Another Political Party in NYS? Reading the Leaves

If you follow news stories on the Empire Page, you are aware that people involved in the tea party movement in NYS are considering creating a new political party.

It makes sense. New York’s election laws provide a strong incentive for a disaffected group to form a new party rather than join an existing one. It is not easy, but getting on the ballot can be accomplished with a decent-sized organization.

Here’s the relevant section of the state’s election law for statewide candidates.

(§ 6-142. Independent nominations; number of signatures.
1. An independent nominating petition for candidates to be voted for by all the voters of the state must be signed by at least fifteen thousand voters, of whom at least one hundred shall reside in each of one-half of the congressional districts of the State.

The NYS Tea Party would presumably invite candidates from other parties to apply for their endorsement. If they followed the path of the ideologically-pure Green and Libertarian parties which do not cross-endorse, they would be consigning themselves to irrelevance which I doubt it their intent.

This being their first year playing the electoral game, candidates who are afraid of being put on the spot concerning specific issues will probably be able to ignore the Tea Party. This could result in the Tea Party being forced to run their own candidates in most Assembly, Senate and Congressional districts.

If so they’ll find out that it’s one thing to protest the policies of those currently in office, it’s another thing to mount an effective election campaign. To do so takes a willing candidate who doesn’t have any hidden baggage, such as a girl friend in Argentina or a Wall Street bonus check in her back pocket. It also requires legal help to prepare and oversee a petition drive, dozens of people to circulate petitions and later campaign literature, and some a few thousand dollars if just to pay the lawyers and print a brochure. All this effort of course has to be done despite the fact that your candidates will not win any elections and you are merely establishing your party as a force for future elections.

However, if the Tea Party is able to turn out several thousand votes in a number of Assembly and Senate districts whether for their own candidates or on behalf of those running on other lines, and if they can get 50,000 votes for a gubernatorial candidate, they will have achieved status on par with the Conservative, Independence and Working Families Party whose support is essential for victory in many districts across the state. (See my “2010: The Battle for the NYS Senate” for examples.)

One interesting aspect of all this will be the impact of this nascent political party on the existing third parties. They are unlikely to have any impact of course on the Working Families Party, but they could attract members and voters who are disaffected with the Conservative and Independent parties. For example, Warren Redlich, whose politics line up with the Tea Party, is spurning the Conservative Party endorsement because they had the temerity in the past to endorse candidates like George Pataki and Rick Lazio. (See my interview with Redlich in the Improving New York section of the Empire Page.)

The one group that perhaps ought to be considering forming a political party is Unshackle Upstate. One would think that they would be more likely than the Tea Party folks to be able to find candidates with statuture in their communities and money to spend on campaigns. Seeking to unite the small business community with community interests outside New York City, an Unshackle party might also be able to put pressure on the Democratic Party counteracting the pro-union Working Families Party.

This could get interesting.

The Most Needed Educational Reform of All

If I were the Commissioner of the NYS Dept. of Education or of the US Dept. of Education, neither of which positions I would actually take if they were offered, which of course they will not be, I would push for the single most needed educational reform across our entire system of education, which is…are you ready? Now read closely…What EVERY SCHOOL SYSTEM in the United States of America needs to do is MANDATE, REQUIRE and INSIST that every student take a course in business math.

Business math? I can hear your jaws dropping. Now please close your mouths and let me tell you why. Then you can tell me how ridiculous an idea that is…which of course it is not.

What do the American people as a whole suffer from which has been written about daily in the newspapers of this country and reported on broadcast stations, etc., etc.? Answer: a lack of understanding the mathematics of the core activities on which our society rests. Not only are most Americans extremely ignorant of the fundamentals of the workings of our banking and tax systems, but they cannot begin to manage the basics of household economics.

99 percent of Americans don’t operate from a family budget. They don’t and many can’t balance their check books. They don’t know their net worth much less how to figure it. They don’t know what it means when they borrow to purchase large items like a car or a house. They don’t know what they are obligating themselves to when they take out a credit card. They don’t know how much money they’ll need to retire on or how long their savings will last.

Some people want to blame the banks, the credit card companies, the mortgage lenders…and yes, there are plenty of unscrupulous people out there who will take advantage of the uneducated public’s ignorance, but the vast…and I mean VAST majority of college graduates don’t know this stuff either.

