Sheldon Silver. Photo: Daily News.

When we contacted Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver's office, a spokesperson told us that it's up to the committee chair to move the bill forward. That would be Rochester Democrat David Gantt. But why should one person have such power when the overwhelming majority of his members disagree? And is Gantt really the guy making that call -- or is it Sheldon Silver?

To get a sense of the dynamics at work here, Streetsblog called Laura Seago, a researcher at NYU's Brennan Center for Justice and co-author of the aptly titled report on Albany dysfunction, "Still Broken" [PDF].

"I would be surprised if Sheldon Silver wasn't involved," Seago said of the texting ban. "This is something we see all the time, unfortunately, which is that the speaker controls everything that comes to the floor."

While Gantt makes a convenient target, and it's conceivable, in Seago's words, that he was "acting freelance" on this one, the fact remains that Silver could easily move the texting ban forward if he chose to do so.

In a legislature that functions democratically, the members of the transportation committee could also override the objections of their chair or the leader of their chamber. But that's not how things work in Albany.

"Most state legislatures make committees the place where legislation is robustly debated and made," said Seago. Next door in Connecticut, she notes, bills introduced in committee are required to have a hearing and a vote, but in New York, "we just don’t have that." Here, the leaders of each legislative chamber -- Sheldon Silver in the Assembly, Malcolm Smith in the State Senate -- maintain control over the committee process, and there’s no viable way for the rank-and-file to force a vote on a bill.

The Assembly, says Seago, is a "democracy of one."

If you're wondering why Sheldon Silver would choose to block a popular measure to reduce the public safety risk posed by distracted drivers, it may be instructive to look at the long battle to ban driving while talking on a cell phone. That fight lasted several years, and when the state legislature finally passed a bill, in 2001, it did not include any restrictions on hands-free cell phones -- to the delight of the telecom industry and its lobbyists in Albany, and despite studies showing that hands-free phone calls pose just as big a risk as those on handsets.

One in four American motorists text and drive, despite the fact that distracted driving is implicated in 80 percent of all crashes. Photo: Switched.

Buffalo Assembly Member Mark Schroeder called Gantt's office last Wednesday seeking clarification on the chairman's plans for the texting-while-driving ban. The bill needs Gantt's blessing to get on the transportation committee calendar, and Schroeder wanted to know the deal. Would Gantt allow the bill to come up for a vote? Like us, Schroeder is still waiting for an answer.

Bill sponsor Felix Ortiz, a Brooklyn Democrat who has pushed legislation to deter distracted driving for more than a decade, was able to get a few minutes of face time with Gantt last week. In classic foot-dragging style, the chairman told Ortiz that he would prefer to address distracted driving with a more "comprehensive" bill that penalizes all forms of inattentiveness behind the wheel. Seems reasonable enough, right? Well, not quite. As Ortiz told Streetsblog: "This is how things die here."

Gantt's gambit is a tried-and-true Albany maneuver, deployed to kill bills softly by offering an alternative that can be spun as an acceptable substitute. But how plausible is Gantt's alternative?

The chairman has his own bill, no. 786, that would create a new class of traffic infraction called "inattentive driving," defined loosely as any non-driving activity that "unreasonably interferes with the free and proper use of the public highway" or "unreasonably endangers other people who are using the public highways." That may sound good in principle, but the language leaves too much unspecified to serve as effective legislation, or to garner the support needed to become law in the first place.

"Texting needs to be addressed by itself," Ortiz said. "It doesn’t make too much sense to have a comprehensive piece of legislation."

Compared to Gantt's bill, the texting ban gets to the point much more directly. It would simply extend the prohibition against cell phone use while driving to include all texting activity.

If the proof of a bill's legitimacy is in its co-sponsors, then Gantt's bill is pure smokescreen. Introduced more than four months ago, it has no co-sponsors and no corresponding version in the State Senate. The texting ban, by contrast, enjoys the support of 48 co-sponsors. A Senate version has already cleared that chamber three years running.

Given the strong rank-and-file support for the texting ban, it's remarkable that one member of the Assembly can effectively halt its progress. While press reports hint that proponents of the bill may somehow skirt Gantt's stonewalling, the way forward is murky at best. A spokesperson for Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said that it's up to the transportation committee chair to bring any bill up for a vote, and that there are no plans to consider any distracted driving legislation outside the normal committee process. The Speaker's office did not answer requests to comment specifically about chairman Gantt's position on the proposed texting ban.

Here's a taste of what New Yorkers can expect as a direct result. Neighborhoods will suffer from heavier traffic as more drivers opt to take free bridges. Bus riders will sit through slower rides and worse gridlock. Straphangers will absorb more of the cost of transit through higher fares. And the long-term health of the transit system will remain a big question mark.

