The Hour of the Deer

By Michael Boyajian

Dusk for the city dweller is a time between night and day when existence takes on a mellow air free from the frustrations of the work day.  It is a time for decompression before the beginning of evening.  But it is a different feeling for the suburbanite for it is the hour of the deer.  This is the time when deer come out to forage for food and frolic often leaping in front of your moving car causing total damage.

I have to admit that I was glad the House Democrats abandoned the attempt to use a process called “Deem and Pass” to enact Health Care Reform. My qualm came not from moral concerns, but from an excess of legalistic caution. The constitutionality of Deem and Pass has never been tested, and so tested, it might very well not fly.

But, if ever there was a case where a challenge on the basis of constitutionality should have been drummed out of court on the grounds of equitable estoppel and unclean hands, it would be for a Republican challenge of this bill for such a reason. As with “Reconciliation,” the Republican Party has previously used “Deem and Pass” to enact legislation. While, unlike in the case of reconciliation, they have apparently not previously used it to pass major bills, the constitutionality of the procedure does not hinge upon the newsworthiness of the legislation it is being used to pass.

Same Sex Marriage Election Victory

By Michael Boyajian

After the New York State Senate’s failure last year to pass the same sex marriage bill Marriage Equality New York and other LGBT groups vowed to field candidates sympathetic to the measure.  The gay community had its first opportunity with a special election in Queens, New York recently for the seat held by disgraced Senator Hiram Monserrate, a vocal opponent of same sex marriage.  MENY supported Jose Peralta who handily won the race against Monserrate and a Republican running up huge numbers.

The Injustice of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade: A Postmortem

By Michael Boyajian

There was a time that although I am not Irish I would exuberantly celebrate the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in New York.   With spirits high from the pending arrival of Spring I would wear green, work the governor’s brunch before the parade, watch the parade with my wife up by the Metropolitan Museum of Art where we would enjoy a fine lunch of corn beef and cabbage followed that very evening by another meal of corn beef and cabbage.  All day I would get choked up by the passing bag pipers and elderly Irishmen would come up to my wife and say she had the map of Ireland on her face.

I watched a few minutes of Morning Joe on MSNBC this morning, where their guests included Daily News publisher, Mort Zuckerman.

John Harris of Politico reported on a story by Room 8 co-founder Ben Smith about union leaders pressuring Democratic Congressmen to vote in favor of the health insurance plan.

Harris pointed to the role being played by Andy Stern, President of the SEIU.

Zuckerman, in an obvious attempt to imply that Obama is a corrupt as those horrible Clintons, stated said that Stern was #1 on the list of people who had overnight stays at the White House.

Saving the Tuba Player

By Michael Boyajian

The proposed Obama Administration education reforms make for a good start but do not go far enough at least in New York State.  The simplest way to level the education playing field and equalize the system is to revamp the school financing formula. 

Poll for the day:

Which would be the best way to deliver to Hiram the political equivalent of cutting him (and not on his face) with a piece of broken glass?

1) Build up Peralta's victory margin?

2) Hope the Republican edges him out of second place?

3) Take him and his collaborators, shave their heads and run them naked through the streets (before you choose this option, remember that it would involve seeing Carl Kruger with his clothes off)?

While certain state politicians are demanding an audit of the MTA they defunded, I caught an interesting statistic in an article on the on the taxi overcharge scandal. According to the New York Times, New York City has 48,000 taxi drivers. That number rang a bell, and sure enough according to page VI-145/146 of the latest MTA budget, New York City Transit required 48,600 workers to transport a far larger number of people around New York City. Streetsblog, meanwhile, has drawn a striking comparison between the cost of having New York City Transit carry schoolchildren around the city, which New York State is unwilling to pay for, and having private school bus companies, which are big campaign contributors, do it, for which the state pays less for in New York City than in other parts of the state.

Meanwhile, I read that the state has been intensively auditing S.U.N.Y., finding the usual examples of services that could be consolidated and bookkeeping errors that need to be corrected. While I have no problem with holding S.U.N.Y. and C.U.N.Y. strictly to account, however, the reality is that staffing and pay are low in New York State in state government higher education (colleges and universities)  and in New York City in local government higher education (community colleges) relative to the national average, according to governments division data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Particularly when the higher cost of living downstate is accounted for in payroll. Meanwhile, elementary and secondary school spending, staffing and pay in the portion of New York State outside New York City is off the charts. It appears that the whole focus in a fiscal crisis in on the places where the money isn’t. Somehow, I don’t think that’s an accident.

Rising Tide for Same Sex Marriage

By Michael Boyajian

The Fishkill Democratic Committee gathered recently for its monthly meeting and to hear from Didi Barrett who is expected to run against New York State Senator Stephen Saland an opponent of same sex marriage.  Didi Barrett is important to the gay community because she is a candidate who has pledged to support same sex marriage and because she is the first of many candidates who will ultimately be running this year in support of marriage equality making it a movement unseen since the days of abolition.  After the debacle of same sex marriage in the state senate last year the gay community vowed to field candidates against all those who had opposed the measure.