Tom Suozzi

Albany is in dire need of repairs

Posted

Dean Skelos is the fifth consecutive majority leader of the New York State Senate to be indicted. And Sheldon Silver isn’t the first speaker of the State Assembly to be indicted. In the past decade, more than 30 sitting or former state officeholders have been sanctioned, indicted or convicted.

Are there more corrupt elected officials than ever? Are prosecutors more aggressive than they used to be? Maybe. But I think it’s more likely that there’s a structural problem.

When I conducted my FixAlbany.com campaign starting back in 2003, I said, “More elected officials in Albany have been indicted in the past five years than have lost their jobs at the polling booth. The re-election rate in the New York State Senate and the Assembly is higher than it was in the Politburo of the former Soviet Union.” It seems to have gotten worse.

If everyone is dissatisfied with their legislatures, why do those legislators have a re-election rate of over 95 percent? The system has structural flaws that lead to the re-election of incumbents, and that pattern, over a long period of time, is an inducement to sloppy behavior.

Democracy, like capitalism, only works if there is competition. Assembly members, and state senators, like members of Congress, who are safely ensconced in their positions for a decade or more, are subject to losing their fear of not getting re-elected, which may make them less likely to be careful about following the rules (and less likely to rock the boat when it comes to causes that would better serve the people).

There are three major problems that need to be addressed.

• Voters aren’t interested. People are distracted by many more stimuli from the Internet and the media than ever before, and voter turnout for State Senate and Assembly races is very low. If you’re reading this, you may actually know the name of your local Assembly member or senator, but a large majority of people have no idea.

Page 1 / 3