Problem: If two working adults in a family of four have a combined gross income of $62,400 a year ($600/week a piece) and they want to purchase a house that costs $300,000 with a 5% down payment with an adjustable rate mortgage which increases 1% a year starting at 3%, how many years before they lose the house and have to file for bankruptcy?

Problem: If a single parent with two kids and a $600/week gross income spends $200/week on groceries and eating out, $200/month on cable TV, and $120/month on her cell phone, how soon will she max out her credit card and have to take out a new one?

Problem: If the US Congress passes a federal budget which proposes to spend $1.3 trillion dollars more than projected revenues and the national debt currently stands at $12.3 trillion dollars, how much will each American owe the Chinese government and the rest of the buyers of US debt at the end of the year?

Problem: If the NYS Legislature spends $200 million in “member items” this year, how much will the state’s taxpayers have to cough up to cover that cost…and don’t say $200 million because you haven’t taken into account the following:

1) the cost of the interest that New York is paying because it’s revenues exceed its expenditures, or
2) the cost of administering the expenditures of those member items.

Do you think the legislators hand out bags of money? No, there’s a whole bureaucracy with office space, utilities, computers and copy machines, phone lines and Internet connections, salaries and pension obligations (to skim the surface) that has to exist because your legislator wants you to think that without his/her largess your little league ball field would be a cow pasture.

Not only would I insist that every student takes a course in business math, but I’d incentivize the teachers of that subject by offering bonuses to those teachers who provide some proof that their students have mastered the subject…I’d give students got an ‘A’ if they taught their parents how to balance a checkbook, read their mortgage contract and make up a family budget? What a boost to our economy that would be!

Poll Question Update

How do our readers rate Gov. Paterson’s budget? Our poll question for the week of January 25 drew mixed responses. 30 percent gave the governor an “A” or a “B” on his 2010-11 budget while 32 percent thought it deserved an “F” and 38 percent scored it a “C” or “D”.

Wine Sales Redux

Last year a proposal by Gov. Paterson to allow wine to be sold in supermarkets was met with a hostile reception from the state’s liquor store owners. They managed to ward off the assault on their revenue. This year the Gov. is back with a slightly revised proposal which seeks to respond to some of the opponents’ criticisms.

In the bill sponsored in the Senate by Liz Krueger, liquor stores would be allowed to stay open longer hours, sell directly to restaurants and other retailers, sell complementary items that they are not allowed to sell today. Further to head off eroding support from the state’s wine industry, the new proposal would dedicate some of the revenues taken in by the licensing fees for stores that want to sell wine directly to promote New York wines.

Vote this week on the home page of the Empire Page on whether you like or dislike the Governor’s revised wine sales proposal.

Merger Movement Mainstreams

When a topic shows up in the “Intelligence Report” section of Parade Magazine, that’s a sign that it’s something average citizens are paying attention to. Such we hope is the case for municipal merger movement which is not only on the agenda in some communities in NYS, but apparently also in places like Natchdez, Miss.

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Speaking of merging government entities, Gov. Paterson missed a major opportunity to promote consolidation of school districts in his budget. While I support the progressive nature of his $1 billion state-aid cut — putting more of the burden on rich districts, there should have been a provision rewarding districts that either merge or start sharing services. Providing a financial incentive is the win-win way to get district administrators out of their parochial mind-sets. Of course, the public has to rally behind the cause as well, but when they recognize that holding up consolidation means higher school taxes most people will give up the notion that small school districts are better for their children.

Poll Question of the Week

Last week we asked our readers to grade the NYS Legislature’s ethics proposal, coming as it did only days after Gov. David Paterson offered his recommendations in his state of the state. Our readers didn’t like the Legislature’s particulars at all. Forty-four percent gave them a failing “F” and 29 percent gave them a “D”. Only 3 percent gave the Legislature an “A”, 12% thought they deserved a “B” and 11% saw the proposals as worthy of a “C”.

The New York Times’ editorial board today sided with the governor, urging him to veto the Legislature’s version of ethics reform and to hold out for:

1) “severely limiting use of campaign money”
2) revising the two-class disclosure requirement that benefits lawyers
3) a plan that places more oversight on the Legislature
4) a non-partisan commission on redistricting, and
5) two Republican proposals — one giving the AG power to enforce campaign finance laws and the other a scheme that would alternative the party affiliation of the board of elections’ special counsel.