We've emerged on the other side of the immediate crisis, but the big problems that led there in the first place are still staring us right in the face. To paraphrase Governor Paterson, responsibility has been shirked to live for another day.

I stole the title of this post from Mikhail Gorbachev, who saw the writing on the wall for the USSR in 1985. Like the Soviet empire in the 1980s, New York City's transportation system is groaning under the combined weight of skewed incentives and stale political leadership. Instead of bread lines, we have traffic jams and drivers cruising endlessly for parking spots. Like the special privileges handed out to Communist Party apparatchiks, we bestow our public servants with parking placards and toll perks. The Eastern Bloc had the Kremlin. We have Albany.

Which is where this analogy breaks down. No one in Soviet Russia ever voted for the Glasnost candidate. One day, the head of the Communist Party just decided that something had to change. Well, as we've witnessed over the last 12 agonizing months, a decision from on high won't get it done in New York, not as long as the Carl Krugers remain in Albany. You see where I'm headed. Like Aaron said back in March, reforming transportation policy is now, above all, an electoral project:

Sustainable transport advocates need to build political clout. Period. At this point, almost nothing else matters.

Now that Governor Paterson has backtracked on his pledge to secure a long-term solution to New York's transit funding crisis, the push is on to spin the slapdash result as a responsible outcome, not a capitulation to Albany's lowest common denominator.

Courtesy of Liz Benjamin, here's Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith emerging from last night's closed-door session with the two Long Island legislators who will presumably give him the 32 votes needed to pass a bill:

I think it is a tribute to them, and a tribute to this Democratic conference. Reform is what everybody wanted. Everybody said that you should have a legislature where the rank-and-file members have a right to speak their mind, and have input -- and not only have input but get some results.

Never mind that all the negotiating for this deal took place behind closed doors. Or that the plan Smith's conference concocted does not reduce the MTA's dependence on debt financing. Or that the band of senators who derailed the viable plan drawn up by the Ravitch Commission are the same group who held the Democratic takeover of the Senate hostage last year, in return for more lucrative and powerful committee chairmanships.

Sure, rank-and-file legislators need a more open, transparent process in Albany, but letting the Fare Hike Four dictate the agenda hardly qualifies as reform, or sound policymaking.

Fortunately, the city's editorial boards aren't buying it. The Times, the Daily News, and the Post unanimously slammed the framework that Smith, Paterson, and, one assumes, Sheldon Silver will now sign off on, because it doesn't fund the MTA capital plan -- the vital maintenance and improvements necessary to the transit system's long-term health.

Under the Ravitch framework, the payroll tax would have funded those long-term investments, and car commuters would have helped to plug the MTA's operating deficit through bridge tolls. The Smith/Paterson framework uses the payroll tax to plug the deficit, asks nothing of car commuters (who benefit enormously from a robust transit network), and leaves the capital plan unfunded.

Our transit system risks collapse, in other words, because Albany can't muster the will to charge drivers. That is the core storyline in the ongoing MTA funding saga -- not "reform" -- and it has to change.

Well, here we are again.

One year after State Assembly Democrats killed New York City’s attempt to fund mass transit and reduce traffic gridlock, sustainable transport advocates find themselves suffering yet another huge defeat in Albany.

Fixing Albany requires volunteers dragging themselves out to the Kings Highway Q train platform in the middle of Carl Kruger’s district and handing palm cards to commuters explaining that the impending fare hike is the direct result of their state senator’s fine work.

On Wednesday the MTA Board approved the “doomsday” scenario – massive fare hikes and sweeping service cuts for New York City’s eight million transit riders. The State Legislature easily could have avoided doomsday by approving Richard Ravitch’s financing plan or coming up with a viable alternative of its own. But a handful of New York City State Senators, Carl Kruger, Ruben Diaz Sr., Pedro Espada and Hiram Monserrate – call them the Fare Hike Four – couldn’t bear the thought of imposing new fees on New York City’s motorists. In working to protect the free driving privilege of New York City’s armada of horn-honking, exhaust-spewing, road-clogging single-passenger car commuters, the State Senate has brought the city’s transit system to the brink of financial ruin. If you ride a train or bus in New York City you're going to pay the price.

The irresponsibility, the destructiveness and sheer lack of seriousness displayed by the Fare Hike Four is without question and we could spend all day heaping scorn on them. But the Senate Democrats are hardly any worse than the minority Republicans who were perfectly happy to sit by and watch the train wreck. And we could just as well place the blame for our current mess on the State Assembly members who killed congestion pricing last year.

