Today’s New York Times contains an article by Javier C. Hernandez about New York Uprising, former mayor Ed Koch’s campaign for reforming state government, which he has labeled his “last hurrah.” The campaign, which has received some attention from the mainstream media, provides a vehicle for a distinguished public figure to go on the road once more to speak about the State’s dysfunctional Legislature. That is a good thing, although most New Yorkers already agree that Albany needs fixing, if not dynamiting.
Whether we should take New York Uprising seriously is another matter. Four-term Governor Al Smith said back in the Twenties that the cure for the problems of democracy was more democracy. Removing incumbents from office, unless they’re indicted, tried, and convicted of felonies, requires contested elections. That’s the problem. The state’s election law requires candidates to gather hundreds, if not thousands, of signatures on petitions to get on the ballot. That is only the first step: there often follows expensive litigation before the Board of Elections and the state courts involving challenges to the validity of the petitions—not merely the signatures’ validity, but various hypertechnical requirements for the form, wording, binding, and numbering of the pages of the petition—that can lead to a candidate being knocked off the ballot. It is not a game for the average citizen, which may explain why so few of them care.
By contrast, the obsessions of New York Uprising with reapportionment and legislative procedure seem pretty abstract to the man in the street.
The upcoming primaries for the Legislature show a paucity of contests in the city. Those few largely involve districts whose incumbents are retiring or running for another office. This is the usual course of things in New York. Such open seats always attract every ambitious local hack—the men and women already part of the system—as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to win a place on the gravy train. But the Speaker of the Assembly, Sheldon Silver (admittedly one of the few grownups in State politics) is unopposed in his primary, as usual. Legend has it that for many years Shelly even picked his Republican opponents, one of whom was reportedly on his legislative payroll as a driver. It seems almost perfect: the simulacrum of democracy without the risk of losing the election.
As always, the local establishment urges the people to register and vote without making it easy for them to take the next step—running for office themselves. They want us to ratify the system without substantively participating in it.
To risk sounding naive: it should not be this way. Politics should not be restricted to politicians alone. The New York City Bar Association’s Election Law Committee recently released a report urging that nominal filing fees be available as an alternative to petition signatures, which would make it easier for all of us to fight the power.
I’ve no doubt that Ed Koch is sincere. But if he were serious—a term of art in politics—he would have raised much more money and recruited candidates. Half a century ago, when the reform movement in Manhattan toppled Tammany—something Koch helped happen—it succeeded largely because wealthy and powerful people such as Governor Herbert H. Lehman were writing big checks to finance the campaign. Nothing like that is happening today.
