CHRISTY: It’s time to change the rules

We shouldn’t have to talk about having rules for how to best serve the public. Just like you cannot legislate morality, you also can’t really make up rules that ensure elected officials treat others with respect, eschew personal gain or private riches at the public expense and generally behave as they are paid to do — which is look out for everyone’s well-being, not merely their own. Legislators are either in service for the right reasons or they are tone-deaf, hearing only the din of the Albany lobby machine.

But after a while, you have to believe legislators in New York state are out of control. We need to craft a series of measurements by which our state officials can target success and be measured for achievement. As it stands now, it’s every legislator for themselves, not unlike one of those glass-encased cabinets they put contestants in, filled with cash, and turn on a blower, throwing all the money into the air. Grab as much as you can during an allotted time based on years of service and party membership, and that’s what you get to take back home.

No, our society has always been a based on a set of laws — or rules — and it’s time we take a closer inspection of the rules that legislators have crafted for themselves.

First and foremost, the job of being a state legislator needs to be designated as full time. We shouldn’t focus on any other priority until this is accomplished. If this forces Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to choose between his partnership in a Manhattan personal injury law firm and being an assemblyman, then so be it. Had we forced Joe Bruno into a similar choice a decade ago, taxpayers would be better off.

Nearly all legislators take in a six-figure salary when stipends are included, and when mileage, food and shelter allowances are added, that’s far from a pauper’s salary. Anyone who can make more than $120,000 in the private sector should perhaps consider working there if money is the chief concern. If money is not the chief concern, then a six-figure salary with gold-plated health care and untaxed retirement packages should be more than enough compensation.

This is all coming into sharp focus because the former secretary to indicted former state Sen. Bruno has just testified in his corruption trial that she personally took care of not only his government schedule and finances, but his personal and part-time business legers as well. For this, she was paid a six-figure salary herself, but all of it taxpayer money. She did the additional work out of the kindness of her heart.

How kind was her heart? She asked for and received immunity from prosecution by the grand jury because she actually stole money from Bruno’s personal and private accounts as a way to “get even” with him for treating her with general distain during her tenure in his office. And this is how Albany works: Your boss gives you a six-figure salary, golden health care, plenty of free time off and you feel abused so you steal money from his accounts to settle the score in your own mind. Trust me, if you lived in Albany and worked for the Legislature, this wouldn’t sound odd at all. That world is so far from reality.

All of this is being argued in a court of law to determine if Bruno stole honest services from the taxpayers of New York. The real question should be, how in the world does the state senate majority leader have time to have side businesses in the first place?

It’s time we demand one rule change to the state law. Change the phrase “part time” to “full time” for the job service contract for state legislators. It’s going to be fun to hear the reasons why this can’t be done.

The Bruno corruption trial is exposing the entire dirty secret bin that goes by the name of the legislature in Albany. Everyone is nervous because everyone knows Bruno may not be the only one who played the game this way. Niagara’s own state Sen. George Maziarz is still awaiting his call to the witness stand in the Bruno case, which really brings this trial close to home.

It’s time to demand rules changes and laws that matter to how the game is played. Voters deserve no less.

Tom Christy is the founder of FAIR Government, a non-political and non-editorial educational foundation dealing with local government issues. The Web site is www.fair-government.org. He encourages communication and can be reached via e-mail at aim1986@mac.com