Statesmanship or . ..

Listening to the news the other night I heard one of the New York Democratic legislators claim that the current standoff between the Democrats and Republicans was "statesmanship versus gamesmanship." Presumably that meant that the Democrats were engaging in "statesmanship," which is the exercise of wisdom in the matter of public affairs, and the Republicans were engaging in "gamesmanship," a sort of taking-advantage-of-technical-rules-in-a-mean-spirited-sort-of-way kind of thing. Today I looked for the quote, and it turns out it actually came from Senator John Sampson, who is the Democractic Conference Leader. He said it in response to a question why Democrats had failed to show at a meeting to which Republicans had shown up because the Democrats had been running around publicly demanding a meeting. Apparently they wanted to meet on a different day.

So Senator Espada, at the center of the supposed coup staged June 8th, claims that he has a video tape of the proceeding that clearly shows the validity of the vote that accomplished the coup.

No back to Sampson's quote, here in full: "There needs to be public negotiations, but not negotiations where you have video tapes of what happened on June 8th," Sampson said. "This is about statesmanship, versus gamesmanship".

So, essentially, Sampson is saying that he is interested in negotiating, but only when the truth is not invited to the meeting.

What could Senator Sampson fear from a videotape? Either it shows, or does not show, the validity of the Republican-led vote. If it shows the vote is not valid, then his party gets to keep the gavel. But - - as is more likely - - if it shows the vote is valid, then the reality becomes that Sampson wishes to retain power where he validly has none. Put different, he wishes to subvert a legitimate vote in the exercise of state authority for the sole purpose of keeping "his party" in power over "their party."

That sounds more like "gamesmanship" to me than anything.

Remember, they are all getting paid for this. And yes I know the State Comptroller has decided to hold the vouchers. He doesn't say he won't pay them, however, he just says he won't pay them right now. So rest assured that if the Senate ever does come back to work, all those vouchers will move through pretty quickly. (Incidentally, the State Comptroller is a former legislator himself. And he was put in the State Comptroller's position by . . . the legislature. The gesture of holding the vouchers is meaningless and meant only to coax his former colleagues out of a position of embarrassment.)

Now the interesting thing is that at this moment various powers in government are discussing whether it should be considered "fraud" for a doctor to submit a bill to Medicare for a surgery if the surgery fails to meet certain quality standards. So if you go in for surgery and the surgeon does kind of a poor job, then submits the bill, the Medicare overlords get to say that's "fraud." There's a parallel in goods law also, that goes much further back, called the "lemon law." If you buy what looks like a car, but it turns out to be a lemon, it's a fraud and you get your money back plus a little something for your lawyer.

So if you send a person to Albany who is supposed to be a legislator, but then it turns out that the closest they come to legislating is engaging in some sort of sophomoric football game designed to figure out who has the better "team," well, then you've bought a lemon. It's a fraud and you should get your money back.

I want my money back.

A Look at Constitutional Relevancy

Well the New York State Senate decided to take the day off again today while I went to work, and the money I earned will still be taxed to pay their salaries. One of life's sweet little ironies, I suppose. I wish I had a job where I could just not show up and still get paid, don't you?

So this evening I figured I would waste some time by reading the state constitution. I say wasting time because the state constitution apparently has nothing to say about the present lack of anything productive being done in Albany. So --just for fun, as it has no bearing on the present crisis --here is one of the sections on constitutional amendments:

Any amendment or amendments to this constitution may be proposed in the senate and assembly whereupon such amendment or amendments shall be referred to the attorney-general whose duty it shall be within twenty days thereafter to render an opinion in writing to the senate and assembly as to the effect of such amendment or amendments upon other provisions of the constitution. Upon receiving such opinion, if the amendment or amendments as proposed or as amended shall be agreed to by a majority of the members elected to each of the two houses, such proposed amendment or amendments shall be entered on their journals, and the ayes and noes taken thereon, and referred to the next regular legislative session convening after the succeeding general election of members of the assembly, and shall be published for three months previous to the time of making such choice; and if in such legislative session, such proposed amendment or amendments shall be agreed to by a majority of all the members elected to each house, then it shall be the duty of the legislature to submit each proposed amendment or amendments to the people for approval in such manner and at such times as the legislature shall prescribe; and if the people shall approve and ratify such amendment or amendments by a majority of the electors voting thereon, such amendment or amendments shall become a part of the constitution on the first day of January next after such approval. Neither the failure of the attorney-general to render an opinion concerning such a proposed amendment nor his or her failure to do so timely shall affect the validity of such proposed amendment or legislative action thereon.

So let's say you are a citizen and you have a good idea for amending the constitution, first you have to find a legislator to put the bill in, then the Attorney General needs to offer an opinion on the bill, then it has to be voted on by . . . yes, the legislators, not once but twice, in two consecutive sessions . . . and then it gets put to a vote by the people, and then if the measure is approved it takes effect the first day of "January next." When you add this all up it's at least two years, more likely more, and you might have better luck betting on Michael Jordan's famous shot to keep his Big Mac away from Larry Bird: "over the second rafter, off the floor, nothing but net."

Clearly there is a need to protect the foundational documents of state government from arbitrary change. At the same time, a document that is so diffcult to change and is protected by such onerous ballot access laws risk becoming ossified at first, and later irrelevant. And when control of government is taken out of the hands of the people, that is the death of democracy.

Did I mention that currently our state legislature is utterly non-functional, and that the state constitution has nothing to say about it? Is our constitution merely ossified, or has it already become irrelevant?

I Can't Stand It Anymore

There's got to be a revolution in New York State. Not a bloody coup, mind you, so anarchist gun nuts and Koresh compound holdouts need not apply. I am talking about a purely peaceful, purely democratic, purely radical revolution.


Our state government is corrupt and defunct. At its best, it takes a third of your income and puts three men in a room behind closed doors to decided how to spend it. The biggest chunk goes to the worst social welfare system in the nation - - we spend the most per Medicaid enrollee of any other state in the Union by far and yet our outcomes are less than so-so.


The state Senate is not working. Viscious party politics have hamstrung the legislative branch. While the two dominant parties devote most of their effort to trying to figure out how to screw the other party the people's work remains unaddressed - - this is a year forecasting massive budget deficits and an economic crisis gripping the state and the nation in ways that have not been seen in an age.


Our economy lags behind the nation, which in turns lags behind the world, which makes New York, the Empire State, into the world's laggard. But instead of leading us towards tomorrow, our political leaders squabble and squawk about what happened yesterday.


The icing on the cake is that any serious effort to reform the state government requires the approval - - yes, the state government. The same government that hasn't been able to decide whether it's even open or closed for business in over three weeks. By the way, any reform under the current rules would take at least three years and would not be approved directly by the voters at the end of the day. So good luck with that.


I can't stand it anymore.


I can't stand giving my money to a government that quite simply fails of its intended purpose. I want my money back. Or, I want a real government - - one that puts its responsibilities to the people above individual responsibilities to "the party." I don't really give a rat's ass whether Democrats "win" or Republicans "win" or the Green Party "wins," as long as they are doing things that make New York nicer to live in. And generally speaking, making New York nicer to live in means getting out of my shorts.


So what is needed, as far as I can tell, is a brand new government. It will begin with a convention of delegates from each of the counties, and end with a state government that is genuinely by the people, and for the people.


The process must be democratic beyond fault, and utterly peaceful. And it must be driven forward with a will of iron and an unerring eye for truth, liberty, and justice.


It has to happen. It has to happen now.