Democrats Gain in Albany
But Will It Mean Reform?
by Erik Kriss
in Albany

Roosevelt Island will have a new State Senator in January, and Jos‚ M. Serrano's victory is part of what many see as a changing tide that could give Democrats control of the State Senate before the end of the decade.

Serrano's victory over Democrat-turned-Republican Senator Olga Mendez on November 2 was one of at least three Democratic pickups of formerly Republican seats in the 62-member Senate.

If Democrats win a fourth – the still-undecided race between the incumbent Yonkers Republican Nicholas Spano and Democrat Andrea Stewart-Cousins – they will have cut the Republicans' 38-24 majority to 34-28.

With Democratic enrollment increasing statewide, especially Downstate, many political observers see the party's ascendance as inevitable.

And tactitians note that in two years, when seats for the State Legislature are up again, the Democratic party will likely have two major vote-getters heading their statewide ticket: U.S. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton running for re-election, and Attorney General Eliot Spitzer running for governor.  Popular national and statewide candidates tend to draw their party's base voters to the polls, helping party candidates running for lower offices such as State Senator.

Plus, the Democrats' three- or four-seat pickup in the Senate is expected to level the playing field in the all-important war for campaign cash, a war the Senate's Republican majority has been winning for decades.  Special interests and lobbyists tend to contribute to the party in power, but with the Democrats getting close to retaking the majority, many big donors are expected to hedge their bets.

The Senate Minority Leader, David Paterson of Manhattan, argues that, in the races in which his party was able to come close to matching Republicans' spending, Democrats won, or came close.

The party gave financial backing to Stewart-Cousins, a Westchester County legislator, and to David Valesky, who exploited a GOP split Upstate to narrowly win a Syracuse-area seat from Republican Senator Nancy Larraine Hoffmann, another former Democrat.

More warning signs are on the horizon for the Republicans, who have used skillful redrawing of district lines, the adoption of some key Democratic issues such as gay rights and protection of access to abortion clinics, and the ability to lure former Democrats such as Mendez, Hoffmann, and Pedro Espada of the Bronx to maintain the Senate majority they have held since 1966.

A number of Republican senators from Long Island, Queens, and Staten Island are expected to retire in the near future. Republican strategists worry about the lack of obvious GOP successors in those areas and fear the seats could fall to the Democrats.

What will it mean?

Serrano, for one, sounded a decidedly liberal message after winning his party's primary to face Mendez in the general election.

He argued for an increase in the State minimum wage, reform of what he called the “harshest in the nation“ Rockefeller drug laws, and a solution to “a housing emergency in our city that is pricing us out of our community.” He cited his efforts as a City Councilman from the South Bronx to keep libraries open, build affordable housing, and create more classroom seats in schools.

But Upstate and suburban Democrats tend to be more conservative, and a Democratic majority in the Senate would certainly have to accommodate their views.

Valesky, Stewart-Cousins, and others enjoyed success this year by campaigning on promises of legislative reform, claiming a dysfunctional, leader-driven system is responsible for 20 straight years of late State budgets and legislative gridlock on issues ranging from drug-law reform to cost-cutting changes in New York's expensive Medicaid health care system for the poor.  And as the political season fades and the governing season approaches, much of the talk in Albany is on whether such legislative reform will, indeed, happen.

Democrats also expanded their majority in the State Assembly by one seat, to 104-46, including the return of Roosevelt Island's representative, Alexander “Pete” Grannis.  And many see Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, as no champion of legislative reform.

The day after the election, Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, an Albany-area Republican, strongly hinted that he would embrace reform.  “We got the message loud and clear: the people want change,” Bruno said.  But he was not clear on the change he favored.

Many State Senate and Assembly candidates promised to push for changes in the rules of their respective houses, as proposed by New York University's Brennan Center for Justice in a July 21 report that labeled New York's the most dysfunctional state government in the nation.  Assemblyman Scott Stringer, D-Manhattan, and 16 of his follow Assembly Democrats introduced a resolution calling for the adoption of many of the Brennan Center proposals.  And Bruno promised to embrace at least one, which calls for eliminating his power to prevent any bill from coming to the floor of the Senate for a vote.

But it was far from clear that Bruno would be willing to adopt other rules changes.  And, in blaming the Democratic-controlled Assembly for blocking many GOP Senate proposals aimed at reform, Bruno raised the specter of past fights and finger-pointing that resulted in legislative paralysis.

Silver, meanwhile, has been relatively silent on the reform issue, asking a “steering committee” of his loyalists to round up the reform ideas under discussion in New York and present them to a meeting of his Democratic majority.

But what Bruno, Silver, and their colleagues do on the issue could have consequences in 2006.  Pollsters and political scientists say voter anger toward State government was more palpable this year – and growing – particularly in the economically distressed Upstate metropolitan areas of Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse.

Upstate, this year's campaign featured everything from the emergence of a turkey farmer campaigning for the ouster of incumbents to the State's small-business lobby for the first time aggressively targeting a particular lawmaker for defeat.

The efforts of Mark Bitz, president of the Syracuse-area Plainville Turkey Farms operation, won widespread media coverage.  Bitz created an anti-Albany web site, www.freenys.org, in which he presented a well-documented case of how the State had failed the Upstate economy, a failure he said led him to consider selling a famous business that has been in his family for six generations.

And in the Rochester area, the National Federation of Independent Business and several regional Upstate business groups tried to make a “test case” of defeating Assemblywoman Susan John, a Rochester Democrat.  Not only did they argue that John was too liberal, but the groups also endorsed legislative reform, agreeing with Bitz and others that a system so dominated by its leaders left little room for creative policy-making that could help improve the State's business climate.

The groups came close.  John, a close ally of Silver who chairs the Assembly Labor Committee, barely held off a challenge by Republican Michael Slattery.

Meanwhile, Downstate, Democratic Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi also zeroed in on reform.  Like many other county leaders, Suozzi argued the State Medicaid program is driving property taxes through the roof because localities, including New York City, must pay part of the cost of Medicaid even though the State makes the program's rules.  He charged that State lawmakers were unaccountable, and broke with other county leaders by declaring the only way to make legislators take notice was to target incumbents and beat them.

He created a political action committee with a website at FixAlbany.com, to do so.  With the money the committee raised, Suozzi helped defeat Assemblyman David Sidikman in a Democratic primary in Nassau County.  Then he helped Valesky beat Hoffmann in Syracuse in the general election.

Senate and Assembly rules are all up for renewal in January, when lawmakers return for the 2005 session.

Between now and then, Brennan Center officials and others plan to try to keep the heat on re-elected legislators and newcomers, who take their seats January 1.  Wednesday in Albany, Brennan officials joined with State Assembly Republicans to keep the focus on the issue.

Sunday morning (Nov. 21, 2004), Serrano is scheduled to take part in a panel discussion at NYU Medical Center entitled “Winds of Change – Prospects for Reform in Albany.”