Last
year, the prestigious BrennanCenter for Law and
Justice at New YorkUniversity branded the New YorkState legislature
the most “dysfunctional” in the United
States.
The
phrase stuck. Even people who’d never read the report hopped on the
Albany-bashing bandwagon. The momentum the BrennanCenter generated
carried past the splash of the initial press coverage and, improbably, into
last fall’s state legislature campaign.
Most
incumbents won re-election anyway; you’re more likely to die than be voted out
of this state’s legislature. But this spring, New York had its first
on-time budget in two decades.
Now
a small group of Democratic candidates for MonroeCounty’s lawmaking
body is trying to recreate that public outrage — and the subsequent push for
reform — on the local level.
No
one is more central to this effort than Paul Haney. In his mid-sixties, the
former county finance director has observed local county government in action
for longer than most people
“I
really think the root of most of the problem is that the legislature has become
an inert body,” he says. “If the legislature was somehow taken off the face of
the earth, I think it’d take six months for anyone to notice.”
When
he’s out campaigning and tells voters that he’s running for a seat in the CountyLegislature, Haney says,
they often ask him what that is.
“The
reason for this is that the CountyLegislature doesn’t do
anything,” he says. “It is in no sense of the word a deliberative body or an
investigative body.” The Lej has ceded much of its authority and responsibility
to the county executive, Haney believes, to the detriment of good government
practices.
That’s
why he and fellow Democratic candidates Ted O’Brien and Ted Nixon gave a
manifesto they recently released this unwieldy name: “Making the County Legislature
Relevant: Proposals to Restore the Legislative Branch of Government in MonroeCounty.”
The
four-page plan lays out a handful of specific proposals to reform the
legislature.
It’s
not the sexiest subject matter.
But
it is the little stuff that, added to still more such little stuff, that
becomes the foundation of a functional democratic government — the boring,
quotidian substance that draws out the “servant” element in a public servant.
And it’s the stuff that, if neglected, can drag a government down. Haney
believes it already has. Here’s what he and his fellow candidates want to do
about it:
First, they
want to shrink the size of the legislature. At 29 members, MonroeCounty’s lawmaking
body is larger than that of either NassauCounty (19 members)
or ErieCounty (15) — this
despite both counties having substantially larger populations than Monroe.
Haney
explains the push for a smaller Lej as a way to empower the body: the larger a
legislative body gets, the more individual legislators become removed from the
process, he says. When that happens, Haney says, the legislature “becomes very
susceptible to becoming the executive’s rubber stamp.”
Haney,
O’Brien, and Nixon also want to end the practice of gerrymandering — the
system of carving out goofy-looking districts whose voter registration numbers
help ensure that the party in power remains in power. That practice, the three
Dems say, “disgraces democracy.”
They
propose two fixes: forming an independent, bi-partisan commission to do the
redistricting, and drafting criteria to guide the process with the aim of
keeping districts “compact.”
These
changes would require creating something called a “charter commission” — a
local version of a constitutional convention. But other reforms the three propose
could be made almost immediately:
Limit the CountyExecutive‘s leasing power
With
a proposed county budget for 2006 that’s tiptoed to just south of a billion
dollars (yes, you read that right), it makes sense to ask who gets to spend all
that money. For Haney, Nixon, and O’Brien, the answer “Maggie Brooks” comes
back too often for comfort.
They
want to restrict the county executive’s ability to enter into leases. County
law does place some limits on the county executive’s authority. For instance, the
executive can’t spend more than $5000 on “goods and services” without the
legislature’s approval. But the only restriction on leasing property is a
five-year time limit.
“The
effect has been that rent expense incurred by the county has increased by 285 percent
since 1994,” the three charge. That opens the door to abuses, like overpaying
vendors who also happen to be prime contributors to the party in power, they
say. A cap on that authority — in the form of a dollar figure (they suggest
$50,000) — would help tilt the balance of spending power and oversight back
to the legislature.
Take back
control of the water authority
Haney,
O’Brien, and Nixon also want to put oversight of the Monroe County Water
Authority back in the hands of the legislature and tighten existing laws that
require its board to be bi-partisan. (Instead of Democrats, the Republican
administration has been appointing only Republicans and Conservatives).
Since
development (or lack of it) often hinges on the availability of water service,
the water authority has a lot of power. Add an annual budget of $50 million and
planned capital improvements of $110 million, it’s easy to see why Haney and
company want to see more hands-on supervision from the legislature.
Strengthen the
county’s audit committee
They’re
trendy at higher levels of government these days, but the concept of an audit
committee was forged in part here in MonroeCounty. The idea is
to have an independent group that monitors county finances. Lately, however,
“the committee has withered nearly into extinction,” the three say, meeting
rarely and in secret, and not saying much of anything about county finances.
Haney, O’Brien, and Nixon want the audit committee to hold open meetings, and
participate in — and report on — the county’s yearly audit.
Mandate
legislative oversight of the county’s local development corporations
Since
2000, the county has created four of these quasi-private businesses to do
things like operate the former Iola power plant and run the CivicCenter parking
garage. (A fifth, the Ren Square corporation,
is a similar creature but was created by the transit authority.)
“A
local development corporation is actually worse than an authority,” says Haney.
That’s
because the corporation’s officers are appointed solely by the county exec and
they have the power to float bonds, yet most of their business is conducted in
private. Haney wants to make the corporations’ boards and budgets subject to
the Lej’s approval, curtail their borrowing power, and require increased
reporting to the legislature.
Many
governmental reforms, like some of those being proposed now in Albany, take time
and require major, even constitutional changes. Not these last four, according
to Haney.
“These
are all things that are within the purview of the legislature,” he says. In
theory, they could all be enacted at the next CountyLegislature meeting.
Part of the
difficulty with passing reforms like these, though, is that the party in power has to give
some of it up.
Republican
legislators contacted by City Newspaper were not immediately able torespond to requests to comment for this
article. They’ve often failed to respond to calls for specific legislative
action from Democratic legislators in the recent years as well. Last year, a
proposal by former legislator Mitch Rowe, giving tax abatements for downtown
housing development, passed the Lej. With that exception, no DemocratCityspoke with could recall the last time one of their proposals
was adopted.
Longtime
Democratic legislator Bill Benet, who’s stepping down this year because of term
limits, says the majority employs three main tactics to stifle minority ideas
and legislation. One is to block Democrats’ proposals from ever being entered
into the Lej’s official packet of monthly proposals.
Another
is to refer legislation to the administration for more information. (Imagine if
instead of a congressional committee passing legislation on to the full body,
they sent it to the White House — then waited to hear back before taking
further action.) Proposals referred this way rarely make it back the Lej,
Democrats say (“Prescription for Partisanship,” City, September 15,
2004).
A
third way the Republican majority can squelch minority voices: table the
proposed legislation. The Dems don’t have enough votes to get their proposals
back onto the agenda, where they can receive an up-or-down vote. And when
legislative proposals are never considered, the public rarely hears about
what’s in them and can’t weigh in on the issue.
The
result?
“It’s
been a continual process by which the legislature cedes more and more authority
to the administration while at the same time there’s less and less public
debate on an issue,” says Benet. “That’s the heart of the free speech form of
democracy. If you don’t have that, you don’t have a democracy.”
This article appears in Oct 19-25, 2005.
