The following appears in the March 12-18, 2010 issue of the Long Island Business News:

The past four years have been a political nightmare for New Yorkers because Gov. David Paterson and many other members of our political class have been shameless. To enrich themselves or their cronies, the abuse of power by politicians has reached epidemic proportions. There is no shortage of inductees to New York’s gallery of political rogues.

However, most of the scandals we have had to endure easily could have been avoided if only public officials had the audacity to “just say no” to their confreres.

If Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s Chief of Staff Richard Baum and Director of Communications David Dopp had said no to Spitzer’s schemes we would have avoided the Troopergate scandal.

If state Police Superintendent Harry Corbitt and Press Secretary Marissa Shorenstein had said no to requests to tamper with a domestic abuse case involving a senior staffer, Paterson would have dodged allegations of obstruction of justice, perjury and ethics violations.

In my own backyard, Nassau County, if Joseph Belisi and his fellow Republican county legislators had said no to Presiding Officer Peter Schmitt’s 42 percent pay raise, they would have avoided enraging the public and creating doubts in the minds of overtaxed Nassau residents about whether they get the financial pain voters are suffering.

If those same legislators had refused to approve three Nassau OTB board members that Newsday reports “as having strong ties to [Joseph] Mondello,” they would not have to defend the controversial appointment of Joseph Cairo as president of the Off Track Betting agency.

The only profile in courage this year has been Peter Kaufmann, Paterson’s director of communications. When he resigned his post last week he said: “As a former officer in the U.S. Navy, integrity and commitment to public service are values I take seriously.… As recent developments have come to light, I cannot in good conscience continue.” Fine words. It is refreshing to witness a public official who acts on the dictates of his conscience.

Sir Thomas More lost his head 475 years ago because he had the courage to say no to his king. While those who surrendered to Henry VIII’s lust for power have been long forgotten, Thomas More – who was canonized and named the patron saint of statesmen and politicians – is remembered because he proved it is possible for a person to hold a leadership role in government without surrendering his principles. That’s why Jonathan Swift depicted More as “a person of the greatest virtue the kingdom ever produced.”

Reflecting on the political machinations of his time, More observed, “When statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties, they lead their country by a short route to chaos.” How true. Today our state and local governments are scandal ridden and experiencing financial crisis because so many public officials “forsake their private conscience” and refuse to say no to their political masters.

Worse yet, because so many politicos enter public life solely for the power, perks and pensions, when people promote an agenda based on principles these pols become paranoid, seeing conspiracies around every corner. Timorous political bosses find it incredible that there are activists in the public square who are not lobbyists or consultants and are not interested in a patronage job or government contract.

People all over the state who have had it with pols that view government as their private preserve, are joining the Tea Party movement. A recent poll reveals that 87 percent of Tea Party sympathizers intend to vote in the 2010 election. If they follow through in November, there will be a resounding no to politics as usual and many shocked Republican and Democratic hacks will be hitting the unemployment lines.

This article I wrote appears in the New York Post on March 11, 2010.

Richie dines on Long Island while NYPA customers shiver in the dark.

Street Corner Conservative doesn’t make a habit of attending any of the hundreds of “gala” breakfasts, lunches and dinners that have proliferated on Long Island.  Last Friday, however, Street Corner made an exception for the Long Island Association’s (LIA) Gala Annual Lunch at which President George H.W. Bush and President George W. Bush appeared at Matt Crosson’s last event as LIA President before his retirement.

Since there was a major snowstorm in the region Thursday and Friday, Street Corner was shocked to see Richie Kessel at the LIA Luncheon, hobnobbing with the political and business elite of Long Island as they were served by liveried wait staff, and standing and vigorously applauding Presidents 41 and 43.  Since the event started at 11:30 am or so, Richie apparently spent the whole day on Long Island despite record snowfall in the Hudson Valley and tens of thousands of outages.  Now, Street Corner anticipates the outraged defense of NYPA’s highly-paid army of flacks that NYPA is a generation company and doesn’t directly supply retail customers but on a day when tens of thousands of upstate New Yorkers sat in the dark, Richie should have been in the command post upstate.  Instead of dining in luxury with Long Island swells at an event honoring Republican former Presidents, he should have been on the job.

