A job 'harder than cleaning up Wall Street'

As governor, Spitzer to face a 'dysfunctional' N.Y. Legislature

Eliot Spitzer, who becomes New York's 54th governor on New Year's Day, won election on a vow to demand integrity and openness in state government with as much zeal as he battled misdeeds in the financial industry.

"Day 1, everything changes," he promised.

It was a pledge that will be difficult to keep, according to critics of government in Albany, the state capital.

Spitzer, 47, wielded prosecutorial powers as New York's attorney general. Now he must rely more on persuasion to get his way with a legislature rated by a New York University think tank as the most "dysfunctional" in the U.S. and transform what he calls a "pay to play" political culture.

"He won't be able to do it on Day 1, Day 2, in 100 days or even in five years," said former state Sen. Seymour Lachman, co-author of a recent book that depicts New York's state government as broken.

"It's a lot harder than cleaning up Wall Street," he said, because while the financial system is "answerable to a market of investors, there's almost no accountability in the state Legislature."

During a 10-day span this month, Republican State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno disclosed that the FBI is investigating his outside business consulting. Democratic state Comptroller Alan Hevesi pleaded guilty to using state workers as personal aides to his wife and resigned. A federal indictment charged that Democratic State Sen. Efrain Gonzalez Jr. stole more than $400,000 in state funds from charities in his Bronx district.

Gonzalez pleaded not guilty, and Bruno denied wrongdoing. Five other state lawmakers have been arrested or convicted on corruption charges since 2004.

Ethics proposals

"There is certainly a sense right now that there is an aura of unseemliness about too much of what goes on in Albany," Spitzer, a Democrat, told reporters Dec. 21. "Part of our job is to persuade the Legislature to embrace these ideas."

Bruno, 77, and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, 62, a Democrat, through their spokesmen declined requests to discuss how receptive they would be.

New York's financial disclosure laws for legislators were graded "C" in a 50-state April study by the nonprofit Washington-based Center for Public Integrity.

The mandate

Spitzer's clout may be bolstered by his record election victory to succeed Republican George Pataki, who didn't run, said Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research Group, which promotes open government.

"It will come down to how smart the specific proposals are and how well he's able to sell them," Horner said.

Even someone of Spitzer's skills won't be able to do all he has promised, said Lachman, 63, author with Rob Polner of Three Men in a Room: The Inside Story of Power and Betrayal in an American Statehouse (The New Press, 208 pages, 2006).

A 2004 report by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University's School of Law ranked the Legislature the most dysfunctional in the U.S. Over four years examined, the Assembly and Senate held floor debates on fewer than 5 percent of bills they passed. More than 99 percent of measures received no committee hearings or public review. A follow-up report in October found "major reforms remain undone."

Reward system

A lawsuit by the Times Union, an Albany newspaper, forced Bruno and Silver to disclose earlier this month how $200 million in member items for 2005 were spent.

Member items figured in Gonzalez's indictment. He allegedly diverted money to uses such as personal credit-card bills.

Lachman said "good government gets stymied" by lobbyists, too. Clients paid lobbying firms $149 million in 2005, up from $66 million in 2000, according to the Temporary State Commission on Lobbying.

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