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Doing the People's Business

Jun 25, 2009
By .
Politics & Current Events

Of course, in New York, the people's business is fighting, swearing at each other and making sure that nothing gets done. There has been a legislative coup in the State House in Albany that has all but shut the State down. Republican lawmakers somehow got two Democrats to go along with a motion that would replace the Dems top two officers and hand over control of the Senate.

This story has so many bizarre parts to it. The Democrats have resorted to turning out the lights in the chambers, and locking the Republicans out of the room. The Republicans lost one of their Dem votes, and (with a 31-31 tie deadlocking everything) have taken to running a parallel session complete with their own leaders.

I haven't even mentioned that one of the turncoat Dems is facing assault charges for attacking his girlfriend (well, hopefully now his ex..), the other Dem vote is also facing campaign allegations and the Governor is trying to compel the Senate to meet, and is seeking a court order that he would enforce with state troopers if necessary.

My big question is how is this not front page news? I only randomly heard about this this morning. Essentially, the State of New York has ground to a halt, and it is not major news anywhere else in the country? You'd think something that is on the front page of the Times, could sneak it's way on to the SF Chronicles webpage. All of a sudden, I feel slightly better about California's legislature.

Last 5 posts by Ezra

6 Comments
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6 Comments

  1. Chris Berez  •  Jun 25, 2009 @9:43 am

    The Democrats have resorted to turning out the lights in the chambers, and locking the Republicans out of the room.

    It's so hilarious how often politicians resort to the tactics of preschoolers. Maybe if the Republicans manage to get into the room somehow, the Democrats can collectively stick their fingers in their ears and yell, "LALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU LALALA!"

    Seriously though, I agree with your question. The fact that this isn't front page news is baffling. Not only that, I don't even see the smallest mention of this story anywhere.

  2. Andrew  •  Jun 25, 2009 @9:51 am

    "Ground to a halt" is a reasonable description of the everyday state of affairs in the New York legislature, even before the current shenanigans.

  3. mojo  •  Jun 25, 2009 @12:05 pm

    Lock the doors, strike a match. Start over.

  4. Chris  •  Jun 25, 2009 @12:24 pm

    It's not big news because, as Andrew points out, this is only marginally worse than the normal state of affairs in NY. It's really hard to overstate how dysfunctional the NY legislature is on its good days.

  5. shg  •  Jun 25, 2009 @3:48 pm

    Even for NY, this is a new nadir. I believe the reason this hasn't been front page is that it changes before anybody can figure out what's really going on. The information seems ridiculous, until a few hours later when it turns out to be accurate after something even more ridiculous has happened.

  6. rsm  •  Jun 26, 2009 @2:13 am

    I believe Democracy Now covered it, not that I would claim that that is a major outlet. I have to agree with shg – the whole thing seems so ridiculous that I think most people just want to close their eyes and hide, rather than admit that they might have voted for any of the jokers.