Rather than pointing fingers at our feckless state government, advocates for livable streets and mass transit need to take a good long look in the mirror. Despite assembling a broad and seemingly powerful coalition in support of our issues, our advocacy consistently goes nowhere in Albany. That needs to change. So, how?

First off, it’s obvious that we need a better policy-making process. Granted, New York’s state legislators tend to show a profound lack of seriousness when it comes to policy (see their performance on last year’s congestion mitigation commission) and they are renowned for their deeply ingrained windshield perspective. But they still need to be engaged in the process from the beginning. It didn't help that the Ravitch Plan was, in many ways, too small, too lacking in creativity and too flawed for anyone to get too excited about it. The fact that the Ravitch Plan originated outside the state legislature made it all the more easy for them to reject it.

But let’s also be clear that our losses in Albany have a lot more to do with politics than policy. Sustainable transport advocates need to build political clout. Period. At this point, almost nothing else matters. We need to join forces with mainstream environmentalists, labor groups and issue advocates working on education, housing and economic development, who are equally disgusted with the performance of New York’s state legislature. The Fare Hike Four and the Assembly Democrats who killed congestion pricing come up for reelection every two years. For the most part, they run unopposed. Until we can get some of these people unelected – or, at the very least, challenged – we are pretty much irrelevant.

Here at Streetsblog we are mostly issue advocates and wonks. We enjoy debating policy minutia in the comments section, geeking out at Rudin Center breakfasts and fleshing out the most rational possible pricing schemes for New York City’s transportation system. But fixing Albany demands less policy intellect and more political muscle. It requires volunteers dragging themselves out to the Kings Highway Q train platform in the middle of Carl Kruger’s district and handing out palm cards to morning rush hour commuters explaining that the impending fare hike is the direct result of their state senator’s fine work -- or total lack thereof. It’s about knocking on doors, spending evenings at community meetings and drumming up votes. Defeating Albany incumbents isn’t easy. Most of these guys leave office in handcuffs or a coffin. But state legislators aren’t invincible either. A lot of them have had their jobs for more than 20 years. Many of them are stale and feeble and don’t work particularly hard anymore. Daniel Squadron knocked off Sen. Martin Connor in last September’s Democratic primary by a margin of 8,034 to 6,179. It doesn’t take a lot of votes.

Still, it’s a daunting task for any individual community activist to run a campaign against a sitting state legislator. So, here’s my humble proposal: What New York needs right now is a well-organized, heavily-funded, Newt-Gingrich-Contract-With-America-style campaign to take back Albany. We need to create a broad-based reform platform and recruit a slate of viable candidates to run challenges against vulnerable Senators and Assembly members all across the city. We need to focus citywide attention on state legislature campaigns and stop letting these guys slip quietly back into office unchallenged year after year in neighborhood-level campaigns that no one even pays attention to. We’ve got to take Albany back from these people who are ruining our city.

Photo by Buck Ennis

When asked about the MTA situation today, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Carl Kruger told Liz that his opposition to tolls on the East and Harlem River bridges has not softened but a new plan is coming together that will be, "comprehensive and so outside the box that everybody should want to partner with it." 

OK, so, I've got a free, signed copy of Jeff Mapes' "Pedaling Revolution" for the Streetsblog commenter who correctly guesses Kruger and friends' plan for staving off MTA fare hikes.

Sheldon Silver and David Gantt

Gantt is also responsible for holding back automated enforcement measures like red light cams and speeding cams, which would save lives and deter the reckless driving that prompted Silver to call for zero tolerance traffic enforcement a mere two weeks ago.

After the bus cam vote, the Times editorial page exhorted Silver to remove Gantt from the chairmanship, citing his years of "micromanaging New York City's traffic from afar and for bewildering reasons." Gantt's standard anti-enforcement rationale -- privacy concerns -- was even more perplexing given that the bus cam bill had garnered the blessing of the New York Civil Liberties Union. Nevertheless, Silver just re-upped for two more years of Gantt at the helm of the transportation committee.

We asked the speaker's office why Silver made that call. We're waiting for a response, but a spokesman said the speaker does not usually comment on committee appointments.

So what does an Assembly member have to do to lose a committee chairmanship (and the hefty salary perk that goes with it)? Get caught asking for $500,000 in kickbacks from undercover federal agents. After Queens Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio was nabbed soliciting cash in exchange for favors in Albany, Shelly declined to re-appoint him. Making life more difficult for New York City bus riders, unfortunately, doesn't rate.

How many true transit advocates are in this picture?

