This will not be the last column I write about Eliot Spitzer. His remarkable mandate and more remarkable downfall will be the subject of as many words in the New York press as any topic this year.

He is the classic archetype of political corruption. No, he didn’t need to steal, and breaking the law is merely a byproduct of the air of entitlement that has poisoned politics and rendered our Albany State Government dysfunctional.

The recent record of our officials in Albany include the following Queens stars: Queens Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin stealing some $2.2 million in public, union and little league funds; State Comptroller Alan Hevesi resigned and pled guilty after using State personnel to chauffer his ailing wife around is still under investigation for potential fiscal improprieties; Queens State Senator John Sabini, DWI; Queens State Senator Ada Smith convicted of physically abusing staff and driving past a security checkpoint, was defeated for reelection.

The following guilty legislators have gone to or been sentence to jail, in recent years, for putting money in their pockets that they were not entitled to: Brooklyn Assemblymemeber and Democratic County Leader Clarence Norman, Bronx Assemblymember Gloria David, Bronx State Senator Guy Velella.

Brooklyn Assemblymember Roger Green got away with community service but lost reelection and Bronx Senator Efrain Gonzalez Jr, pled guilty to mail fraud using money from a not-for-profit.

And then there is Assemblymember Adam Clayton Powell IV recently arrested for driving while intoxicated; and Brooklyn Assemblymember Diane Gorden presently being tried for soliciting a half a million dollar bribe.
And finally, not in a group by himself, those under investigation and facing possible indictment, is Governor Eliot Spitzer.

He was smarter, brighter, faster, richer and better than anybody else and that was his downfall. It wasn’t his hunger for sex — at least as far as I can tell — Governor Eliot Spitzer’s public failure occurred way before he met Kristin or Ashley in the Mayflower Hotel room in Washington D.C. Governor Spitzer’s superiority, drive and force — you know the “f’-ing steamroller” was out of control. He was not obligated to play by the rules of polite society, certainly he did not have to abide by conventions of dysfunctional Albany, and apparently, even Federal law couldn’t tame his force.

Spitzer, like the others before him and those to come, had been poisoned by the Albany culture of corruption ripe with an air of entitlement for those who serve the people. It appears that the less responsive a political body is to the needs of the people, the more likely corruption will pervade its functioning. I present the New York State government as the prime example of this theory. Eliot Spitzer was not the exception to the rule of a NY government official believing the law did not apply to him, he was just bigger, stronger, faster and more reckless.

The problem my friends is Albany; the problem my friends is the dysfunctional NY State government; the problem is the NYS Senate and the NYS Assembly, their leaders and members who perpetuate the inane charade of government for the people.

They are the criminals and we are the victims. No, not just Eliot Spitzer, but all who are part of the legislature who continue to raise their hands for self serving legislation and block true reform.

May the legacy of Eliot Spitzer be a statewide recognition that Albany must reform.

But don’t hold your breath.

The Senate Equation

However the fallout of the Spitzer affair runs deeper than the crime and culture itself.

I was brought up in this political system counting Democratic State Senate seats.

In 1978, I chaired Gary Ackerman’s successful State Senate Campaign and got to know the key players in the Dem Senate operation trying to win four more seats and take the majority. I remember hearing which seats would be taken in the next election and how the Dems would soon take control.

This fantasy continued after Gary left the Senate and to this very day the Dems sit and count and target and promise to bring home control of the Senate. For more than three decades, Democratic State Senators have declared they are merely an election away – maybe 2 – from taking control. The promise intrinsic in that declaration was that the dysfunction in Albany would end and that the failure of bipartisanship would no longer prevent progress and reform.
It was the election of Eliot Spitzer that made that empty Democratic fantasy a potential reality. Spitzer arrived on a white horse named reform, appointed Mike Balboni a Republican State Senator from a swing north shore Nassau District and raised funds and drove the campaign apparatus which turned the forever Republican seat into a Democratic seat when Craig Johnson won the special election.
Wow, we all said. Look at the math. With David Patterson, a Democratic Lieutenant Governor to break the tie, only two more seats going from Republican to Democratic and the Dems would have achieved control absent for more than four decades.

Then earlier this month, in an upstate special election, the Spitzer forces again took a longtime Republican seat into the Democratic column and the math was down to one. If the Dems win one more seat – or get one Republican to switch parties, there would be a tie in the Senate and Lieutenant Governor David Patterson would break it with his Democratic vote.

Not so quick, my friends.

Lieutenant Governor Patterson is now Governor Patterson replacing Governor Spitzer and with no provision to fill the Lieutenant Governor vacancy. When he is out of town or commission, Republican Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno fills in as Governor. Bruno apparently presides over the Senate and should the Dems take one more seat bringing that house even, there is no one to break the tie. Thus Bruno would continue to have the same power to block legislation that has stymied the Dems for the past year.

Now, there is or was no guarantee that Democratic control of the both legislative houses would have yielded better government, but that was part and parcel of the promise of reform when Spitzer rode in on his white horse, in January 2007.

Now, one becomes two. Thanks to the Lieutenant Governor vacancy created by the Spitzer resignation, the Dems need to win two seats instead of one to take control of the senate.
And the greatest irony of the Spitzer affair could occur in the coming November election should the Dems pick up one seat and not have the tie breaker because Eliot Spitzer suffered from the same foibles that have infected the government he had vowed to reform.

Day One: Nothing changed.
MSchenkler@QueensTribune.com