A special legislative session was scheduled to get underway Tuesday evening. Bills to help balance budgets, decide who controls schools and pay employees hang in the balance.
But make no mistake the chaos in Albany continued earlier in the day. Senate democrats came up with a creative way to do absolutely nothing.
There’s no end to the madness in Albany and Tuesday proved it.
For Senate Democrats, it may have been an alternate reality. They have only 31 members, but they claim to have the 32 votes needed for a quorum because Republican Sen. Frank Padavan of Queens walked through the chamber.
The Democrats marked Padavan present and spent hours passing bills counting on him as the key vote. He said all that he did was go to the lounge to get a coke and any attempt to count his vote was illegal.
“I think it’s totally fraud and they know it. It’s childish, stuffing the ballot in a sense. But then again, it doesn’t surprise me that they would do anything that they could to get away with whatever they want to get away with,” Padavan said.
Democrats insisted that they could count his vote.
“He walked inside the chamber,” said Sen. Ruben Diaz of the Bronx. “Once you’re inside, you’re present.”
But Gov. David Paterson said it was just the latest excuse to do nothing. He said he would sign none of the bills passed by the Democrats with Padavan included as a yes.
“Once again, the do-nothing Senate has exceeded our greatest fears and contempt,” Paterson said.
A clearly frustrated Paterson held a press conference with Mayor Michael Bloomberg joining by satellite. The mayor is furious that Senate inactivity could allow City Hall control of the schools to expire at midnight. And in true Bloombergian fashion he hinted at revenge.
“Let them know that come the next election, we’re going to be asking, did you stand up for our children at this critical moment? Did you lead? Did you take action?” Bloomberg said.
Good government groups said enough is enough.
“What New Yorkers need is resolution and action, not more partisan skirmishing,” said Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research Group.
Diaz summed up Tuesday’s doings by saying it was just another day at the circus.
(Source: WCBSTV)
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4 Responses
Why doesn’t the press lay the blame where blame belongs. There was a vote to replace the speaker, and that vote is legal and must be recognized. The Democrats must concede, and let the govt return to work.
Can someone please explain to the oilem in poshut english what exactly is going on here. What is the world is the connection between mike bloomberg and the us state senate. I’m so confused
Plain English? Here goes: We, the citizens of New York, elected Senators to represent us in the NY State government. We pay their salaries. They have been playing childish games for the past three weeks instead of doing their jobs. If your average worker fails to do their job for three weeks and misses critical deadlines, they’d be fired. But it’s not so easy to fire politicians – we have to wait until they run for re-election and then vote them out of office. So, we have not had a functioning government for the past three weeks (actually, anyone who knows anything about NY politics could reasonably argue that we haven’t had a functioning government for a lot longer than that) and time-sensitive legislation was not passed, but the Senators get paid anyway. Just another form of taxation without representation. Happy 4th of July.
To address your specific question about Mayor Bloomberg, you have to understand that one of the forms dysfunction takes in NY is that the state has to approve all sorts of local legislation. The NYC budget was balanced based on certain fiscal assumptions, such as the fact that the sales tax would be raised by half a percent. The state Senate has failed to approve this tax increase so the city budget is out of balance. Additionally, the mayor has had control over NYC schools for the past seven years but that control expired yesterday. There is no Board of Ed or infrastructure to run the city schools, but the mayor no longer has authority to run the schools either so NYC schools are in legal limbo.
By the way, this problem of state approval for local issues is not limited to NYC. A number of counties were relying on approval for other budget measures, and this failure by the state Senate to pass the required legislation will have significant impact on local governments. You can argue all you want about the need for various services and taxes, but those arguments belong at the local level, not in the state legislature. Go to your county meetings and voice your opinions about what services they should cut. There is no rational reason for the state to be involved in those discussions.
And now, I’ll get off my soapbox.
“Can someone please explain to the oilem in poshut english what exactly is going on here.”
IT’S VERY SIMPLE, IF YOU UNDERSTAND THE WAY OF HASHEM.
“YisPorDu Kol PoaLei Aven.”
They wanted to pass a “GayMarriage” bill. The Gedolim spoke out against such a descent into publicly-accepted official immorality.
So, HaShem has thrown them into confusion.
SIMPLE, ISN’T IT!