The new federal money -- $12 billion was included in the version passed last week by the House, while the Senate originally proposed less -- is devoted to big capital projects, like buying train cars and buses and building or repairing tracks and stations. Money that some lawmakers had proposed to help transit systems pay operating costs, and avoid layoffs and service cuts, was not included in the latest version.

It's not too late for the President, who set a mid-February deadline to pass the legislation, to step in, writes Times columnist David Leonhardt:

The odds that, a year from now, Mr. Obama and Congress will regret not having been more aggressive seem bigger than the odds that they’ll think they overdid it. Why not redouble efforts to find a few other ways to spend money quickly? More than 50 mass transit agencies across the country are cutting services or raising fares, and the stimulus bill does nothing for them.

On the same day that the Times ran these stories, representative Carolyn Maloney held a press conference to tout the stimulative effects of mega-projects like the Second Avenue Subway and East Side Access. Not a word about keeping the buses and subways running.

The pols at Maloney's presser might as well be taking a lead from the MTA itself. Last week, we wondered why the nation's largest transit agency, with its lobbying chops and $1.2 billion deficit, hasn't been more vocal about the desperate need for operating assistance from the feds. A spokesperson wrote back, saying the agency is now focused primarily on Albany after making its case to Washington:

Lee Sander has been to Washington at least a half dozen times over the past 3 to 6 months to make a case for Federal investment in transit. Over the last 15 to 20 years, the amount of capital funding that we receive each year from Washington has gone up from about $200 million to about $1.5 billion today. This money has taken the pressure off of our roughly $11 billion annual operating budget because it reduces the need to borrow against fares and tolls to fund capital expenses like maintaining stations and tracks, buying buses and rail cars, and expanding the transit system.

We estimate that the "shovel-ready" stimulus package now being considered would result in about $1.5 billion for the MTA. While this is a most welcome investment, it would represent about 5% of our five-year capital program. That's why our most critical concern is encouraging the State Legislature to enact the Ravitch Commission's recommendations, which would hold down the need for fare and toll increases, eliminate the service reductions, and create a stable revenue stream to fund our capital program. This year, we expect to put forward a 2010-2014 Capital Plan that will call for investment in mass transit of roughly $30 billion over five years. At present that plan has no identified state resources.

While Washington is important, Albany is critical.

The MTA is getting it from all sides now, and it's hard to blame them for choosing to fight this battle on the most important front. The Ravitch plan, after all, would provide long-term funding streams to maintain service and expand the system, not a one-time shot in the arm. But now -- in part because Albany has starved the MTA for so long -- one of the few transit agencies with influence in Washington is on the sidelines for a critical fight, and straphangers across the country stand to lose out.

NYU's Brennan Center for Justice just published an update of the famous 2004 report that described in excruciatingly precise detail just how deeply lousy New York State government has become. I haven't had the chance to read it yet but the title of the 2008 edition pretty much sums it up: "Still Broken."

The New York Times editorializes this morning:

New York’s government is still a secretive, boss-driven, anti-democratic disgrace.... Legislative leaders, especially Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, have had “a stranglehold on the flow of legislation at all stages of the legislative process.” Most members have little say. Committees are run like shadow puppet theaters. Details about legislation are hard for the public to get, unless they subscribe to a bill-drafting service for $2,250 a year.

After the jump, some bullet-pointed lowlights from the report...

• In both chambers, but especially in the Assembly, leadership maintained a stranglehold on the flow of legislation at all stages of the legislative process.
• Committee meetings were infrequent in both chambers and sparsely attended in the Senate, where members can vote without being physically present.
• Most standing committees in both chambers failed to hold any hearings on major legislation.
• There were no detailed committee reports attached to major bills in the Senate, and the Assembly rules do not require substantive reports to accompany bills reported out of committee.
• Legislators introduced an extraordinary number of bills in both houses during each session, while only a small percentage received a floor vote.
• 100% of the bills that leadership allowed to reach the floor of either chamber for a vote passed with almost no debate.
• Senate records indicate that many of the bills that received a floor vote lacked critical and required information about their fiscal impact, usually passing the full chamber without any meaningful debate or dissent.
• The use of conference committees to reconcile similar bills in each chamber remained the exceedingly rare exception, rather than the rule.
• Member resources were distributed inequitably in both chambers on the basis of party, loyalty and seniority.
• Much of the legislative process remains opaque; records are difficult to obtain without burdensome "freedom of information" requests, and key records of deliberation-such as "no" votes on procedural motions in the Senate-are not maintained.

