Abuse of Power in New York

If there was any goal in state-level politics that would justify weird abuses of power, I think trying to dislodge State Senate President Joseph Bruno from authority in Albany might just be it. New York State politics is, in general, just horrible beyond belief, featuring all kinds of shady deals, near-dictatorial authority in the hands of the bosses, etc., etc., etc.

That said, Elliot Spitzer's really gotten himself covered in muck here. I'm not sure it's quite right to draw a parallel between the privilege claims Spitzer is asserting and the ones Bush is asserting, since it's entirely possible that New York State law is legitimately different from federal law on this score, but the underlying conduct that prompted the investigation Spitzer is stonewalling is ridiculous.

Basically, Spitzer directed the State Police to go investigate Bruno in hopes of digging up dirt that could be used against him in order to help the governor gain leverage in their political battles. Precisely the reason why I get upset about things like, massive illegal secret surveillance programs, is that they're prone to just this sort of abuse. It's just really, really egregious behavior.

Comments

I really think Bush has sponsored a period of executive-fetish bullshit in this country. It seems like the au courant belief is that all decision-making is executive, that any deliberation is anathema to action. Spitzer obviously thinks that he's a good guy, his people are good guys, and thus whatever they do is in the service of general goodness. The legislature, on the other hand, is inherently weak, corrupt, and inert.

Michael Bloomberg, likewise, just announces he wants congestion pricing and expects every other power in the state to bow to his centrist, technocratic brilliance. Shelly Silver is a lout, but really, what right does Bloomberg have to dictate policy to the legislature and then demand that it approve his decision within a month, without any real consideration?

Real governing is about building coalitions and pressure behind your agenda, not steamrolling the bad guys.

Posted by Marshall | July 27, 2007 10:32 AM

This is horrible stuff, politically. Prior to this, I really thought we were going to take the State Senate, and now, I imagine we won't.

Spitzer has been showing hubristic tendencies ever since his election, and I do wish he'd get his act together. He's got a real chance to do some good if he plays his cards more wisely.

Posted by Petey | July 27, 2007 10:33 AM

"Real governing is about building coalitions and pressure behind your agenda, not steamrolling the bad guys."

No. Real governing can certainly involve steamrolling the bad guys, as long as you can actually successfully steamroll the bad guys.

Real governing doesn't involve steamrolling the bad guys if you try to steamroll the bad guys and fail. And Albany politics is incredibly hard to steamroll, given the weird triple veto system it de facto operates under.

"Shelly Silver is a lout"

Shelly Silver is a hero. He's worn the white hat in a lot of fights.

Posted by Petey | July 27, 2007 10:38 AM

It's all been incredibly disappointing for everyone who had high hopes for the Spitzer administration. You're right, Bruno really needed an effective foil, and now Spitzer has just given him more leverage. Awful. It's early in his term, so I'd think there's still room for Spitzer to do some of what he came for, but it's hard for me to see exactly how that will happen. He really wounded himself here. Dammit.

Posted by cerebrocrat | July 27, 2007 10:42 AM

No doubt the administration made a giant blunder here involving an abuse of executive authority. That said, saying "Spitzer directed the State Police to go investigate Bruno" is misleading on two scores.

First, the police weren't asked to follow around Bruno, break into his home, tap his phones, or anything of that order. They were asked to recollect truthfully where Bruno went on trips where he requested state police transportation. Bruno was almost certainly abusing state helicopters and escorts to go to fundraisers (under NY's absurdly loose laws his actual conduct turned out to be legal). NY probably should be keeping such records on all state officials using these facilities.

Second, we don't know if Spitzer himself was involved or how much he knew, and since this is a case where the devil is in the details, that's pretty important. If, for instance, he thought that there was a freedom of information law request for police records, and he thought these police records already existed - which one of his aides originally claimed - he wouldn't have been sanctioning anything objectionable. Unless Spitzer was deeply involved in the minutia of the scheme, which seems highly doubtful to me, his conduct is far short of egregious.

And there's a Spitzer apologia for you.

Posted by mitch | July 27, 2007 10:46 AM

"And there's a Spitzer apologia for you."

And a quite reasonable apologia it is.

I thought Matthew was mangling some of the details, but didn't want to do the clicking to research exactly where he was wrong.

Posted by Petey | July 27, 2007 10:51 AM

Petey,

You think Spitzer's hubris only kicked in when he became governor? What about his witch hunts as A.G.?

Is it too late for Jonah Goldberg to change the subtitle of his new book to "From Hegel to Spitzer"?

Posted by Fred | July 27, 2007 11:08 AM

I agree Spitzer's looking bad here, and his stonewalling is inexcusable. But, MY, as mitch pointed out, you've got the facts wrong, and you need to correct them.

Posted by Glenn | July 27, 2007 11:14 AM

Fred --

He could, but not without compromising the very serious, thoughtful, title, which had been written in such detail and with such care.

Posted by Daniel Munz | July 27, 2007 11:26 AM

They were asked to recollect truthfully where Bruno went on trips where he requested state police transportation.

