Oh no he didn’t - updated
Spitzer is doing some serious trash-talking about the State Legislature:
The battle between Gov. Eliot Spitzer and the state lawmakers erupted into an all-out war on Thursday, as the governor began to visit the districts of fellow Democrats in the Legislature to assail their decision to make one of their colleagues the state’s top financial officer.
During a swing through Syracuse that was originally scheduled for the governor to promote his budget priorities, Mr. Spitzer denounced a local assemblyman, William B. Magnarelli, for reneging on the agreement that the Legislature had made to select a comptroller from a list of qualified candidates put forward by a screening committee.
“Bill Magnarelli is one of those unfortunate Assembly members who just raises his hand when he’s told to do so, and didn’t even bother to stand up and say, ‘Whose interest am I representing?’ †he told The Post-Standard of Syracuse on Thursday.
It was, by Albany standards, a shocking breach of etiquette for a sitting governor to lambaste a colleague from his own party in his home district.
I wonder if Magnarelli is even insulted by this: everyone knows that’s how all the members of the State Legislature behave.
I question the wisdom of making personal attacks on Assemblymen, but if you want to know exactly why Spitzer has a right to be angry, Buffalo Pundit has a pretty good rundown of the Legislature’s treachery. Buffalo Pundit’s summary:
Spitzer made a deal, and was stabbed in the back.
A key point which I hadn’t been aware of before is the following (from the same BP post):
2. According to the law, Spitzer waived a chance to unilaterally appoint Hevesi’s replacement on January 1 or 2.
…if a vacancy occurs in the governor’s office when the Legislature is out of session, the governor has the legal right to fill it. That means Spitzer could have unilaterally appointed someone to replace Alan Hevesi on Jan. 1 or 2, before the newly elected Legislature met for the first time on Jan. 3.
Dopp says Spitzer refrained from taking that step after getting assurances from Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno that they would allow outsiders to vet applicants for the job and recommend finalists.
[Update by btp:] A knowledgeable reader in the BP post’s comments explains why Spitzer HAD to refrain from taking that step:
# ApolloCreed Says:
February 8th, 2007BP — you are right that the Gov does have the ability to appoint if the leg is not in session. however, a little known fact is that every single day (including all holidays) an albany based assemblyman takes the trip into the chamber and calls the house to order. no one else is there but this prevents all sorts of executive powers that come into play should the leg be “out of sessionâ€. Just thought you would want to know.
Ok, that’s kinda lame. Except when I think of someone doing that at the federal level to stave off Bush’s extremist appointments. Since Joe Voter cares about product not process, no one would care.
)
Quite frankly, I like that Spitzer is not afraid to take the gloves off against rubber stamping… even if it’s a Dem.
Frankly, if we’re going to call what the State Lej does “rubberstamping”, we owe Kuhl and Walsh an apology: the State Lej makes the old Republican Congress look like a DFA meeting.
The state legislature is the poster child for why de facto one party rule is bad. As soon as a politician gets a safe seat s/he immediately becomes less responsive to the will of the voters. Until you get truly competitive primary elections which attract a large number of voters, or eliminate primaries and go to an “instant run-off” system of voting, you’ll never get rid of lazy incumbents.
My hope (really!) is that the state lej is as corrupt as it is dysfunctional. Perhaps law enforcement will do what the local parties and voters won’t or can’t do towards throwing the bums out.
Damn. You know your state leg is dysfunctional when you find yourself hoping they’re corrupt enough to be bounced by the cops.
What’s immensely disappointing is that the D&C, which constantly whines about how its readers don’t care what happens in Albany, is telling its readers to be wary of turning the Senate over to Democrats. How can they be so foolish as to not see that the only way things can change is if Spitzer can get an ally in the State Senate?
[...] some speculation that Silver would lose this battle, but that appears to have been very premature. Spitzer was steaming mad at the State assembly, [...]