Newell pulled 23 percent of the vote, Henry nine percent. Though the vote tally wasn't close, some pundits are speculating that in mounting the first serious challenge to Silver in years -- reducing him to knocking on doors, of all things -- the Newell campaign may affect the way the speaker conducts business in Albany. That remains to be seen, of course, but Newell had this to say to the Observer early this week:

"I'm running to get the most votes in this election. That said, there's no question we've already brought change. We've already taken on Albany. There's no question about that. And people are scared."

Those scared people, Newell said, are thinking, "Wow, a 33-year-old community organizer can put together a campaign that is going to rock Sheldon Silver with his $3 million in his account, and $8 million in his Speaker's P.A.C. or whatever it is that he's got."

"If we're successful, you're going to see forty or fifty challengers to incumbents in 2010, in both parties," Newell said, adding, "I don't think there's any doubt we had a role in that."

Silver's last primary challenge was in 1986, when John Bal got 20 percent of the vote.  

In the Senate, the talk of the day locally was the defeat of Martin Connor, the 30-year incumbent upended by 28-year-old Daniel Squadron. As Streetsblog readers know, Connor was one of many Albany lawmakers to hold their tongues as congestion pricing went down in April, for which Squadron took him to task during the campaign. What impact pricing had on the race is open to debate, particularly since Connor's Senate District 25 encompasses Assembly District 64 -- home to Sheldon Silver.

In other results, vocal pricing backer Adriano Espaillat held off City Council Member Miguel Martinez in Assembly District 72, which covers Upper Manhattan.

Photo: New York Observer

In the 64th Assembly district, Paul Newell is riding a wave of endorsements from the three major dailies in his campaign against Speaker Sheldon Silver. Newell and fellow challenger Luke Henry have both taken Silver to task over his handling of the congestion pricing vote in April.

Likewise, in the 25th Senate district (which also includes parts of Brooklyn), challenger Dan Squadron has pounced on 30-year incumbent Martin Connor's timid stance on pricing. The back-and-forth battle of endorsements -- Squadron has his mentor Chuck Schumer and Mayor Bloomberg on his side, Connor has fellow Albany Dems on his -- plus Squadron's prodigious fundraising, have made this one of the most closely watched elections this cycle.

Up in the 72nd Assembly district, incumbent Adriano Espaillat faces a challenge from City Council member Miguel Martinez. Both supported congestion pricing, but Espaillat was one of the plan's fiercest advocates. Espaillat also supported the traffic-reducing Gansevoort Waste Transfer Station, which, while outside his district, ran against the wishes of prominent Manhattan Assembly members.

There are plenty of other seats at stake where candidates' views may affect streets and transit. If there's an election with implications for livable streets in your district, or if you've got a story to share from the polls today, tell us all about it in the comments.

Photo: Vidiot/Flickr

With New York City's mostly uncontested primary elections less than a week away, attention turns to the 64th State Assembly district in Lower Manhattan, where New York Times-endorsed insurgent Paul Newell is running a long-shot campaign against Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. Facing his first Democratic challenge since the coining of the word "cyberspace," the decidedly analog Speaker has joined us here in the Information Age with a fancy new campaign web site, ShellySilver.org. It features an eye-catching Google map illustrating "What Shelly's Doing Near You" with some of the $3 to $7 million in member items he distributes annually.

Apparently, Silver hasn't caught on to the whole web 2.0 user-generated content thing because there's no way to drop your own pins on his Google map. If, for example, you wanted to stick a pin on Canal Street to make note of Silver's complicity in maintaining that street's never-ending traffic jam and Chinatown's third world-level childhood asthma rates, you'd be unable to do that. If you wanted to point out that Lower Manhattan enjoys some of the city's slowest buses and most dangerous streets, thanks, in part, to Silver allowing Rochester Assemblyman David Gantt to deny New York City the use of red light and bus lane enforcement cameras, you wouldn't be able to do that either. And given that the Speaker is known more for the projects and policies that he's stalled and killed (the commuter tax, New York City's Olympic bid, congestion pricing...) than the projects he's made happen, it seems like there ought to be a map showing all the things that don't exist in New York City thanks to Sheldon Silver's handiwork.

So, here it is. To help create a more complete picture of Shelly Silver's citywide footprint, Streetsblog went ahead and built a more interactive "What Shelly's Doing Near You" map. If you've got a contribution, go ahead and add it to the comments section here on Streetsblog. Pin it on Shelly.

Apparently accepting the premise that Silver "supported" congestion pricing, the Express writes:

This week, he repeated his reason for not bringing it to the floor — the Assembly opposition was overwhelming. He said there were about 15 supporters, and if he had applied pressure, he thinks he could have gotten the number up to 20 — far short of the 76 votes needed.

