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

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.

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

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

With state primary campaigns ramping up, Observer political reporter Azi Paybarah seems to be everywhere with his video camera. In this clip from a debate held by Democracy for New York City, he captures State Senator Martin Connor, who represents lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn, in an unprompted admission of legislative cowardice.

While fielding a question about protecting marine life, Connor launches into a defense of his environmental record. Slightly after the four-minute mark, he serves up this gem: "Congestion pricing -- I supported it. I didn't tell anybody; I didn't take a position on it. I supported it." Ah, so that's how lawmakers "support" bills tailor-made to benefit the vast majority of their constituents -- by keeping their thoughts to themselves until it's too late to actually influence the course of events.

Immediately after that confession, Connor falls back on the talking points we heard yesterday from his Albany colleague Dick Gottfried: "I was very disappointed -- and frankly it's the mayor's fault... He did a terrible job of selling it, not to the public, but selling it to the people who had to vote on it." I get it. The job of a state senator is to wait for the mayor to throw you and your friends a bone. After 30 years in office, I guess the term "public servant" tends to lose its luster.

For his part, Connor's challenger, Dan Squadron, appears more at ease explaining his positions and calls out the state legislature for letting pricing "die in a back room." Squadron, a former aide to Chuck Schumer who campaigned to pass the New York State Transportation Bond Act, says the pricing bill wasn't perfect, but that "it had to be passed."

Connor's stab at reform-minded talk is a little less convincing. "My preference would have been, so put it out, and have an up-or-down vote," he says, before trailing off and ending his turn at the mic. Was that a secret too?

We'll say this for Connor: At least he showed up to debate, which is more than we've seen from Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver this election season. 

 
Care of the Politicker, here's 38-year incumbent Assembly Member Dick Gottfried explaining to the Chelsea Reform Democratic Club, whose endorsement he wants for his re-election bid, how democratic Shelly Silver's house is in comparison to the state Senate. All things considered, it's a jaw-dropping spiel.

Then, at about the three-minute mark, an audience member asks why congestion pricing didn't come to a vote. Though he has just said that every member is guaranteed that his or her sponsored bill will be "considered" by committee, Gottfried -- a professed congestion pricing supporter -- replies that there was no need for pricing to be voted upon, as it would have been "resoundingly trounced." He then pins the blame for pricing's failure on Mayor Bloomberg's "astonishingly abominable" job in selling Assembly members on the plan.

"If think if he had done a decent job of lobbying for it," Gottfried says, "I think it might well have passed." Next question?

So, according to Gottfried, it's Michael Bloomberg's fault that state Assembly members didn't see fit to stand up and be counted on a plan that had been vetted and tweaked for a year, was endorsed by the governor, the City Council, and virtually every major business and environmental group in the city, and was pulling a 60 percent approval rating among those who would have been most affected by it.

A while back we wondered what pricing "allies" were doing in the closed-door session where congestion pricing died. As far as Dick Gottfried is concerned, I think we have our answer.

Craigslist, anyone?

On Monday, April 7, Sheldon Silver walked out of a closed door meeting of State Assembly Democrats and announced congestion pricing was dead. Never mind that New York City's mayor and City Council supported the plan along with the governor, the State Senate and an unprecedented coalition of business, labor, environmental and civic groups. Like so much else in Albany, the decision was made in secret, without a debate, a vote or even a record of the proceedings.

Until congestion pricing came around, I never paid all that much attention to Albany. Sure, I knew about the sex and graft scandals, the "three men in a room," and the Brennan Center reports showing New York's government has more in common with the old Soviet Politburo than America's 49 other state legislatures. I knew "dysfunctional" was the official adjective to describe Albany. But the dysfunction never seemed to impinge on my own life in any immediate, tangible way. Until congestion pricing.

I was really looking forward to seeing motorists pay to drive into Lower Manhattan. While I understood the importance of $354 million in federal aid, $491 million per year in revenue for transit and fewer kids growing up with asthma, this wasn't what pumped me up. What I liked most about congestion pricing was the fact that the people who make life in New York City most miserable -- the armada of horn-honking, exhaust-spewing, space-hogging, oil-guzzling, climate change-inducing motorheads that rolls through my neighborhood every day, to and from the free East River bridges, were finally going to have to pay for the privilege.

