Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Grownups in Charge (State Edition)

New York has had no Lieutenant Governor since March 2008, when Eliot Spitzer resigned because that's how point guards who are so blessed to lead in THIS life when there are too many dead fish going WITH the flow as they are not wired to operate under the same old "politics as usual," which harms the Troops also.

The guy who was then LG, David Paterson, became Governor. There was no immediate news about who would become the next LG, and it pretty much wasn't treated as a big deal until the recent coup in the State Senate, which, when the dust cleared, left the Senate deadlocked, needing a tie-breaking vote from … you guessed it, the Lieutenant Governor. So David Paterson named somebody. Today. Better late than never, right? Or not.

I didn't know this:

… the governor’s move is sure to be highly debated. Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, the state’s top legal officer, said this week that such a step would be unconstitutional and would entangle “the governor in a political ploy that would wind through the courts for many months.”

There is no provision in the New York State Constitution that provides for filling the office in the event of a vacancy …

Double you tee eff.

How is such a thing even possible? Hasn't New York been a state since, like, even longer than John McCain has been alive? No one ever thought, say, after that car guy wowed 'em back in '73, "I got an idea, fellas, let's do what the feds just did -- governor nominates a lieutenant, legislature approves or not, shouldn't need to add more than three sentences to the constitution, what's next?"

Sorry, Doghouse, I'm gonna have to violate your trademark.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

"...because that's how point guards who are so blessed to lead in THIS life when there are too many dead fish going WITH the flow as they are not wired to operate under the same old "politics as usual," which harms the Troops also..."

Chortle. Well played.

James Briggs Stratton "Doghouse" Riley said...

Spirited attempt, really, but don't even try fuggin' with us. Headline in the Star this morning: the $1 billion "privatization" of Indiana's Family and Social Services Administration is so screwed up after two years the Daniels administration is being forced to threaten to scrap it. They've screwed up 20% of the food-stamp cases in the state. They pay call-center employees by the number of calls they clear, and gave 'em something like 300 pages of scripts for every occasion. Until somebody blew the whistle they were instructing case workers to tell people their unemployment checks would be mailed in two days just to get 'em off the phone. And this is just our backlog from Daniels' first year in office, plus the Legislature isn't even in session. We'll see your quaint Articles of Confederation routine, kiddo, and raise you legislating pi as a rational number.

bjkeefe said...

... legislating pi as a rational number.

I have to admit, that is pretty much the ace of trumps.

As to the rest, I salute you (once again) for keeping an eye on what we will politely call your public servants and for being able to list specifics. I can't even bear to read a story about my set of clowns. There isn't enough stomach lining in all the world for that.

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