He said outer borough Assemblymembers did not support the plan because "the M.T.A. lost its credibility." After so many broken promises, no one believed the Metropolitan Transportation Authority would direct the congestion pricing revenue to mass transit expansion, Silver said.

Got that? It's the chronically underfunded agency, not the lawmaking bodies lording over it, that lacks credibility.

Even so, Silver remains characteristically coy on the prospect of a pricing revival. Though he was quoted just a couple of weeks ago as ruling out the possibility, he tells the Express that pricing could perhaps come back "as part of a comprehensive plan," including a smaller zone. Once the Ravitch Commission releases its recommendations after the election, Silver says, "you’ll see this start to get straightened out."

What that means is anyone's guess. But in a recent interview with Crain's, PlaNYC architect Rohit Aggarwala maintains that pricing remains the most efficient means to meet the Bloomberg administration's goal of reducing the city’s carbon emissions by 30 percent over the next two decades:

"Any strategy will have to get people out of their cars and invest in the transit system. We settled on congestion pricing because it was the best solution to accomplish both."

Mr. Gantt is a Democratic assemblyman from Rochester. That's the Rochester that is 333 miles from Times Square. He has long controlled the State Assembly's Transportation Committee with an iron fist, micromanaging New York City’s traffic from afar and for bewildering reasons. At one point this year, when journalists asked him why he was blocking a particular city traffic bill, he said: “That's for me to know and you to find out.” So much for transparency in Albany.

It makes no sense for one upstate legislator to strangle progress -- and safety -- in New York City. This should be a matter decided by New York's mayor and City Council. Since it is not, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and his Democratic majority should replace committee chairmen like Mr. Gantt who have clearly been there too long. If he won't, the voters should.

That raises a good question. Letting Gantt ride roughshod over New York City's interests probably isn't winning over Silver's constituents in the 64th District, or anyone else in the five boroughs. Why is the Speaker allowing the safety of his city's streets and the efficiency of its buses to be compromised by a Rochester legislator any longer?

If that's a question that puzzles you too, here's a group you may want to join.

Like Mr. Paterson and Mr. Skelos, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver now Albany's longest-serving leader drew heavily from established interest groups, including trial lawyers, the insurance industry, banking interests and an array of labor unions. Mr. Silver also received money from some groups that opposed Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's plan to charge a fee for cars entering parts of Manhattan, including limousine services and rental car companies. Though Mr. Silver said he personally supported the idea, he did not allow it to come up for a vote in the Assembly.

You can add to that partial list car dealers, service stations, parking garages, and private bus companies, which opposed the idea of pricing until an exception was brokered for them late in the game. All told, Silver collected $308,044 from contributors in the latest six-month fundraising period, outpacing challengers Newell and Henry by a (predictably) wide margin.

Here's a rundown of major donations to his campaign from groups who sided against pricing or influenced the proposed legislation.

Note that most of the contributions were given before the Assembly's Democratic conference scuttled the pricing bill in a closed-door session. (Groups are located within the state of New York unless otherwise noted.)

• GREATER NY AUTO DEALERS ASSOC.: $3800, March 19
• BLACK CAR PAC: $2500, March 19
• UNITED BUS CORPORATION: $2500, March 14
• HUNTINGTON COACH, LLC: $2500, March 14
• KENSINGTON ENTERPRISES LLC (parking garage): $2000, March 19
• VANGUARD CAR RENTAL USA INC. (Tulsa, OK): $1500, May 16
• SYLVAN FORESTER GARAGE, LLC: $1000, March 19
• CHAMPION PARKING 36 LLC: $1000, March 19
• ENTERPRISE RENT A CAR NY PAC: $1000, March 19

"For me, investment in transportation infrastructure is the key to the continued success and prosperity of our city," Reilly tells Streetsblog. "Within my own corner of Brooklyn, I envision robust F/V and G service along the Culver Line, with express and local service. I see a Smith/Ninth Street Station that is ADA compliant. And I see better bus service, particularly along a re-imagined B61 line, perhaps split into two routes to better insure against disruptions."

Reilly, a 33-year-old attorney, says he would work for a "sustainable funding regime" for citywide transit and livable streets infrastructure and initiatives, including curbside parking reform and "some form of congestion pricing." If elected, he says, "there will be at least one loud and clear voice for transit, for pedestrians and for cyclists on the Council."