Assembly Democrats gave lots of reasons why they couldn't support pricing, few of which dealt with substance and most of which boiled down to their feeling that an arrogant, imperious billionaire mayor and his elitist supporters were trying to stick it to New York City's poor and middle class. No matter that New York City's poor and middle class already pay a fare to ride the subway and bus and that the number one propagator of this populist claptrap was Richard Brodsky, a Westchester Assemblyman who represents the region's wealthiest Manhattan-bound car commuters, average annual income, $176,231. At least Brodsky did a good job standing up for his constituents. That's a hell of a lot more than Joan Millman, Deborah Glick, Hakeem Jeffries, Daniel O'Donnel, Jonathan Bing and the rest of the city's Assembly delegation can say for itself.

The moment I realized pricing was doomed in the legislature was when Denny Farrell, a 34-year Assembly veteran, stood up before the Congestion Mitigation Commission, of which he was a member, and delivered an impassioned speech against toll booths on the bridges between Manhattan and the Bronx. Toll booths, Farrell said, would "freeze all of northern Manhattan in gridlock" on Yankees game nights. The speech took place not at the first Commission hearing in September but at the penultimate meeting in January. Somehow, incredibly, Farrell managed to sit through four months of meetings and hearings without realizing that congestion pricing fees are collected electronically; toll booths were not part of the plan. This was the guy who was assigned to bring the work of the Commission back to his colleagues in the Assembly and he either wasn't paying attention or simply didn't care.

During Commission meetings, Farrell frequently shared his experiences driving and parking in the city. Invariably, his personal transportation anecdotes never involved a subway, bus, bike or even a sidewalk. It was a reminder that while New York state legislators are paid a middle class salary (by New York City standards, at least), they are still members of New York City's other elite -- the free riding class. Their unlimited parking privilege allows them to drive wherever and whenever they want. From their windshield perspective, the city is a transportation problem to be solved for cars. Ultimately, the biggest hurdle congestion pricing faced was the simple fact that the people required to enact the legislation were the ones who stood to pay the most because of it. You know that beleaguered middle class driver the Assembly kept talking about? He was a state legislator.

If any good has come of the Assembly's failure to act on congestion pricing, it's simply this: A new generation of citizen activists got to see up close and personal how broken New York State government is and how badly it's in need of fixing. Assembly members come up for election every two years and are often ushered in to office by as few as 5,000 votes. September 2008 ought to be the last time any of these legislators have the pleasure of seeing only their own name on a Democratic primary ballot.

By Aaron Naparstek. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of Transportation Alternatives.  

With higher gas prices pushing drivers onto the city's trains and buses, the Daily News today blasted Speaker Sheldon Silver and Assembly Dems for passing up the billions of dollars that congestion pricing would have brought to MTA coffers. 

The trends prove that the theory of congestion pricing was valid: When the cost of driving rises, people actually do switch to mass transit.

Had Silver and the Assembly passed congestion pricing, as the City Council did, the MTA would already be using that $354 million in federal aid (which has now been disbursed about the country) to make more bus and subway seats available.

Then, the congestion fee would have given the MTA a half-billion dollars a year to pay for big projects like completing the Second Ave. subway and extending LIRR service to Grand Central Terminal. When that money vanished, the MTA's building plan was eviscerated.

The agency does not have the money it needs to keep the transit system in good repair, let alone to expand. Gov. Paterson has asked the estimable Richard Ravitch, a former MTA chairman, to hunt up cash.

He'll find no easy fixes. Option 1: Raise taxes. Option 2: Raise fares. Option 3: Congestion pricing.

Pricing foes must be waiting for Ravitch to make the next move, because we've heard virtually nothing from them since the plan was smothered behind closed doors over a month ago -- other than demands for improved transit service.

But what of Brodsky, Glick, and Weiner? Or Bearak and McCaffrey? Where are they now that their storied working class drivers, priced out of their cars, must rely on a beleaguered transit system that doesn't have the fiscal boost promised by congestion pricing?