We await the inevitable investigations of Accidental Governor Paterson’s highest profile appointment by Senators Maziarz and Aubertine.  Long-time LIPA observers are reminded of LILCO Chairman Dr. William Catacosinos ill-fated trip from Hicksville to Italy during Hurricane Gloria.  Long Islanders who remember Kessel’s outrage at that PR blunder may wonder whether Richie’s journey from self-appointed consumer gadfly to cynical insider has now come full circle since Kessel now fiddles with his dessert on Long Island while Rome (NY) burns.

Street Corner notes with relief Governor Paterson’s unsurprising announcement on Friday that he is ending his “campaign” for Governor.  (Street Corner was the first to call for Paterson not to run for election many months ago.)

The clock is ticking on Richie Kessel.

Finally, Street Corner Conservative notes that Kessel’s latest cynical plan to have upstate small businesses sign up for NYPA’s Great Lakes Offshore Wind project is nothing more than a transparent attempt by Kessel to build a case to convince our next Governor to keep him on the job.  Since the Great Lakes project will never be built because it would drive already high electric rates into the stratosphere, this is Richie’s latest callous manipulation of upstate.

THE KESSEL COUNTDOWN: 307 DAYS UNTIL RICHIE KESSEL IS FIRED BY THE NEW GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK.

The following appears in the February 24, 2010 issue of the Long Island Business News:

In recent months prominent members of New York’s political establishment have been clamoring for a state constitutional convention. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Rick Lazio (the presumptive Republican nominee for governor) and numerous others insist that only a major overhaul of our state charter will cure our fiscal ills and end Albany’s dysfunctional governing process.

Frankly, I believe holding a convention is a bad idea because it could easily become a field day for New York’s special interest groups who will dominate the machinery to elect delegates.

If history is a guide, it is fair to conjecture that a constitutional convention will not be dominated by elected delegates who are civic-minded citizens, frustrated tax payers or constitutional scholars. At the last gathering held in 1967, 91 percent of the delegates were local pols or union officials. All the officers of that convention were members of the state Legislature.

Some pundits argue that in these difficult financial times the dynamics of the convention could be different because municipal and health care unions, leftist groups like ACORN and their political arm, the Working Families Party, will be on the defensive, fearing the possible loss of constitutionally protected government-employee pension guarantees.

This uncertainty, in my judgment, will not cower but energize ACORN and its allies to run convention delegates in every senatorial district as well as a full slate of at-large candidates and to spend whatever it takes to elect a majority.

A convention controlled by these forces could draft a new constitution that would eliminate various safeguards that protect the rights of citizens and radically change the relationship between tax payers and their state government and local municipalities.

Unlike the U.S. Constitution, which is relatively brief, New York’s Constitution is filled with minutiae and runs 65,000 words. There are lengthy and ponderous sections on state finances, local finances, local governments, corporations, bank charters, education, social welfare, public employees, housing and taxation.

Here are a few constitutional changes that an out-of-control convention could prescribe:

• Elimination of the Executive Budget Amendment, which gives the governor the responsibility for drafting the budget.
• Elimination of the governor’s line item veto.
• Elimination of voter approval of state general obligation debt.
• Elimination of restrictions on indebtedness of local governments.
• Elimination of restrictions on use of proceeds from state and local government bond issues.
• Elimination of limitations on amounts to be raised by real estate taxes for local purposes.
• Expanded power of the state government by restricting home rule powers and repealing the local government Bill of Rights.
• Expanded pension rights and perks for public employees.

Such constitutional revisions would create a state leviathan whose arms would reach into every home to pick the last dollar out of every citizen’s pocket. Cowardly Albany legislators dancing to the tune of big-government leeches would strip county and local governments of their autonomy, turning them into nothing more than administrative pawns of the state. Albany would control every aspect of local government – schools, libraries, firehouses – and bureaucrats, not taxpayers, would dictate spending and policies.

New Yorkers have exercised their power “to revise the Constitution and amend the same” sparingly. In the past century they have approved only three conventions and overwhelmingly rejected the proposed revisions twice. They are smart enough to realize that Albany’s inability to govern is not the Constitution’s fault but that of an incompetent governor and corrupt legislators who have driven the state to the edge of the fiscal abyss. The current Constitution may not be perfect but New Yorkers know the alternatives could have devastating impacts on their fiscal, economic and social well-being.