As noted in today's New York Times, the 2009 campaign season is well underway, and Reilly has a crowded field to contend with in District 39. CB6 District Manager Craig Hammerman, Pratt Center for Community Development Director Brad Lander, Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats President Josh Skaller, and Gowanus Canal Community Development Corporation Executive Director Bob Zuckerman are also vying for the seat. (The Brooklyn Paper has short profiles of all five.) All of the candidates are Democrats. All except Reilly live in Park Slope.

Photo: Tom Callan/The Brooklyn Paper

Recall that the bill, critical to the success of the city's Bus Rapid Transit plans, was scheduled by Gantt for a motion to hold, meaning that a "Yes" vote would table the bill. In the official roll call, six co-sponsors of the bill were recorded as having voted "Yes," essentially killing legislation they had earlier endorsed. This drew the attention of the Times, which questioned whether Gantt had influenced the votes of committee members.

While Gantt told the Times he doesn't go around "breaking people's arms," multiple sources familiar with the vote told Streetsblog that some co-sponsors sided against bus cameras in order to preserve their relationship with the chair.

The rest of the story indicates why a committee member would want to stay in good standing with Gantt.

The vote that decided the fate of bus cameras was not held during a regularly scheduled transportation committee meeting. Instead, the meeting was announced on the Assembly floor and took place immediately, in a room called the Assembly parlor. (The usual spot is the Speaker's conference room.) The suddenness of the meeting and the unexpected location may explain why some committee members arrived late, missing the initial, binding show of hands, which sources referred to as the public vote. As we reported last week, while the official tally read 14-11, several members were absent during the public vote, meaning their votes were automatically counted as "Yes."

One Assembly member asserted that "not everyone can be everywhere at the same time" during the blitz of activity at the end of each legislative session. Another source disagreed, saying that members should always be able to make committee votes. It is possible, given the slim margin of the vote, that the outcome could have swung in the other direction had the public vote been held while the full committee was present.

Multiple sources told Streetsblog that two committee members not present for the public vote -- Sam Hoyt of Buffalo and Marc Alessi of Suffolk -- supported the bus camera legislation, but had their votes tallied against it. In Hoyt's telling, he was attending another meeting when the transportation committee meeting was called. By the time he arrived at the Assembly parlor, the public vote had already happened. Hoyt says he was unaware that the bus camera vote was on the agenda.

"I voted with the chair, and with the confusion, that meant that it was counter to my wishes of supporting the cameras," said Hoyt, who has had his own bill for Buffalo red-light cameras blocked by Gantt. "I was a sponsor of the bill. Had I known in advance that it was going to be on the agenda, and had I known the time of the meeting... chances are I would have voted against the chair." Alessi did not return requests for comment.

Hoyt sponsored a bill this session dealing with industrial development agencies, and, according to a source who observed the meeting, after the public vote, Gantt told him, "I voted for your shitty IDA bill, you're voting for this." Hoyt said he did not recall the exchange. Gantt has not returned calls to his legislative office or district office for comment on this story.

Sources who were at the capitol last week also report that the names on the official roll call differed from the show-of-hands public vote because Gantt allowed two committee members to save face. Two members who voted against tabling the bill during the public vote were scolded by Gantt, and are recorded in the roll call as having voted for the hold. This enabled two other members, who at first voted in favor of tabling the bill, to then be recorded as having voted against it, and appear in the roll call as supporters of bus lane enforcement. The initial 14-11 public tally remained the same.

That Gantt was able to engineer a swap of votes between committee members may indicate that the outcome was not in doubt after all, at least from the chair's point of view.

Advocates who pulled Gantt aside before the vote told Streetsblog that he expressed little interest in hearing their case. Instead, they said he reiterated his objection to bus cameras due to the supposed invasion of privacy. The New York Civil Liberties Union helped craft the bill's language and signed off on the revised version.

Gantt's handling of the bus camera vote has been singled out as particularly undemocratic, even by Albany's low-ranking standards. "This vote is not indicative of the way that chairs run things in this institution," said one source familiar with the workings of the Assembly. "What's going on here is not the norm. The vast majority of chairs would be willing to hold a vote on a bill that they disagree with and let it pass."

Correction: This piece originally ran with an incorrectly transcribed quote from Assemblyman Sam Hoyt. The quote has been amended to accurately read "...chances are I would have voted against the chair."

If Governor Paterson looks to revive pricing via the Ravitch Commission, as is being reported today, he could very well lose the support of the Senate under Skelos, who, unlike Bruno, is an avowed opponent of the concept.

