Ronald L. Caravan

The abrupt and unexpected leadership change in the New York State Senate that occurred this week made for some unusually intense “political theatre,” but it left left-wing Democrats and their sympathizers reacting with varying levels of hysteria that made it clear they were not especially entertained.

Constituents inclined to ridicule the chaos in a general way and disparage Albany politicians as a whole should put down the broad brush and focus on some of the significant distinctions between the factions in the Senate leadership battle as well as some of the policy and procedural details accompanying the politics. One that is especially telling is how baseless and immature the reactions have been from the politicians and proponents on the left.

After Republican members of the Senate and two allied Democrat senators extended the senate floor session Monday afternoon to elect new leadership with their coalition majority of 32 votes, now-former Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith, a Queens Democrat, was quick to the microphone to declare the action “scurrilous,” a term generally denoting vulgarity, abusiveness, or indecency. As liberal Democrats are always more focused on outcomes that suit their sensibilities than constitutional process and consistency, it follows that Mr. Smith’s reaction would be over the outcome, not the majority-rule democratic process that removed him from leadership.

Not unlike the tax-protest “tea parties” that took place throughout the nation April 15, the state Senate “coup,” as it is being called, was evidently fueled by the nature and extent of the left-wing extremism that has been on a crash-course agenda in Albany since January. One of the more recent and more contentious issues has been the Democrats’ push to legalize same-sex marriage in New York. Governor Patterson has promoted the legislation, and the State Assembly approved it recently, but the bill had been delayed in the Senate, apparently because Majority Leader Smith did not have the votes within his own Democratic majority to get the measure passed and on to the governor for signing.

After the Senate Republicans and two Democrats formed their new majority this week, several pieces of controversial legislation suddenly appeared to be facing more tangible resistance, and the Democratic left responded with their typical hyperbole largely void of facts. Austin Shafran, a spokesperson for Senator Smith, declared, “This was an illegal and unlawful attempt to gain control of the Senate and reverse the will of the people, who voted for a Democratic majority.”

“Will of the people?” One wonders if Mr. Shafran has checked the numerous public-opinion polls on how New Yorkers feel about legalizing same-sex marriage.

Mr. Shafran was especially caustic in his criticism of billionaire and former candidate for governor Tom Golisano, who was a key player behind the scenes in the formation of the new Senate majority. “He’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” Mr. Shafran declared. “He should be ashamed of himself. I want to know how much it cost…to buy the state Senate, to buy the Senate Republicans!”

Probably not as much as it cost Mr. Golisano to help “buy” the state Senate for the Democrats in the last election, as it turns out. Mr. Golisano’s political-action committee gave plenty to Democratic senate campaigns last year, including Darrel Aubertine’s, after assurances from the Democrats that substantial reforms would be made in the way Albany does business (such as the infamous “three men in a room” approach to formulating a state budget). Those reforms never took place, and the governor, Senate majority leader, and Assembly speaker (all Democrats) were more exclusionary in their governance than ever.

Dissed by the Democrats, Mr. Golisano turned to Senate Republicans and unhappy Democrat members back in April, the New York Daily News and other sources reported last week, and over the next several weeks, with promises that reforms would be forthcoming, the new majority was made.

Notwithstanding that a new majority, formed on assurances of a more open and less dysfunctional State Senate, would benefit state taxpayers, all the political left seems to care about is loss of leadership for their favored politicians, and this is no where more evident than in the left-leaning news media. Take a bit of an analytical look, for example, at the opening sentences in the so-called news report published on the front page of The Post-Standard Wednesday:

Billionaire Tom Golisano created a political group to bring transparency to Albany. But for more than a month, he conducted closed-door meetings to plot a Republican takeover of the state Senate. Even if the writers and editors were so beside themselves with Mr. Golisano that they could not recognize that this is editorial writing, not news writing, they certainly are supposed to understand the difference between government meetings (open to the public) and citizens meeting for political purposes (not open to the public).

Then the second sentence of the article: He has been a strident advocate for campaign-finance reform. The inclusion of the word “strident” makes quite clear what the news reporters think of Mr. Golisano and the Senate leadership change.

Deep into the front-page story, the writers report, Golisano chastised Democratic leaders for failing to put into place promised reform. But then they add, Monday’s revolt was payback.

“Payback,” huh. That’s not reporting, it evaluation of motives, which might be the journalistic equivalent of determining a hate crime—an invention of the political left that left-wingers should understand well. Critics of Mr. Golisano and the leadership change in the Senate might be able to go off half-cocked and assign sinister motives to him and others over the water cooler at the office, but not professional news writers. They are supposed to allow that Mr. Golisano’s motives may be no more complicated than working to form a new majority that stands to bring genuine positive change to Albany after the last new majority reneged on this promise. That’s how neutral reporting is supposed to work, but not in a left-leaning news source such as The Post-Standard, whose bias has been very transparent for years.

In the meantime, God bless Tom Golisano. And if this Senate majority fails to bring an appropriate level of openness and accountability to the state legislature, let’s hope he uses his influence to try forming yet another one.