Oh, right. They're stuck in traffic.

Graphic: New York Daily News 

Scheduled to appear at a panel discussion on the fate of Moynihan Station beginning at 6:30 pm Tuesday at the Municipal Art Society headquarters, congestion pricing foe Assemblyman Richard Brodsky arrived at 7:20 pm, more than halfway through the event. His empty seat prompted more than a few raised eyebrows. At one point, someone observed that Brodsky was "stuck in transit." Kathryn Wylde, president and CEO of the Partnership for NYC, a congestion pricing advocate, riposted: "Stuck in traffic."

When Brodsky arrived, he was contrite. "There was an accident," he said. "This unintentional disrespect I deeply apologize for."

Desperate to look as if they're responding to motorists complaints and prayers, state and federal electeds continue to scramble for a quick fix to ever-rising gas prices.

In Albany, Senate Republicans have adopted the state gas tax "holiday" as their issue of the moment. Since the largely-ridiculed measure is going nowhere in the Assembly, Joe Bruno and colleagues can circulate petitions and distribute mailers like the one above with impunity, scoring cheap political points while accomplishing nothing.

But the diddling in Albany seems innocuous when compared to doings in D.C. Yesterday, with George W. Bush enroute to the Middle East, both the House and Senate overwhelmingly voted to divert oil supplies from the national reserve, even as many lawmakers acknowledged that doing so would at best result in a small, short-term drop in prices at the pump.

Democrats basically portrayed the vote as a stall tactic offered in lieu of an actual energy policy. Here's a preview from New York's senior senator, as quoted in the Times:

A group of Democratic senators ... sought to put pressure on Saudi Arabia, where Mr. Bush will be visiting this week, as they called on the Saudis to increase their oil production or face the possibility of Congress blocking a pending arms deal.

"We are saying to the Saudis that if you don't help us, why should we be helping you?" said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York. "We are saying that the relationship has to be a two-way street. We are saying that we need real relief and we need it quickly."

Image via Albany Times Union

Those of us who voted for pricing and those of us who voted against it still owe our constituents a plan that brings traffic relief and funds transit expansion.

I still think congestion pricing is that plan. But pricing or no, we need to move forward and make good on the promises and expectations raised during the past year's debate. The Bronx and New York City deserve nothing less.

Reading words like that from an elected official bolsters Janette Sadik-Khan's assertion that "the terrain has fundamentally changed" when it comes to transportation issues. But as measures like bus lane enforcement cameras come up for debate in Albany, will the wishes of city lawmakers like Rivera sway obstructionists in the Assembly?

The Times reports that about a dozen lawmakers, including Bronx Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, are refusing to complete the NYLCV's candidate questionnaire, and have notified the league preemptively to say they don't want its endorsement.

What has irked some lawmakers is what they saw as a threat in the cover letter accompanying the questionnaire. In the letter, the league said it would use its new political action committee, Climate Action, to support candidates who advanced the group's agenda. Some legislators said they viewed that as a veiled warning that the league would use the money it raised through its committee to defeat candidates who opposed Mayor Bloomberg, above, and his congestion pricing plan.

The league or its political action committee "has the right to contribute to any candidate it wants," wrote Jeffrey Dinowitz, a Democratic assemblyman from the Bronx, "but I am deeply troubled by the very clear implication that a candidate will be rewarded or punished based upon a legislator casting a specific vote the way you would want it cast."

Yes, assemblyman, an interest group basing its support on a candidate's record is indeed troubling. Oh, wait ... 

For the league's part, NYLCV Chair Charles S. Warren says lawmaker positions on congestion pricing will not be a "litmus test," but adds, "we’re going to look for concrete accomplishments in furthering the environmental agenda.”

Mr. Warren, who said he did not know how many legislators had responded to the league’s questionnaire, added that the league was dissatisfied with the Legislature’s environmental record lately. “There’s a frustration on our part and on the part of a lot of other environmental organizations,” he said.

This is the second installment of Streetsblog's interview with Paul Newell, candidate for State Assembly in the 64th District, who's challenging Speaker Sheldon Silver in the Democratic primary this September. In this segment, Newell addresses some of the issues that are fresh in the minds of everyone who followed the death of congestion pricing in Albany without a vote earlier this month. The first part of the interview, about running for office in New York, ran yesterday.