Skelos voted against the formation of the Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission in 2007, though Bruno supported the move, which was widely seen as a concession to lawmakers who were skeptical of the city's original proposal. (Even ardent pricing foe Assemblyman Richard Brodsky voted to go ahead with the commission.) As late as April of this year, Skelos had this to say at a "virtual town hall" meeting:

I am ... opposed to congestion pricing and have already voted against it once in the State Senate. It's another form of a commuter tax and will place an unfair burden on middle-class Long Islanders who are already struggling to make ends meet.

Ironically, pricing's chances in the Senate could improve if Democrats assume the majority in the fall. Though he didn't make much noise about it, Minority Leader Malcolm Smith reportedly favored the plan.

The Assembly, of course, is another matter entirely.

YES: (14)
Gantt, Lafayette, Weisenberg, Hoyt, Perry, DelMonte, Latimer, Lupardo, Alessi, Gabryszak, Hyer-Spencer, Titone, Schimel, Spano.

NO: (11)
Cusick, Millman, R. Diaz, Maisel, McDonough, Thiele, Bacalles, Errigo, Reilich, Giglio, Tobacco.

Among the "Yes" column, Lafayette, Perry, Hyer-Spencer, and Titone represent districts in the five boroughs.

Multiple sources told Streetsblog that the vote was held soon after committee chair David Gantt called the meeting, at around two in the afternoon. They described a rushed scene in which advocates and legislators were scrambling to make it to the room where the meeting was held. The location of committee meetings is not known, even to legislators, until the chair announces it.

Not everyone on the committee made it in time for the vote. According to parliamentary rules, the votes of absent members are automatically counted as "Yes" votes. There is some time between the committee vote -- in this case, a show of hands -- and the official recording of the roll call. During this gap, one source told us, legislators can change how their vote is recorded, but the tally of the committee vote cannot be altered.

That clears things up, right?

Readers emailing their Assembly reps to voice displeasure with Albany's opacity might consider copying their messages to Speaker Sheldon Silver.

Photo: julieleone/Flickr

"It's really outrageous that after a year of pretty unanimous agreement about New York's congestion problem, that all we're left with is don't block the box," said Wiley Norvell of Transportation Alternatives. "It's pretty sad when that's the best Albany can do."

Without bus-mounted enforcement cameras, which have proven successful in London, getting transit up to speed on DOT's five planned BRT routes faces significant hurdles. "It's going to make it a lot harder to move buses faster through the city, without camera enforcement of the lanes," said Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign. "It's going to hurt this experiment with Select Bus Service."

Transit and environmental advocates arrived at the state capitol yesterday optimistic that the bill, introduced by Manhattan Democrat Jonathan Bing, would get through committee. "We had the votes, we had the support, especially from Assemblyman Bing, who put in a lot of effort," said Josh Nachowitz of the New York League of Conservation Voters. "Unfortunately, the chairman was completely opposed to it, and used the legislative process to send it to defeat."

Bills authorizing automated enforcement have met resistance from Gantt in the past, but there were signs his stance had changed recently. Last month the assemblyman introduced a bill that would expand the use of red-light cameras in counties outside New York City. However, as several news outlets noted, that bill appeared crafted to benefit a specific vendor that employs one of Gantt's former aides as a lobbyist. The bus camera bill contains no such language.

Gantt's office has not returned Streetsblog's requests for comment. According to advocates, when pressed to explain his opposition to the bill, Gantt cited concerns about privacy and implied that bus-mounted cameras were intended mainly to generate revenue. As the Daily News pointed out this morning, that reasoning appears increasingly flimsy.

City officials and supporters of the bill had worked closely with the New York Civil Liberties Union to address privacy issues. The bill the committee voted on included restrictions on the direction cameras can face, and the length of time images can be stored. Those steps garnered the blessing of the NYCLU.

To cite privacy concerns at this point indicates that a double standard is at work. "There are millions of transit riders in the subway system who are watched by cameras on a daily basis," said Nachowitz. "Why should drivers get a free pass while transit riders are under scrutiny every day?"

As for the notion that bus cameras are a "money grab," he added, the revenue they generate would be "diminutive compared to the overall [city] budget."

In addition to Bing, Assemblywoman Joan Millman of Brooklyn voted in favor of the bill. The full roll call is still unclear, however, due in part to the way Gantt held the vote. "There was no debate or discussion," reported Russianoff. "It was a quick show of hands."

Nachowitz expects the measure to come up again in the legislature, citing the close vote as evidence that lawmakers are more aware of the need for automated traffic enforcement.

The message transit riders will take away for the time being, however, is sobering. "Everyone says they care about bus riders, but the proof is in the pudding," said Norvell. "This is a real slap in the face to New York City bus riders, and not the first they've taken from Albany this year."

Photo: Democrat and Chronicle