Cross-posted at the Albany Times Union.

There is only one solution to the state senate meltdown: the personal touch.

Each senator should pick one senator of the opposing party from a different part of the state from his or her own district and quietly and personally reach out to that senator. Make a phone call, send an email, have a mutual friend reach out - heck, even send a hand-written note. And then, meet in person. Quietly. Off-the-record, somewhere out of the way or behind closed doors. Air your grievances, try to understand the other's point of view - but stick with it, keep talking. Build the relationships that are necessary to break the deadlock, but are also necessary for effective legislating.

Governor Patterson is following the right approach, forcing the senators to stay in Albany. But, as the old adage says, "You can bring a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." Senators should break the tedium of their enforced stay in Albany to break out of the existing echo chambers that they seem trapped in.

Yesterday, Senator José M. Serrano (D-Manhattan/Bronx) and Assemblyman Michael Gianaris (D-Queens), along with the NYS Stimulus Oversight Working Group, announced legislation to create a dedicated federal Stimulus Ombudsman's office. Setting up such an office would make New York State the national leader in stimulus accountability and effectiveness. The legislation (S5879/A8941), supported by the NYS Stimulus Oversight Working Group, the state's leading network pushing for fair and equitable distribution of stimulus investments, was described by Senator Serrano in an op-ed in this morning's Albany Times Union (PDF).

The Ombudsman would help New Yorkers understand how the state has used stimulus funds by evaluating project performance, the quality of jobs created (e.g., Are they paying decent wages and providing benefits?  Are these long-term positions?), and analyzing the positive impacts actually being felt by New York's families and communities.  The Ombudsman would be responsible for creating 'metrics for success' to provide evaluations of the community-level and household-level impact of stimulus funds and identifying 'best practices' so that New York is not only prepared but strategically-positioned for future funding opportunities. These evaluations would be released annually for New York agencies receiving federal stimulus funds.  (A one-page description of the Ombudsman is available here.)

The following first appeared as an op-ed in the Albany Times-Union on Sunday, June 14, 2009.

Illinois is a national joke. California, a disaster. New York is now Italy.

This state is essentially controlled by two billionaires who, like Sylvio Berlusconi, act in the manner of feudal lords. When Tom Golisano, the patron, says "jump," state Sen. Pedro Espada Jr., who knows where his own self-interest lies, conferences with the rival party. When Mayor Michael Bloomberg finds the prospect of returning to private life unappealing, he reverses his outspoken support for two term limits for New York City officials and pushes through an override of the voters' preference to extend the limits to three terms. Rather than any responsibility to the voters, it seems that most politicians are under the control of the men with all the money.

Common Cause New York this morning released a new report titled, "The Cable TV Industry: Hardwiring Influence." The report brings together New York State lobbying and campaign finance data for the first time to demonstrate how the cable television industry has used its financial resources to fight for industry self-interest at the expense of New York cable subscribers, who Common Cause deems to be the ultimate "Loser" in the report.

Hardwiring Influence (and its additional background) documents the veritable "army" of lobbyists employed by the cable TV industry, which paid more than $24 million for these lobbying efforts in recent years, as well as $4.3 million in campaign contributions made to politicians, their political parties, and party slush funds.

The gridlock in New York's state capitol has gone on for way too long. It is becoming increasingly clear that working in Albany to bring about change in the way Albany operates is not enough. This election year, which may bring historic change to the State Senate, provides us with a perfect opportunity to use the election and campaign events to move reform issues back to the center of political discussions in New York.  We have to show our elected officials that the issues that we work on to bring effective and accountable state government to New York are supported by ordinary New Yorkers throughout the state. We can't do that simply by lobbying officials once they've arrived in Albany.  We have to move the discussion into districts throughout the state. The Pledge for Change campaign is designed to do precisely that.
 

On Wednesday, Common Cause/New York, along with our coalition partners Citizens Union, the League of Women Voters of New York and NYPIRG issued a Reform Report Card, pointing out that two years after extensive promises of reform in Albany, little has been accomplished.

Final grade, as of today: F. Aware of our criticism, and having been urged on several occasions by CC/NY and its coalition partners to introduce a strong campaign finance bill, Governor Paterson finally got off the dime and announced the details of a bill he plans to introduce - as we were holding our press conference. At least we know we had some effect! You can watch Albany Channel 10's report about the press conference and the Governor's actions.

Here in New York, we've been roiled over the last month and a half by repeated revelations of huge amounts of public money paid out at the sole discretion of an individual elected official. Over $350 million in the New York City budget is controlled by individual City Council members, state legislators' member control items totaling almost $140 million, and over $1 billion in the state budget is controlled by the Governor and legislative leaders for discretionary "capital projects."

Elected officials like to call these amounts "discretionary funds."  Here at Common Cause/New York, like other members of the public and the press, we call them what they are: slush funds. Why do we even have these slush funds at all?

On Tuesday, April 29, almost 200 Common Cause activists and allies gathered in New York's capital for "take your ethics to work day" in order to demand more of our state government. Recent scandal (after scandal after scandal) has only reinforced the urgent need for changes to the way Albany does business.

A paper in Binghamton underscored this last week when it wrote: "If ever there was a state government in need of [reform] it's ours, which has correctly been labeled the most dysfunctional in the land. Albany is to government what Britney Spears is to motherhood." Legislators, Blair Horner of NYPIRG pointed out, "have to do something to regain the trust of the public before facing them in November."

We gathered for Reform Day 2008 to offer legislators a way to regain that trust. We provided principles of a reform agenda, endorsed by dozens of organizations throughout the state, around which they could craft meaningful reforms. The broad issues for reform include changes to the way campaigns are financed, the way the legislature operates, how legislators are held accountable to the public, and termination of the partisan gerrymandering in New York State.

Click "Read More" for more on Reform Day 2008.