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In spite of the presence of a new governor, Albany politics has been as insanely frustrating as usual. And the NY Sun's year-end interviews with the top three lawmakers - Governor Eliot Spitzer, State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, and Assembly Leader Sheldon Silver - demonstrate why pretty much everyone sighs when they think of the capitol and state politicians.
- Bruno, the lone Republican, tells the Sun that Silver needs to deals with insults better, "Since when did Shelly get so sensitive? He's got a hide like a rhinoceros for Christ's sakes." He also painted the governor as a bully and Silver as ineffective, "[Spitzer] has threatened my life in terms of my existence, personally, calls me a senile old s—, and he's going to knock me down and knock me out. And then Shelly, the wimp, sits there doing nothing and thanks the good lord that it's not him that Spitzer's aimed at."
- During his turn (it's too bad the Sun couldn't get these three in for a group interview), Silver "I really shouldn't dignify anything that he says with a response," and said that Bruno "wants it his way, and he goes off stomping and screaming and name-calling if he can't get his way. He just doesn't want to admit that some people know as much as he knows."
- Spitzer, who seemingly has nowhere to go but up, sounded like a reasonable guy, telling the Sun, "People will forget the screaming and shouting, 99% of which is silliness. What matters in the long term is the substance. That's what gives me comfort."
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YOu want some work to get done? Let's get initiatives & referendums in this state and give the power to the people!
In 1911 the I&R movement organ Equity explained the failure to win initiative and referendum rights in New York: “No Direct Legislationist has expected New York State to come into the fold until about the last. The 'interests' are so strong, so thoroly intrenched [sic], and have so much at stake in that state, that it is expected that their strongest fight against real popular control of public affairs will be made there.”
In 1907 the attorney and “prominent club woman” Mrs. Harriet M. Johnston-Wood of New York City had helped organize the state Direct Legislation League. Hamilton Holt was elected President of the group. The League proved ineffective. In July 1909 Equity reported: “The introduction of I&R in the New York legislature seems to have been taken as a joke. It was referred to committee, and we find no other allusion to it.”
In 1914 Equity told its readers that Tammany Hall's recent electoral defeat should help I&R, but later reported that despite the decline of New York City's machine, “the legislature in Albany was still sufficiently in the control of reactionary leaders not to take any definite action in favor of I&R.”
By mid-1917, Buffalo's referendum provision was the only example of direct legislation in the state. Over the years the legislature proved willing to allow limited I&R in local jurisdictions, but never at the statewide level. The most important such I&R provision is the section of the New York City charter that allows voters to propose a charter amendment by petition of 50,000 registered voters, about 2 percent of the city's voters.
It was last successfully used in 1966 when police officers petitioned for - and voters approved - an amendment giving the police more control over the Civilian Review Board that had been set up to investigate citizens' complaints about the police. New Yorkers petitioned in the late 1960s for an anti-Vietnam War initiative and, in 1985, for an initiative to prohibit harboring ships with nuclear weapons, but state courts ruled against ballot placement on the ground that these were not proper subjects to go into the city charter.
In 1999, Governor George Pataki in his first “State of the State” address called for the establishment of the initiative and referendum process, however, the state legislature wasn’t interested in supporting establishing the process. In 2002, Pataki once again called for the legislature to pass a constitutional amendment establishing the initiative and referendum process. The proposal was strongly supported by the state’s Independence Party, Conservative Party and Republican Party. In April , the New York Senate passed the initiative amendment with only three dissenting votes. However, as of the writing of this history, the State Assembly had not acted on the Governor’s proposal.