SUSAN ARBETTER ON ccSCOOP

Presenting Marat/Sade at the Capitol (an unlimited engagement)

May 15, 2010

Fast-forward to today. Currently, with the stain of scandal and the smell of cowardice mucking up the joint, the fancy flourishes only exacerbate a sense of the absurd. Once you throw in the daily melodrama that unfolds around here, what you have is not so much Symbol of Power and Democracy, but Theater of the Absurd.

Check that. It’s Community Theater of the Absurd (the play isn’t that good). But it is produced here season after season. The production is set in the 1930s, where all the inaction takes place among heavy dark oil paintings hanging in gilt frames, and in which the characters act furtively (like cartoons drawn by Edward Gorey). What happens on stage? Deals are made amid halls of green velvet settees and lobbyists. But ultimately nothing happens here. And it’s frightening.  Call it The Persecution and Assassination of Democracy as Performed by the Elected Inmates of Albany’s Capitol Asylum.

I apologize to Peter Weiss.

Act One, Scene One

Here’s what transpired beyond the proscenium arch this week.  

As you know, New York has no spending plan for the current year, and hasn’t since the April 1 budget deadline. Lawmakers are unwilling to draft, consider, speculate upon, negotiate, or ponder a budget for two reasons mired in self-interest: 2010 is an election year, and 2010 is a year in which New York State has a 9.2 billion dollar budget gap. Lawmakers would rather posture than deliver bad news to special interests they depend upon for campaign contributions. So you see their dilemma. In a year during which cash is scarce, special interests will have to be cut. But who wants to cut the hand that contributes to your re-election campaign?  

On the other end of the political spectrum, you have a Governor with nothing left to lose. Without a re-election to focus on, David Paterson is left with only one reasonable choice: Do the right thing. On Monday he issued an ultimatum to the legislature: Pass a budget extender that calls for furloughing state workers one day per week, or allow state government to shut down. Lawmakers grudgingly passed the extender. By Tuesday morning four state worker unions including the biggies CSEA and PEF sued the Governor. By Wednesday the judge in the case issued a stay saying that there will be no furloughs until after a hearing on the issue at the end of the month. 

The Governor lost that round. On Wednesday morning we were reminded—again—why the Governor has lost practically every round during his troubled tenure.

Act Two Scene Two

At some point between pushing the furlough plan and asking state workers to make “a shared sacrifice,” Governor Paterson gave five members of his executive staff raises. It’s like he’s governing on another planet entirely. His argument was that the raises totaled a mere $45,000 dollars, and that the employees receiving these raises had been picking up the slack left by people who had quit his administration months ago. But perception is everything in politics.  The move was perceived by state workers as another indication of the Governor’s disdain.  

Politically, the timing of the Governor’s largess couldn’t have been worse. By noon on Wednesday, the Governor bowed to political pressure and announced that there would be no raises for his staff. 

Our (Early) Dénouement

We could leave our story there and it would be absurd enough, but there’s more. On the same day of the raise fiasco, about two dozen members of the Assembly stormed Governor Paterson’s office on the second floor of the Capitol. (FYI— “Stormed” in Albany is less like Bastille Day and more like a 1960s sit-in on the third floor of some guy’s studio apartment.) 

Led by Albany Democrat John McEneny, the group snuck by the Governor’s security detail and demanded to see Paterson, who was not only in the office but available and willing to speak with them almost immediately.

According to a source in the room at the time, the common thread that ran through this group of activists must have been frustration over the budget stalemate, because it certainly wasn’t any single policy position. Said this source, there must have been five different disparate requests of the Governor: “How much are you willing to borrow?” “Why aren’t you pushing a soda tax?” (“Let them eat cake!”)

When another activist Assembly member demanded that the Governor call an extraordinary session of the legislature in order to complete a budget, the leader of the cabal Assemblyman McEneny, looked at his Assembly colleague and said a special session wasn’t possible.  

Our Play Within a Play

Here’s how a senior official in the Paterson administration characterized the conversation:

Assemblyman John McEneny: He can’t call a special session because we’re already in special session.  The legislature never officially gaveled out after the last extraordinary session the Governor called back in February.

Governor David Paterson: You really believe that, Jack?

Jack does indeed believe it.  Politically the Assembly is sick and tired of being called back to Albany at the drop of a hat by this lame duck Governor and has no intention of allowing him the ability to flex that muscle again. So yes, apparently, the Assembly and the Senate are in Extraordinary Session right now, which Travis Proulx of the Senate Majority press office confirmed to me this afternoon. “Both the Senate and the Assembly remain, technically, in extraordinary session following the Governor’s last resolution.” However, Proulx, added that, after checking with the Senate Democratic attorney, “The Senate is ready to be in regular session or a session called by the Governor if necessary.” It’s clear by McEneny’s posture, however, that Assembly’s attorney didn’t come to the same conclusion.

Asked for his reaction to this nontraditional use of legislative rules, a senior staffer in the governor’s office said, “The Governor reserves the right to call a special session at anytime and has shown that he is more than willing to do so. We don’t take this seriously.”

Is anything taken seriously here at the Community Theater of the Absurd?

Imagine the intellectual energy that went into developing this non-action plan. Now imagine how that intellectual energy could be put to better use on the taxpayer’s dime.    

Finale

While the sit-in was taking place, and while the legislature was doing almost nothing (extraordinary session or not), a few things fell through the cracks that could be considered important. Here’s one:

On Saturday, an economic development incentive called “Power for Jobs” expires.Four hundred and forty companies, many in upstate, subscribe to Power for Jobs to help them cut the cost of doing business in New York State. For example, SCA Tissue up in Glens Falls employs 500 people. They receive a $125,000 per month discount on their energy bill. Without the benefit, they may have to move to a place where doing business is less costly and less dysfunctional. So what happened? The Senate has been prepared to negotiate a Power for Jobs bill for weeks. The Governor’s office initially floated a Power for Jobs reform plan last year. Assemblyman Kevin Cahill, the chairman of the Assembly Energy Committee also has been eager to ensure that Power for Jobs is extended. Unfortunately, the Assembly leadership wasn’t focused on the issue (read: Upstate New York) until Wednesday—three days before the incentive expires. 

The legislature has scurried home for the weekend, leaving Power for Jobs unfinished. They have left the halls of the Capitol behind, and they have left hundreds if not thousands of workers in upstate New York worried about their future. Apparently our elected officials will storm the wrong citadel and chase red herrings before dealing with pain that could hurt their chances of re-election. Instead, the pain is ours, while we wait for this sadistic Godot to grow up, during a play performed every season, in which nothing ever seems to happen. Does the audience even care? 

E is for ennui.

Susan_Arbetter@wcny.org

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