Streetsblog New York City

Erik Engquist at Crain's says a potential deal is in the works that would nix Gov. Spitzer's call for campaign finance reform and give Albany legislators a long-sought pay raise in return for congestion pricing approval.

An Assembly Member that I spoke with this morning, however, says that congestion pricing is totally dead or, as the Assembly Member put it, "There's no legislation to vote on, no one is planning on returning to Albany, it's in 'Nowheresville.'" Mayor Bloomberg's political people, the legislator says, are "in denial."

Meanwhile, Chad Marlow at the Public Advocacy Group reminds us of the awesome powers of Three Men in a Room and how these powers may render moot the objections of dozens of state legislators. Marlow's 30-second civics lesson is as follows:

In almost every other legislature in the country, when a bill is proposed, only the original sponsor of the legislation has the ability to pull that bill and prevent it from coming to a vote. In Albany, the original sponsor can pull his or her bill but so can the Assembly Speaker and the Senate Majority leader. So, regardless of how many of a legislator's colleagues support the bill, if the leader doesn’t support the legislator, it will never come to a vote. This gives the Silver and Bruno "veto plus" powers. When the governor vetos a bill there's an opportunity for the legislature to override the veto. But when the Leader pulls your bill, that’s it. It's done. That's why Albany legislators are, essentially, forced to fall in line with Silver and Bruno. If they don't, they may never get to pass another piece of legislation.

At the end of last week it appeared Mayor Bloomberg was on the verge of pulling it off. Having scored a congestion pricing bill in the state Senate, coaxed a cautious endorsement from the governor, and all but securing a near half-billion dollar pledge from Washington, Bloomberg sailed into Friday's state Assembly hearings on a wave of green apple-fueled adulation.

By most accounts, the mayor ran circles around his Albany inquisitors, as recounted in the Daily News:

Yesterday's Assembly hearing smacked of obfuscation and obstructionism. [Assembly Speaker Sheldon] Silver stacked the witness list with critics while failing to invite the MTA or any of the dozens of environmental and public health groups who back congestion pricing. The questions from lawmakers ranged from the skeptical to the outright hostile... But Bloomberg parried every thrust, and those testifying on the other side did their cause more harm than good.

And the Observer:

Mayor Bloomberg fought off the bridge-and-tunnel Assembly Members who showed up at this morning's hearing on congestion pricing, knocking down their objections one by one and dusting himself off afterward.

Them: It taxes the middle class. Him: No, it gives money to the transit system used by the working poor. Etc., etc.

Bloomberg even scheduled an unusual Sunday press conference to announce the enlistment of congressman and Queens Democratic Party chief Joseph Crowley, an unexpected ally the mayor described as "as influential in this as anybody can be."

Then Speaker Silver, a notable no-show last Friday, finally spoke:

We do all have a desire to do something positive about the environment, about preventing children from growing up with asthma. I'm not sure that this congestion pricing hits that, since many of the neighborhoods that have children with asthma are not within the congestion-pricing zone... Some of those areas will not benefit by the target of congestion pricing; in fact, some of those areas will become parking lots with people driving around the neighborhoods looking for parking spots in order to avoid congestion pricing fees.

There are people that have questions about putting a thousand cameras in the streets of Manhattan from a perspective of Big Brother watching you. And are there other ways you can do it as well? Are there other ways to achieve the goals? Will mass transit be ready to handle the overage? What's the significance of it? So these are all questions that hopefully good minds will get to work on answering and we'll have a comprehensive plan that makes sense.

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