Streetsblog: What made you decide to run? What was the inspiration?

Paul Newell: The inspiration was seeing how Albany's broken and how that impacts
people's lives every day throughout this city and state, and in
particular downtown where I live and work. I've been an organizer for a
lot of years, and increasingly it became clear to me that we are not
going to move forward on new thinking on everything from transportation
to housing and education if we don't have a working system in Albany.
And the reason we don't have a working system in Albany is because of
Sheldon Silver and Joe Bruno.

Why I decided to run evolved over some years. But in 2004, when I went
to my primary polling station to vote, and discovered that I did not
have the option to vote at all. The polling station was closed because
Sheldon Silver did not have a challenger. I was initially outraged
over, I think at that point it was a number of issues -- you know,
rules reform and drug law reform, which he'd killed for the fifth year in a
row. And I went down there -- I was gonna vote against Sheldon Silver.
I said, "If nobody's running I'm gonna write someone in." Well, the
sign on the door said, "Due to a lack of contested elections, this
polling station is closed today."

...And an older woman comes up
and she's also intending to vote, and I sort of give her my rant about
how this is bad for democracy. And she says, "Well, I guess nobody ran
for anything." And I said, "But I wanted to vote against Sheldon
Silver." And she says to me, "Well, you should have run!" So I laughed
it off, and then I looked into the fact that the guy, at that point,
had not had an opponent in 18 years. I do not believe it's possible for
anyone to be responsive to their community, or to the needs of the city
and state, if they do not even have to ask for our vote.

SB: Let's talk about your policy platforms, specifically transportation and rules reform.

PN: I supported congestion pricing, and I don't think it went far enough.

We need to dramatically rethink the way we approach transportation
issues, in New York City, and indeed in the country. From a public
health standpoint, from an economic standpoint, from an environmental
standpoint, and from a quality of life standpoint, we need to be
promoting mass transit as a top priority for our state and country.
People talk about fuel economy standards for cars, and I say that mass
transit beats better fuel economy standards any day.

Now higher fuel
economy standards is more of a federal issue, but what we need to do is
promote the kinds of policies and decisions that are good for the
community at large and our national interest. And that means, yes,
charging people money to drive their cars into the central business
district of New York, and using those funds to subsidize buses, bus
rapid transit, more accessible subways... It's about prioritizing. It's
about using the power of the state to favor one means of transportation
over the other -- and the kinds of communities that that creates.

SB: How do you make this pitch to voters?

PN: I generally start with congestion pricing because it's on people's
minds and you have to always be aware of what people are thinking
about. I say Sheldon Silver's killing of congestion pricing without
even a vote showed contempt for both the democratic process and the
concerns of Lower Manhattan. Of 150 Assembly districts in New York,
none would have benefited more from that bill than the 64th. We have
the Brooklyn Bridge, the Manhattan Bridge, the Williamsburg Bridge, the
Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, and about three blocks outside the district is
the Holland Tunnel. We have dramatically higher asthma rates than the
rest of the country. We have noise pollution.

I was talking with a teacher at PS124, which is across the street from
my apartment on Division Street. Division Street is one of the places
where trucks are using the free Verrazano-Holland Tunnel route, and
she's got 28 third graders in her classroom, of whom 22 do not speak
English at all. She's on the second floor, facing the street. And she's got trucks from 7 a.m. to the end of her school
day outside, honking their horns. People are getting road rage yelling
profanities at each other outside this classroom where she's trying to
teach 28 kids. And those kids are getting a worse education because of
it. She's working hard, but it is detrimentally impacting the quality
of education.

I understand why Brodsky opposed congestion pricing. I disagreed with
him, but I understand where he's coming from at least. His constituents
felt they were going to be paying this fee. This was a bill that was
going to help the 64th Assembly district directly. We needed leadership
and it wasn't there. My question then becomes, "What is the point of
being represented by the Speaker of the State Assembly if he doesn't go
to bat for you?" And then you try to come up with a line that conveys it, like: "Smoke-filled rooms lead to smoke-filled lungs."

