{"id":3911,"date":"2011-03-15T07:12:42","date_gmt":"2011-03-15T11:12:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=3911"},"modified":"2011-03-15T19:14:40","modified_gmt":"2011-03-15T23:14:40","slug":"morning-read-in-albany-corruption-a-democratic-tilt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2011\/03\/15\/morning-read-in-albany-corruption-a-democratic-tilt\/","title":{"rendered":"Morning Read: In Albany corruption, a Democratic tilt"},"content":{"rendered":"

Much of the coverage of Albany’s latest corruption scandal has focused on the bipartisan nature of New York’s dirty political culture.<\/p>\n

Here’s how the Associated Press’s Michael Gormley<\/a> breaks it down:<\/p>\n

When New York Democratic Senate Majority Leader Pedro Espada went to his Bronx health care clinic during an FBI raid last year, he rolled up in a Bentley luxury car.<\/p>\n

Republican Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, the year before, awaited sentencing in his federal corruption case at his luxurious upstate home on his 125-acre horse farm.<\/p>\n

“Does anyone ever wonder how a senator affords a Bentley? How Joe Bruno had a big house?” asked David Grandeau, the state’s former chief lobbying investigator and widely seen by government watchdogs as one of Albany best gumshoes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And sure, fair enough.\u00a0 When the last two Majority Leaders — one Democrat, one Republican — are packed off to Federal prison, you get the sense that there’s enough sleaze to go around.<\/p>\n

But with the latest indictments of state Senator Carl Kruger and Assemblyman Bill Boyland, both Democrats from Brooklyn<\/a>, it’s hard to avoid the sense that the Democratic Party in particular needs a house-cleaning.<\/p>\n

Republicans can at least claim that they know how to run an old-fashioned political machine.\u00a0 That means a certain amount of dirt, but also an orderly system that keeps people more or less in line.<\/p>\n

The Democrats, on the other hand, appear to have taken a big dose of incompetence along with their corruption, and that’s never a good cocktail.<\/p>\n

That crooked bungling probably cost them Dems their majority.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, the Watertown Daily Times<\/a> urged Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo to step in and create an independent ethics commission.<\/p>\n

Under the 1907 Moreland Act, the governor can appoint an independent commission with investigative and subpoena powers. Rather than wait while the Legislature dawdles, Gov. Cuomo should get started now.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That might be a good solid step toward protecting the public’s interests.\u00a0 But increasingly, it also looks like a needed step to save New York’s Democratic Party from itself.<\/p>\n

As always, your comments welcome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Much of the coverage of Albany’s latest corruption scandal has focused on the bipartisan nature […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[5634,20],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3911"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3911"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3912,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3911\/revisions\/3912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}