Three Men in a Room

A must read for anyone interested in the politics of the Empire State is Seymour Lachman's, Three Men in a Room. Lachman served as a Democratic Senator from Brooklyn for a decade and provides an inside out view of the unseemly politics that dominates the legislative and executive relations in Albany. In short it's a highly critical first hand examination of the most dysfunctional state legislature in the country: New York The writing's very clear and the stories of skullduggery, malfeasance, and raw political power-plays make the book a page turner. I have some criticisms of the book but believe it is a valuable contribution to our understanding of Albany politics.

The central weakness of Lachman's analysis of Albany's dysfunction lies in his lack of explanation of why and how Speaker Silver and Senate Majority Leader Bruno obtained their power. The centralization of power, which according to Lachman is nearly absolute (he's correct about this), was the result of a need to act quickly to the economic crises affecting NYC and NYS in the early 1970s stemming from a national recession and excessive borrowing. Political power was concentrated in these two offices but the cause wasn't the economy. It was members of the Assembly and women and Senators voluntarily giving away their authority, which, by the way, was conferred upon them by voters. The cause wasn't the economy, the cause lies with individual legislators.

What's so infuriating about the Three Men in Room government that we have in NYS is that our legislators are unwilling to take the necessary collective steps to simply vote in the GOP and Democratic conferences and not elect Bruno and Silver and then change the rules of the institutions. That's what it takes. Is that difficult to do? Yes. And, is it easier than holding a constitutional convention, which is what Lachman believes is necessary to revamp our entire state political system. He's correct that a convention does open up all of our government to the scrutiny it deserves but if one seeks legislative accountability and representation, then all that's needed is for our legislators to act collectively. Unfortunately they have not been willing to do so for nearly two - three decades.

I hope that Silver and Bruno are so monumentally angered by this book that they have health problems and must leave their respective chambers. That said, another way of changing the relationship between our legislators, who are motivated by their grotesque salary of 78,500 per annum and reelection, is for voters to institute legislative term limits. With term limits Bruno, Silver and others are outta here and the chances that some upstart will not go along to get along are significantly increased and we can get some real representation and accountability in this state.

Perhaps the chapter that angered me the most on our shadow government of public authorities of which we have over 700. These authorities are created for various purposes and reasons, with one being to serve the public interest. Unfortunately the proliferation of these institutions now serve narrow interests of the Speaker, Governor, and Majority leader. There's no legislative oversight and the chimera of a budget that's produced (or not which is often the case in NY) doesn't include the debt that these authorities create and which must be paid largely by taxpayer dollars. They are in many instances, mechanisms for our government to again dip into our pockets to assist the three men in a room with their pet projects.

I cannot recommend this book enough. Read it and then pass it along to your friends.

Power to the People!