SB: What have you been hearing back from people?

PN: You occasionally get pushback. There are people who will disagree
with you on any issue, and that's how it goes. But overwhelmingly, when
you explain to people that the funding was going to support the subways
that they use... all throughout the district these are real
improvements affecting our lives, and Sheldon Silver failed -- not just
failed to stand up for us -- actively killed something very important
to our health and quality of life. The way you convey a message is by
explaining how this impacts us, explaining how the incumbent is
responsible, and explaining why you would do things different.

SB: On rules reform, what are the high-leverage changes that you would put at the top of your agenda?

PN: I would break it down in to two categories, which I would call "democracy" and "ethics."

Lets start with democracy. We need a legislative process that is
transparent, member-driven, and on-the-record. This is the first thing.
As it now stands, almost all legislation is written by three men in a
room. The door to that room is closed, and inside that room, even if
Sheldon Silver and Joe Bruno were judicious, Solomon-esque leaders --
which I don't believe they are -- I don't think it's possible for three
men in a room to govern 19 million people well. Second of all, behind
closed doors, if you have officials who haven't had opponents for
decades, and they make decisions, it's going to be the developers and
the money-makers who are going to get heard. Because if people don't
have to ask for our vote, then they don't have to listen to us.

Furthermore, and this is where it spreads out to the entire Assembly
and Senate, is that if you do not have to actually take a stand on an
issue -- if your legislator does not have to vote on congestion
pricing, then they cannot be held accountable, and there's no way for
voters to say, "I want you to pass this legislation." If the
legislation is killed behind closed doors, [the representative] can
say, "Oh, I would have supported it," or "Oh, I would have opposed it,"
without taking any risks. And it makes it impossible to put any
pressure on elected officials and have an impact.

[Specifically], there should be a limit on the number of bills each
legislator is allowed to sponsor. All bills should be submitted to a
committee within a certain period of time. Committees must report bills
out within 30 or 60 days, depending on the type of bill. Within 30 to
60 days of receiving the bill, they must hold at least one hearing.
That hearing must be public, and then report the bill out to the floor
for a vote within 30 to 60 days. If a third of legislators sign a
release petition, then a bill should be submitted to the floor for a
vote. Thereby saying that a bloc of legislators supporting the bill can
demand that it be voted on.

All debate should be recorded... Legislators are always going to have
conversations behind closed doors, and that's fine. Not everything
should take place in public; I understand that that's how it works. But
all bills should have public debate, and all votes should be recorded.

And then you can get into conference committees. Every bill should have
a conference committee between the state, the Senate, and the Assembly
to work out the differences between those bills in public. This is
standard stuff that's found in almost every other state legislature.

That's the process stuff; that's the democracy aspect... The ethics
stuff is the second thing. We need real campaign finance reform. We
need clean money, clean elections, real public financing of elections.
It's got to be voluntary because of constitutional issues, but this is
already the law in Maine, Vermont, Arizona -- it just came online in
Jersey now. In Maine and Vermont and Arizona almost every candidate
uses it. What you do is you collect a certain number of donations from
people in your district, so in Arizona, if you can get a thousand people in
your district to give you five dollars -- I think for New York, five's
a little low -- the state will fund you enough to run a campaign in
that district. If you are outspent by a privately funded candidate, the
state will, by steps, go up to quadruple [the initial public funding]
amount. Of course a candidate could still outspend you, but you will
have enough money to get your message out and run a campaign. I cannot
believe that any candidate for public office would rather spend hours a
day on the phone begging people for money -- asking Bruce Ratner and
the developers for money -- when they could get it from public
financing. That way, in one fell swoop, you eliminate the campaign
finance influence on our politics.

Number two, legislators should be required to disclose all outside
income. We technically have a part-time legislature. They work about 65
days a year. Many of them have other jobs. Sheldon Silver works for the
Weitz & Luxenberg law firm. We know that he does work for them;
that's the one thing he is required to disclose. We don't know how much
they pay him, how those payments are disbursed. We don't know what work
he does to earn this money. We don't know what clients are involved. In
essence it is secret payments for secret work. We have no idea what
that is, and if that's not a basic recipe for corruption in government,
I don't know what is. People choose to be in public office, and when
you do, you give up some of your privacy rights. All public officials
should disclose all their income, from every source. There's no
compromise on that.

