Who Can Save Albany? Koch & Company Will Give It a Try

NY Times ^ | March 4, 2010 | SAM ROBERTS

[neverdem]

The subject kept coming up all the time.

“Everybody I talked to over the past year has been saying, ‘Ugh, it’s so awful,’ ” former Mayor Edward I. Koch said recently. At lunches and dinners, in meetings with clients, law partners, fellow alumni of public service, business associations and good government groups, the conversation invariably turned to the political chaos in Albany.

“I finally said to myself, somebody’s got to do something,” Mr. Koch recalled. “And if no one else does anything, notwithstanding the fact I’m 85 years old, I’m going to throw myself into it.”

So Mr. Koch is assembling a coalition of powerful civic groups who, starting next week, will plot a purge of the State Legislature by taking aim at incumbents judged to be impediments to change...

--snip--

Since 1982, 2,958 elections have been held for individual Senate and Assembly seats and only 39 times has an incumbent seeking re-election lost, according to records kept by Mr. Horner’s group. In 2008, more than half of the 212 senators and assembly members won with more than 80 percent of the vote; 57 ran unopposed. In the Senate, the average tenure is nearly 14 years.

--snip--

Henry J. Stern, the director of New York Civic, expressed dismay that in some political circles the low regard that lawmakers are held in has elevated Sheldon Silver, the Assembly speaker, to a paragon of statesmanship, since Mr. Stern does not share the same view. “To think there’s an area where Shelly Silver is the giant is ridiculous,” Mr. Stern said...

--snip--

A priority for Mr. Koch and others working with him is ensuring that the reapportionment of the state’s legislative and Congressional districts based on the 2010 Census is nonpartisan, so that competitive challenges to incumbents would be a realistic possibility.

[Publius]

The formation of "fusion" efforts to clean out nests of corruption is a time-honored tradition in New York. At the state level, governors such as Theodore Roosevelt, Al Smith and Tom Dewey used these movements to help clean house.

In New York City, Fiorello LaGuardia used the technique to clean out decades of Tammany corruption from City Hall, and Rudy Giuliani did much the same thing.

That Koch is willing to lead despite his advanced age is a good sign. Both parties need a good purging, and the state needs a political enema. Koch may be the right person to help wield the enema bag.

[fieldmarshaldj]

*ping*

[neverdem]

WHAT I HAVE KNOWN ABOUT ERIC MASSA (shipmates detail gay history of retiring Dem)

FReepmail me if you want on or off my New York ping list.

NYC Pro-Life Lawyers and Law Students Mixer

Come meet fellow practitioners and students passionate about upholding the dignity of human life

March 9th, 2010 at 7:00pm

Case Lounge, room 701
Jerome Greene Hall
Columbia Law School
435 W. 116th St,
New York, NY 10027
Wine and cheese reception
7pm (free)
Teresa Collett

Professor of Law, University of St. Thomas School of Law Prof. Collett will be giving a talk on “International Law and Threats to Life.”

[Gene Eric]

Okay. Stick Ed Koch and Bob Grant in a room together and don’t let them out until the find a solution for NY (though, I think Grant is a NJ resident).

[decimon]

No, thank you.

[Tanniker Smith]

Ed Koch, Liberal With Sanity.

[cherry]

I like him better than most dims...but still he's a dim....all the article had to mention was "law partners" and I knew this effort wouldn't go far....

the trouble, Mayor Koch, is that your unions own the state,take all of its money, and your wealthy retirees get tax breaks on their lavish retirement benefits....

start there Mr. Koch.....at least tax their damn retirement benefits!

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[Impy]

Ed Koch wants to stop rat gerrymandering>