Albany Attitude Adjustment

Gov. Spitzer wanted the Legislature to choose one of three candidates a panel selected to becoming Alan Hevesi's successor as NYS Comptroller. Hevesi was forced to step down as a result of taking state funds and services for private use.

So what did the Legislature do? Assembly Speaker Shelly Silver (D) and Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno (GOP) turned around and picked one of their own. They chose Assemblyman Thomas DiNapoli to be the comptroller. Spitzer wanted things his way. Silver treated Spitzer to a lesson in how business is done in Albany. It's Silver's way or it's no way.

It fell to lawmakers to choose a new comptroller after Mr. Hevesi, the elected comptroller, agreed late last year to resign after pleading guilty to a felony for using a state worker as a personal assistant for his wife. He had just been re-elected to a four-year term. There is no provision in New York for a special election to replace a comptroller who resigns; state law calls for a replacement to be chosen by a joint session of the Legislature. That gave Assembly Democrats, with by far the largest bloc of votes in the Legislature, control over the choice.

Still, last month the legislative leaders held a news conference with Mr. Spitzer to announce that they had agreed on a public selection process: a trio of former comptrollers would screen applicants, determine who was qualified and forward to lawmakers a list of the top candidates from whom to choose. But when the panel forwarded only three names — and none were those of the five lawmakers, including Mr. DiNapoli, who had sought the post — the Assembly was infuriated.

Assembly Democrats then decided to go back on the deal with Mr. Spitzer and the party’s bosses got involved, prompting the private decision by party members to select Mr. DiNapoli. “I think the members thought he was the most qualified member, and the most qualified candidate, and they chose to nominate him,” Mr. Silver said after the vote.

Mr. Bruno proclaimed his support of Mr. DiNapoli, who won the respect of many Republican senators by working with them several years ago on a legislative package to bail Nassau County out of its fiscal straits.

Spitzer responded with a scathing critique of the Assembly's methods and cronyism to select DiNapoli over better qualified candidates. Those candidates included Martha Stark, the NYC Dept. of Finance Commissioner, Nassau County Comptroller Howard Weitzman or Wall Street financier William Mulrow, who happens to have close ties with Spitzer. DiNapoli has none of the experience that any of those candidates brought to the table except that he was a member of the Assembly, which is what Silver was interested in.

It's about preserving and expanding legislative perogatives. Selecting the comptroller on the basis of merit is a distant second.

Considering that Democrats control the bulk of the seats in the Assembly, they got to choose who becomes comptroller. Silver's word is law and he governs the Assembly's business with an iron fist. If you cross Silver, your career and pet projects are toast. Spitzer just learned that the hard way.

DiNapoli is a nice guy, but has absolutely no experience as a fiscal watchdog. In fact, Callaghan had more experience than this guy.

He's now got to oversee the $145 billion state pension program, a Medicare program rife with fraud and accounting troubles, and try to steward the state's fiscal situation into better health.