We're running excerpts from the interview in two parts. In this segment, complementing our previous look at what it takes to get on the ballot, Newell shares his advice for potential candidates and sheds light on the mechanics of running for office. In the second part, which we'll run tomorrow, Newell talks about why he decided to run against Silver, and how he believes transportation -- and Albany -- should be reformed.

Streetsblog: What's your advice for someone pondering a run for office?

Paul Newell: A lot of people will say that you can't beat an incumbent in New York. And they're wrong. Incumbents do lose, number one. Number two, times have changed. The times when these old machine candidates just turn out, punch out votes and kill any opposition are over. We do not live in that city.

Running for office is an incredible opportunity. You will learn more about yourself, your community, your state, than you ever could. You will meet amazing people, and you will have an opportunity to dramatically change your community for the better. It is fun. It is hard work, and it is worth doing.

SB: Say someone makes the decision to run tomorrow. Does that give them enough time to get the organization beneath them that they need to mount a credible campaign? If not, is there still something worthwhile that could come out of a challenge to an incumbent?

PN: There's always something worthwhile to come out of a challenge to an incumbent -- just to get them aware of their community again.

I don't think it's too late. It depends on what kind of network the individual has. But it's closing in on too late. June 3rd is petitioning, so by June 3rd you need to have an organization in place with money in the bank and a strategy to do petitioning. That is really the actual deadline.

Honestly, people don't make decisions in elections until shortly before they vote anyway. You see that all the time. So if you can get an organization together in the next month and a half, no it's not too late. But I would get started.

I think it is good for democracy, for our city and for our state, for incumbents to be challenged in every election. I believe that it is not healthy for anybody to run unopposed for elective office, ever.

I would be thrilled to talk with, meet with -- discreetly or publicly -- anybody considering running for another seat in the New York City area, or anywhere in New York State. [Editor's note: Newell can be contacted through his website.]

SB: Walk us through what it takes to get on the ballot.

PN: Well the ballot access process starts in June. The only requirement is you have to be registered in the relevant party and reside in the district for more than a year. If one meets that criteria, then one needs to collect, for State Assembly it's 500 signatures from registered Democrats residing in the district. In point of fact you need a lot more than that, because the whole system is written to prevent challenges.

So you can start collecting signatures on June 3rd. You hand them in the second week of July. And you spend the next four weeks fighting a court battle against your incumbent, who will try to throw you off the ballot. Even if they think their case has no shot, they will try to throw you off the ballot, just to waste your time and money.

The process though, is you break out petitions, you get your team together, you set up stations, you knock on people's doors, you do site-based things, outside of supermarkets and subway stations and what have you, and you collect signatures. You make sure they work, you bind 'em right, you cover all the legal ends, and you'll get on the ballot.

SB: Tell me more about the fundraising aspect and the organizing aspect. What did you have in place, and what did you know you needed to do to mount your campaign?

PN: The first thing you have to do is talk to your family and loved ones and figure out if it's something you want to do. You have to make a personal decision first. And the way you do that is you talk to the people in your life. You also talk to anyone you know who has run for office, and any candidates that you have worked for in the past. I called up some candidates that I had never met and asked for advice. Just asked them what's involved in this, how do you make this decision. You have to learn that first.

Then you start doing the feasibility portion of it. You say, "This is something that I want to do," and determine that I will be able to accomplish what I'm trying to accomplish by doing it. Then you say, "Can we do it?" And that is also a process of talking to people in the community, gauging that there is real need for change...

The first official thing you do, in terms of an official legal act, is you have to form a fundraising committee. And that's just filing some paperwork with the Board of Elections -- either the State or the City, depending on the office you're running for. They're very helpful folks up there in Albany, they're actually great. They'll prompt you to open a bank account. I started my bank account with $100 in pre-donated money. Then you start reaching out to people you know. Start first with your friends and your family, who support what you're trying to do, and you call and you ask them for money. And that's a hard thing for a lot of people to do. You have to remember that you're doing this for a reason. You have to believe that them giving you money will improve our community... Otherwise it's very hard to ask people for money.