This Week’s Poll Question: Grade the Governor

Since our readers seem to enjoy passing out grades, we are asking them this week to grade the governor on his budget which he presented on Tuesday. My guess is that he’ll get passing grades, but with only 10% or so “A’s”.

Governor’s Press Releases

Congratulations to readMedia (the company I founded in 1985 as Empire Information Services) for signing the Governor’s office for issuances of press releases. The Governor’s press releases will now be part of the 21th century news stream which includes social media and visibility in Google News and Google Alerts.

Of course that also means you can find all of the Governor’s press releases now on the Empire Page.

Hopefully, the Governor and all of the other people running for office in 2010 whether statewide or locally will be smart enough to understand the benefits of using readMedia instead of trying to do this themselves in-house.

Poll Question: Spitzer and Ethics

Last week we asked our readers whether they care about what disgraced former Governor Eliot Spitzer has to say about NYS politics. First, you may wonder why we asked the question. The answer is simple — Spitzer is trying to interject his voice and some media outlets are listening.

In particular, Alan Chartock, publisher of The Legislative Gazette and chairman of WAMC, wrote that New York needs Spitzer’s “fine mind” more than he needs us. Well the readers of the Empire Page respectfully disagree. 71 percent are not the least bit interested in what Spitzer has to say; 13 percent said it depends on the topic; 9 percent said they might listen if it’s a “slow news day,” and 8% are always interested in what the former AG and former governor has to say.

What do I think? I’d say Prof. Chartock is 100% wrong. Mr. Spitzer needs us to forgive him and allow him to regain some of his stature much more than we need to know his views. In fact, I’d be suspicious that anything Mr. Spitzer says is not an objective impartial statement, but rather an attempt to attract news coverage and make his views wanted.

This Week’s Poll Question

Gov. Paterson outlined his ethics reform plan in his state of the state. This week the majority party leaders of the Senate and Assembly introduced their plan. Thus far, the state’s editorial writers are finding considerable shortcomings in the Legislative leaders’ proposal. Examples:

Albany Times Union: New ethics rules need more work

NY Daily News: A great big nothing: The Legislature’s idea of reform isn’t even a joke

Rochester Democrat & Chronicle: Albany Legislature’s ethics reform proposal needs work

Watertown Daily Times: Ethics plan Little progress in N.Y. legislative proposal

Only the Syracuse Post Standard gives it luke-warm praise: The best thing about the New York Legislature’s ethics reform package is that it has a chance of passing

What do you think? Grade the Dems Ethics plan by voting in this week’s poll question of the week.

NYS & the The Rise of Modern Conservatism

That’s the title of Timothy J. Sullivan’s book published by SUNY Press in 2009. I’ll be discussing the book with Susan Arbetter Monday morning on the Capitol Pressroom. Listen live from 11 AM to Noon (Monday thru Friday) or download the program to listen on your I-pod or MP3 player.

Government Waste Website

Congratulations to Teresa Sayward (NYS Assembly: R,I – Willsboro) for creating a website where people can report on government waste. The URL of the new website is www.stopgovernmentwasteny.com.

The website offers:

• Taxpayers and state employees an on-line mechanism to report known instances of state government waste directly on the website. Users have the ability to remain anonymous,
• Lists of several recent examples uncovered by the media of state government waste, fraud and misuse of taxpayer dollars, and
• Outline how government waste leads to higher taxes, a strain on the delivery of essential public services and further erodes public confidence in state government and the men and women serving in it.

Income Progressivity in New York

Check out the analysis by Tammy Pels of the Citizens’ Budget Commission of the The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) report, Who Pays? A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All 50 States.

New York, according to ITEP, has the sixth most “progressive” tax structure in the country, which means that the higher your income the higher a share of that income goes to taxes. While the poor do particularly well in New York and the rich pay through the nose, middle income taxpayers also pay more than their counterparts in the rest of the country. In particular middle income earners pay more in personal income and property taxes.

If you think Gov. Paterson’s proposal that his budget plans include $1 billion in property tax relief will address middle income property owners tax burden, you’d better read the Empire Center’s E.J. McMahon’s analysis. He wonders if it can be done.