This is false.

The state police were asked to create records of where Bruno went and to provide his itineraries of where he was going for the purpose of planting false stories in the Albany Times Union.

Posted by Al | July 27, 2007 11:52 AM

Al @11:52am, no, your statement is false, I believe. The governor's men asked the state police to create records where none had been produced in the ordinary course of business. I don't think anyone's suggested that the state police were told to falsify records, just to make a record of helicopter trips, etc., that had actually occurred. That the generation of such records is beyond the ordinary scope of the duties of the state police, and that the effort was requested in order to do political damage to a political rival, is the controversy. Which is different from an effort to falsely defame Bruno.

I think the whole thing started with the Albany newspaper's Freedom of Information request of such non-existent records, and this request apparently excited somebody in the political staff of the governor's office, and so they went about trying to fulfill the FOIL request even where such records did not already exist. Is that a crime? No. But such a blatant effort to mobilize government resources at your disposal to effect a political attack is ... politically damaging.

As it turns out, is it a crime for state senators such as Bruno to fly in state-owned, taxpayer-funded helicopters to attend Republican fundraisers? Not if there's also some "legislative business" that also takes place (a conversation with a fellow Republican senator might qualify, for example).

Such distasteful exploitation of government resources for partisan political purposes would have been politically damaging for Bruno, even if it didn't, as it turned out, rise to the level of criminality ... but, as it turns out, no one's concerned with the helicopter trips anymore, and everyone's focussed on the way the governor's office deploys the state police's record-making powers.

Posted by Todd | July 27, 2007 12:44 PM

This is the end of Spitzer's rise in national politics. He and his staff are discovering the intimidation tactics he used against business don't always work in politics

Posted by Campesino | July 27, 2007 2:03 PM

If there was any goal in state-level politics that would justify weird abuses of power, I think trying to dislodge State Senate President Joseph Bruno from authority in Albany might just be it.
************************************************

So it all just depends on who's ox is getting gored? Nice

Posted by Campesino | July 27, 2007 2:05 PM

It seems that Bruno has been sailing close to the wind in terms of his use of government transportation for trips in which only nominal state business is involved. To question this use of taxpayer money is perfectly legitimate, and who but the State Police would you authorize to investigate?

Posted by bob h | July 27, 2007 3:02 PM

re: NYC Congestion Pricing
Marshall wrote:
> Michael Bloomberg, likewise, just announces he
> wants congestion pricing and expects every other
> power in the state to bow to his centrist
> technocratic brilliance. Shelly Silver is a
> lout, but really, what right does Bloomberg have
> to dictate policy to the legislature and then
> demand that it approve his decision within a
> month, without any real consideration?

I'm a New York City resident. I'm all for it. It's an internal NYC matter, so why does the state have any say in the matter in the first place?

If the objection is over interstate traffic (i.e., people coming through either of the tunnels), then it's simple enough to let them onto freeways that take them through the congestion pricing zone (e.g., onto the Westside Highway either way, uptown to above 86th so they can go across Manhattan either to Long Island or upstate, or downtown and into the Battery Tunnel into Brooklyn). All it would require would be some engineering of access on those particular routes.

What is the state's interest in this? It's *our* city -- why can't we control how many cars enter it without having interference from the state?

--
David W. Fenton
http://dfenton.com/NoComment/

Posted by David W. Fenton | July 27, 2007 3:53 PM

"I'm a New York City resident. I'm all for it. It's an internal NYC matter, so why does the state have any say in the matter in the first place?"

The city lost a fair amount of sovereignty to Albany during the 70's financial crisis, if I have my history correct...

Posted by Petey | July 27, 2007 4:03 PM

"Second, we don't know if Spitzer himself was involved or how much he knew, and since this is a case where the devil is in the details, that's pretty important. If, for instance, he thought that there was a freedom of information law request for police records, and he thought these police records already existed - which one of his aides originally claimed - he wouldn't have been sanctioning anything objectionable. Unless Spitzer was deeply involved in the minutia of the scheme, which seems highly doubtful to me, his conduct is far short of egregious."

This is an ironic defense of Spitzer if you know anything about his tenure at Attorney General. His main tactic against companies he didn't like was to personally indicte CEOs and charge them with illegal activities that they should have realized their subordinates were engaged in.

Those activities often turned out not to be illegal, but that is another story entirely. The essential fact is that it he regularly sought criminal liability based on the fact that CEOs should know about the illegal or unethical activites of their subordinates (and not even their immediate subordinates in some cases).

Posted by Sebastian Holsclaw | July 27, 2007 4:15 PM

Except he didn't order them to do any such thing.

The evidence is that Spitzer's subordinates hatched this scheme on their own, and he fired them when he found out.

Frankly, at this point, I wouldn't be surprised if Bruno had paid them to spy on him, so as to have something to slime Spitzer with. Bruno's in an exceptionally weak position, because he's been abusing his power in equal and worse ways for most of his career.

Sigh.

Posted by Nathanael Nerode | July 28, 2007 4:41 PM