Grace: noun, simple elegance or refinement
By MICHAEL SCHENKLER
It’s not the chest-thumping speeches, the outrageous, assertive claims, or the insistence on knowing all the answers that distinguishes one elected official from another. It is the quiet and effective bridge-building and diplomatic cooperation that makes the real difference.
It’s not often that an online political blog gets me to react. For the most part, I read them with great skepticism, recognizing them for what they often are: one person’s viewpoint, unfact-checked and unedited. In gerneral, they do not bode well for the future dissemination of news in our nation.
The historic and long-effective newsrooom is challenged by the on-going generation of stories by wannabe journalists with varying ability lacking the editorial expertise and supervision provided in a professional print newsroom.
However, I just started reading “The Empire ”(empire.wnyc.org) online. The Empire is a comprehensive online local political offering of WNYC radio. In the limited time I’ve been reading it, I have found it to be “fair and balanced” unlike those talk shows which which only claim to be. According to their website, “WNYC 93.9 FM and AM 820 are New York’s flagship public radio stations, broadcasting the finest programs from National Public Radio and Public Radio International, as well as a wide range of award-winning local programming.”
Just last week, I read an article to which I was very much able to relate: “Grace Meng, Flushing’s Favorite Daughter, Wants to Bring Her Nice-Gal Politics to Washington.”
Written by Colby Hamilton, one of the regulars of the WNYC radio blog, the article captures the Grace Meng I’ve known since I met her, when she first ran for public office in 2008 challenging the hand-picked candidate of Community hero John Liu as well as the Queens County Democratic Organization, because Grace believed she could make a difference.
Hamilton’s article brought me back to why Grace Meng was different from the hundreds of electeds I’ve gotten to know steering the Tribune and covering politics for the past almost 35 years.
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| Grace Meng and Michael Schenkler |
Hamilton’s take on Grace:
“She’s also emphatically not of the ruthless political mold: In his nomination of Meng as the county organization’s pick for the open seat, Councilman Mark Weprin echoed what nearly everyone mentions when they talk about Grace Meng. ‘She’s hard not to love and she has character, commitment and confidence without a hint of arrogance—and in this business, that’s rare,’ Weprin said.”
“Besides winning the straw poll for political Ms. Congeniality, Meng’s immigrant family and political do-it-yourself background has positioned her as the aspirational candidate in the race. She represents that classic New York political storyline of a rising community that, through the success of its favored daughter or son, can say its finally made it . . .”
Yes, Grace is different, and I believe it was Democratic chairman U.S. Rep. Joe Crowley who introduced her by remarking that her remarkable personality and gifts are best described by her name, “Grace.”
It’s not the chest-thumping speeches, the outrageous, assertive claims, or the insistence on knowing all the answers that distinguishes one elected official from another. It is the quiet and effective bridge-building and diplomatic cooperation that makes the real difference.
It’s Grace.
MSchenkler@gmail.com
One Person, One Vote; Or One Dollar, One Vote?
By HENRY STERN
Elections are the best way to decide public issues in a democracy. The word democracy means ‘rule by the people’, which is a fair and reasonable way to determine which policies a government should follow, and who should be selected to lead that government. A basic principle of democracy is one man, one vote, a rule the courts have frequently invoked to determine questions brought before judges.
One man, one vote (now, more properly one person, one vote) is meant to support the concept that each citizen’s influence should be equal. In reality, however, some people’s influence is always greater than others’, no matter what system of reckoning is used.
The most obvious barometer of influence is money. A man who can give a million dollars to a candidate is much more likely to be listened to than a contributor of $1. It would be impossible to write a law under which every citizens views would receive equal attention and respect. But it remains a legitimate goal of reformers to minimize the disparity in resources between candidates.
The major distinction between citizens and interest groups lies in their access to candidates. A substantial amount of public business is transacted at fund-raising events. Clearly, these events provide contributors with an opportunity to meet with the candidates they support and to try to influence them.
The press reports only the most egregious instances of the heady mix of contributors and lobbyists who seek to influence government. To some extent, lobbying is constitutionally protected free speech, based on the people’s right to petition their government for the redress of grievances. To draw the line between free speech and speech which is anything but free because it is bought and paid for by unions and corporations (now that they are given the status of ‘people’) is a difficult challenge, because we are on the slipperiest of slopes.
The courts are likely to go back and forth on these issues, with the differentiation of their views based on social and economic concerns on which the judges may differ. There are no absolutes here, and the basic attitudes of nine judges, appointed by a number of different Presidents, are more than likely to vary with the political attitudes of the times and their backgrounds.
The practice of requiring donations to political campaigns or related causes as a condition of obtaining access to public officials is called “pay to play”. It is fundamentally wrong because it violates the principle of government on the merits if decisions are made on the basis of financial contributions by people seeking jobs or contracts with the state.
It is very difficult to prove the wrongful intent of a particular donor when the candidate has made a general appeal to the public for financial support and has received thousands of donations, some of which are undoubtedly motivated to a greater or lesser extent by self interest. If a law makes every transaction suspect, it is not likely to be that effective in sifting out the bad gifts from the good ones. And the fact that donors, good and bad, are likely to be represented by learned counsel, is a further disincentive to an agency taking the initiative on policing this area.
There is also the problem of mixed motives, which is sometimes the case for a donation. How one regulates transactions regarding gambling as a revenue measure for the state raises questions if only because of their enormity. The secret manner in which these measures were agreed upon at a private location upstate also suggests the need for close evaluation of the merits of the plan. The proposal by Genting and the Governor is likely to receive intense scrutiny from both friends and enemies.
The extremely large size of the commitment to the Committee to Save New York raises again the issue of state spending.
To be fair, the unions are free to spend whatever they can raise to present their point of view, and contributions from private sources are not practically unlimited, so the merits are not overwhelming for either side. A great deal will depend on how the program is administered, and in that area one’s track record is outstanding.
StarQuest@NYCivic.org