You need to form a braintrust... There's a couple of categories of braintrust that you need: You need a finance braintrust, you need a policy braintrust, and you need a campaign braintrust.

You need people who can help you think of ways to reach out to raise money. You need people who know the issues facing your community well, and can help you formulate your positions, write them up. You have to believe of course, but work with people to write up these positions so they make sense, so they're cogent. And then you need to start talking to people who you need to reach out to. How does this district break down? How am I gonna reach out to people in the community?

And then, once you're there -- In New York City, if you're running for office, there's nothing you can do better than knocking on doors. I need a few thousand votes. I need, certainly, less than 10,000 votes to radically change the way 19 million New Yorkers are governed. I knock on doors every day. And I'm not knocking on doors because it sounds good... If in an hour of knocking on doors, I have four conversations, that's worth it.

My goal is to be elected Assemblyman for the 64th District. This is not running for President. I can meet enough people to win this race.

Photo: newellnyc.org

In what may be a political first, Paul Newell, who is challenging Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver in the 64th District, mentions "livable streets" as one of his three major planks in this campaign clip. Newell and Luke Henry, another Silver challenger, have both voiced support for congestion pricing. The last time Silver faced a challenger in the Democratic primary was 1986.

Streetsblog spoke to Newell yesterday about what motivated him to run against Silver, his stance on transportation issues, and his advice for anyone pondering a run against an Albany incumbent this election cycle. Highlights from the interview are on the way soon.

In the meantime, we grabbed Newell's transportation bullet points from his website -- posted after the jump.

As your assemblyman I will fight for:

• Sound Congestion reduction policies, including pricing.

• Full funding for MTA capital improvements including the 2nd Avenue Subway

• Put our transportation, quality of life and public health concerns at the top of New York's agenda.

• state authorize the city to issue residential parking permits.

• Institute Bus Rapid Transit lanes on major Manhattan bus routes

Thank you for your recent email concerning Congestion Pricing for New York City. As a committed environmentalist, I can appreciate how important it is to reduce congestion (and the associated greenhouse gases and asthma producing fumes), etc. It is also critical that we find a way to pay for mass transit upgrades in New York City.

As you know, the congestion pricing bill did not come up for a vote in either the State Assembly or the State Senate. Through six hours of debate in the Democratic conference, the overwhelming majority of my colleagues (all from New York City and the suburbs) expressed their opposition. Honestly, the members representing Upstate New York could not have possibly swayed the outcome. As we are often supported by our New York City colleagues (e.g. The Upstate Revitalization Fund), many felt obliged to defer to the opinions of those who represent New York City.

I'm sure that we have not heard the end of this matter. I will be sure to keep your thoughts in mind as we move forward.

Sincerely,
Donna A. Lupardo
Member of Assembly

So where was Joan Millman when this was going down? Where were Micah Kellner and Richard Gottfried? Where was Sheldon "I probably would have voted for the bill" Silver? Did they speak up or stand down? Conveniently, we'll never know.

By the way, you can place your free recruit-a-candidate ad here.

Wanted: Real Reformer for NY's 75th Assembly District (Chelsea)

New York's 75th Assembly district has been represented by an out of touch party hack for over 35 years with little to show for his efforts. Colleagues describe him as indecisive and lacking the leadership qualities to get promoted to the next level. He has also failed to adapt to the shifting customer base.

Even the local newspaper (NY Times) has called him to task in a recent editorial: "New Yorkers deserve to be mad as hell about Albany, and their best revenge is at the ballot box. All they need now is to find decent candidates. In Manhattan, where the Democratic primary is the election, it is time to challenge even the most established members of the Legislature - like Assemblyman Richard Gottfried on the West Side or Assemblywoman Deborah Glick."

Even his website (http://www.richardgottfried.org) hasn't been updated in over eight years. It still lists him as representing the 64th district - before the post-census redistricting.

Help Richard "Dick" Gottfried find a new job by putting in an application for his current one. Serious Reformers Only need apply.