The following appears in the July 1-7, 2011 issue of the Long Island Business News:

For most of our nation’s history, public officials governed part time and then returned to their day jobs outside of politics. In towns, villages and neighborhoods, storefront entrepreneurs served as mayors, legislators or on boards because they believed it was their civic responsibility to do so.

Local residents, working hard to raise families and to make ends meet, and without the time to stay on top of community issues, were grateful they had neighbors willing to take on these low-paying or volunteer positions and act for the common good.

In the early 1970s, however, there appeared a new careerist political class whose members pushed out part-timers from the public arena. Seeking and holding public office meant everything to them. Their career, livelihood and self-identity depended on it.

These “me generation” narcissists craving political power believe they are the only ones fit to govern, not because they are lovers of the downtrodden or have experience, but because they are measurably smarter than the public at large and that society will benefit from their counsel.

They also possess grandiose views of their talents, excessive interests in themselves, a craving for attention and admiration, and a consciousness of superiority. This type of narcissist, according to the noted social philosopher Christopher Lasch, “depends on others to validate his self-esteem. He cannot live without an admiring audience.

“For the narcissist, the world is a mirror, whereas the rugged individual saw it as an empty wilderness to be shaped to his own design.”

Success for these narcissists “consists of nothing more substantial than a wish to be vastly admired, not for one’s accomplishments, but simply for oneself, uncritically and without reservation.”

The poster boy for this new class of political narcissism is recently deminted Congressman Anthony Weiner – although there are numerous other examples in New York.

Weiner, for example, has never had a real job in the private sector. Straight out of SUNY Plattsburgh, he went to work as an aide to then-U.S. Rep. Charles Schumer. In 1991, at age 27, he was elected to the New York City Council and in 1998 was elected to Congress.

Weiner is a political narcissist who has excelled at self-promotion, campaigning, fundraising and self-exaltation. “Please understand I am a very important man,” he lectured an Internet groupie. All that mattered was his political ambitions and sexual prowess, not sound judgment, duty or character.

Shameless, he was willing to do whatever it took to cling to his office. His handling of Tweetergate proves it: When lying didn’t work, he tried public flagellation, and when that failed, he declared himself a victim, an expectant father and then checked into a treatment center. He held out as long as he could because he has had no existence apart from his role in public life. Weiner will never adjust to civilian life. He will be a lost soul forever living off of past glories and attempting political comebacks.

Weiner and fellow political narcissists – New York Power Authority chief executive Richie Kessel springs to mind – have in common an inflated sense of themselves. For them the world is an extension of their wills and emotions. Because they are the anointed ones, the people should be submissive to their exercise of power. Any who challenge their vision are unworthy, insensitive, evil and intellectually and morally bankrupt.

Since they venerate only their egos, they are willing to disregard law and shame in pursuit of accolades and power.

KESSEL’S NYPA REIGN:  IT’S ALL ABOUT DINING

Our NYPA correspondents report that C.E.O. Richie Kessel rarely shows up for work at his White Plains office.  On the average, his office appearances are often limited to two half days a week.  The rest of the work week he spends flitting around Long Island and New York City going to luncheons, giving speeches and receiving vanity honors.

Dining plays a very important and expensive role in the lives of Kessel and the hacks on his senior staff.  For instance, NYPA employees have been ordered to pick up food from Manhattan’s Carnegie Deli and from one of Kessel’s favorite Long Island Chinese restaurants to feed Kessel and senior staff at his White Plain’s Executive Management Committee meetings.  In these difficult economic times, it is an outrage that ratepayers’ hard-earned dollars are being wasted on NYPA employees traveling all over the metropolitan region to procure chow for Kessel and his hacks.

There’s more:  Recently received FOIL information from NYPA reveals that Kessel and his staff spend plenty of ratepayers’ money to wine and dine at luncheons and dinners that have nothing to do with NYPA’s mission.  Here’s a very small sampling:

Questions for NYPA Trustees:

1)     Why is NYPA’s CEO permitted to be absent from his White Plain’s work office most of every work week?  Why is he treated differently from every other NYPA employees who must report to their workstations every day?  Why isn’t he disciplined or fired?  Isn’t this theft of service?  What do Kessel’s time sheets say about how he spends his time at the public trough?

2)     Why is Kessel permitted to force NYPA employees to serve as gofers spending their work day picking up food for him?  Doesn’t that sound like what got Alan Hevesi in a heap of trouble?

3)     Why are Kessel and his staff members permitted to squander money on luncheon and dinner events that have nothing to do with NYPA’s mission?

The following appears in the June 17-23, 2011 issue of the Long Island Business News:

It was terrific news for taxpayers when Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced this week that his ethics reform legislation had passed both houses of the state Legislature.

Under the Public Integrity Reform Act, legislators will no longer be policing themselves. A newly structured Joint Commission on Public Ethics will now have oversight jurisdiction over all state elected officials and employees in the executive and legislative branches and registered lobbyists.

The bipartisan commission will have 14 members, six appointed by the governor and eight by the leaders of the Legislature. Because the commission cannot be dominated by one political party, half the appointees must come from a permanent political party that is not that of the governor.

Lobbyists, state-elected officials, state commissioners or leaders of a political party during the previous three years will be ineligible to serve. Also, public ethics commissioners will be prohibited from contributing to candidates for state office during their five-year term of office.

Other provisions of the new law:

• Transparency concerning those who have business within the state: A database will contain the name and affiliation of every person who appears before any state government body.
• Expanded financial disclosure: Elected officials’ financial disclosure forms will require greater details and will be posted on the state’s website. Those filing will now have to report their firm’s clients or customers who do business or are seeking contracts or legislation from the state or are involved in proceedings before the state.
• Registered lobbyists: The new regulations will require lobbyists to report business relations of more than $1,000 with state public officials. Lobbying will also be redefined to include advocacy efforts to “introduce” legislation or resolutions.
• Forfeiture of pensions: Officials who are convicted of crimes related to their public duties may have their pensions forfeited or reduced.

Finally, the Joint Commission will have the authority to investigate potential violation by legislators and their employees. If violations of law have been found to have occurred, the commissioner will report findings to the Legislative Ethics Commission, which will have jurisdiction to impose penalties. The Joint Commission will have the jurisdiction to impose penalties on executive employees and lobbyists.

Why did Cuomo succeed in obtaining genuine ethics reform while his three predecessors failed? Unlike Pataki, Cuomo possesses the drive to pursue legislation with teeth; unlike Spitzer he effectively wields the power of his office; and unlike Paterson, Cuomo is not hapless.

To persuade the Legislature to act, Cuomo waved the most powerful weapon in his arsenal: a Moreland Commission. (Readers will recall that this writer in the pages of LIBN called for the appointment of a Moreland Commission to investigate the Legislature well over a year ago.)

The Moreland Commission vests the governor with unilateral authority to create an investigative commission with power to issue subpoenas and take testimony under oath, to document waste, mismanagement, corruption, fraud or wrongdoing. It is funded with money already appropriated in the executive chamber budget.

The very threat of empanelling a Moreland Commission was, in my judgment, too much for members of the Legislature whose chambers have been deemed the most dysfunctional in the nation by the Brennan Center at New York University.

In recent years, the state Legislature has become a rogue’s gallery. Too many have been caught stealing, abusing power as well as engaging in other unsavory behaviors. The Public Integrity Reform Act will begin the process of rehabilitating Albany and restoring the fundamental tenet that state government exists to serve taxpayers and not special interest groups.