favor of continuing Judicial Conventions and not having Primaries choose candidates for State Supreme Court Justice has to do with money. At Wednesday’s hearing before the State Assembly Judiciary Committee, witnesses and Assembly members warned that Primaries would mean that judgeships would go to the highest bidder and that big money would corrupt the justice system. Million dollar campaigns have been predicted.

But is that a legitimate fear?

Since other elected judges are selected through Primaries, shouldn’t we look at what candidates for these positions spend on campaigns?

Over the years I have consulted for numerous candidates for judge. Because of this, I take a particular interest in the never-ending debate on judicial selection in New York.

I’m basically agnostic on the question of which system produces the best judges but I do have one strong belief – no system is perfect!

Appointments, elections, merit selections, panels, etc. – all of them will produce great judges, good judges, mediocre judges, bad judges and crooks.

But most others are not agnostic. They are advocates for one system and can only see the bad results of the systems they oppose and are blind to how their preferred schemes actually work.

Yesterday, Ben Smith of Daily Politics asked,  “Who lost the State Senate?”, offering five alternative theories. The day before, it was Wayne Barrett who raised the same issue; but, I started complaining last spring.

 As I’ve stated before  (11/8/06), there is enough blame for everyone to enjoy a piece, with seconds for anyone who asks. I outlined Ben’s theory number #3 (Blame David Paterson) in all its gory details on May 10, 2006. Theory #4 (blame internal politics) is just a subset of #3; if Paterson had done what Spitzer had asked, and stepped down as leader early on, internal politics would have been resolved well before the election; instead the leading members of the Senate's Democratic Conference were so interested in becoming Minority Leader, they forgot about becoming Majority Leader. 

I outlined theory #2 (Blame the County Leaders) in my pre-election Voter’s Guide (11/6/06) and again after the election  (11/10/06), but in a way, its just a subset of  the usual Albany malaise (4/29/06). For their own reasons, the Assembly Democrats have little interest in a Democratic Senate; many County leaders are Assembly members, others depend upon the Assembly Democrats to provide them essential support. In Brooklyn, some local Dems are actually bragging about how their decision to prevent an opponent for Republican Senator Marty Golden allowed the Democrats to pick up one more Assembly seat, bringing Shelly Silver's veto proof majority up to a superfluous 108 out of 150.

A reader asks:

“I’ve just read this article by Wayne Barrett (11/14/06) in the Village Voice, and can’t help but notice that its points almost exactly echo those you made (11/10/06), here (11/8/06) and here (in the section on races for the State Senate) (11/6/06).

In addition, I can’t help noticing that both you and Barrett became writers because it was less difficult than giving up masturbation (Barrett is actually on record about this) and both of you have been accused of having difficulty restraining yourself from writing stories favorable to your personal friends.”

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my view that there’s too much praise for people in winning campaigns and too much criticism for those who lost.

I ended the post by writing “I would like nothing better than to see the Democrats win the Senate and House and then to read a Robert Novak column calling for Bush to fire Rove.”

Well Novak hasn’t done it yet but Deborah Oren in the New York Post has come close, here.

Every two year, I’ve looked forward to the time coming when a Democratic victory would put an end to the endless post-election game of finger-pointing and recriminations that came after our every defeat. So, I didn’t expect to be playng the same games after we'd won an unequivocal victory.

My complaint here does not apply to local finger-pointing and recriminations about the senseless loss of the opportunity to take away Serph Maltese’s State Senate seat; let’s form a firing squad in a circle and mete out justice to everyone responsible; but, on a national level, it seems a strange way to celebrate. Gingrich had “The Contract on America” (Freudian Slip intentional); Democrats take contracts out on each other.

It’s time to start thinking about who will vote in the first New York City election of 2007. There will be two Special Elections for City Council in February. One in the 40th Council District in Brooklyn will pick the replacement for Yvette Clarke who is going to Congress. The other is the 51st and will select the successor to Andrew Lanza who is becoming a State Senator.

These elections are non-partisan with nobody running on the Democratic, Republican, Independence, Conservative or Working Families lines. There is no runoff, so candidates have won with less than a majority. Turnout in these elections are usually small, ranging from 5% to 15% depending on how serious contested the race is.