It's not just in his politics that Andrew Cuomo sure ain't his old man

Andrew Cuomo after being sworn in as governor of New York, with his daughter Cara at left and his parents, Mario and Matilda Cuomo, at right -- it's a shame the boy doesn't seem to be nearly as smart as his folks.

by Ken

We're not big fans here of New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo. It's not as if he's done anything surprising. He made it pretty clear during the campaign -- what there was of a campaign once it became clear that he was running pretty much unopposed, thanks to the Republicans' nomination of far-right kook Carl Paladino -- that he intended to govern basically like a Republican, making working people pay for the excesses of their financial overlords, and while he may not be in a class with plutocrats' best friends like Wisconsin's Scott Walker and New Jersey's Crap Christie, the margin really oughtn't to be that close. Now he's shown that he may seriously overestimate his own smarts.

Last week New Yorkers were shocked by sudden news that Jay Walder, the chairman of the Metropolitan Transit Authority, which operates pretty much all buses, subways, bridges, and tunnels in the city plus the Long Island and Metro North commuter railroads and many bus lines in other state counties outside the city, was quitting to take a high-paying job in Hong Kong running its buses and commuter rail systems and apparently a whole bunch of other stuff, with a stratospheric salary and a mandate to move Hong Kong into the 22nd century. It was, according to the early reports, an offer he couldn't refuse. What was a little odd was that in taking the MTA job Walder had had built into his contract provisions designed to make him immovable from the job -- it sure seemed like he intended to stay awhile.

Now I think we've heard the other shoe drop. The NYT's Michael Grynbaum and Christine Haughney report that a major factor in Walder's receptivity to the Hong Kong job offer was being treated like dirt by the governor. (The MTA, you should understand, is a state-chartered agency.) The MTA has brutal financial problems just trying to maintain service, and not only have the governor's plans for balancing the state budget included no help, but Walder hasn't even been able to talk to him.

On the management level, this is pretty stupid. A huge number of New York State voters use MTA facilities every day, and the man responsible for keeping them running can't even get the governor's ear. (Grynbaum and Haughney start with an appalling story of Walder being snubbed on a visit to Albany, when the governor entered a meeting Walder was having with gubernatorial aides, spoke to one of his guys for a few seconds, and left.)

I don't know how great a job Walder was doing, but the fact is, he was doing it. Does the governor have any idea how complex as well as punishing the job is? Does he have any idea how hard it's going to be to fill? Here are the NYT reporters:

The governor began his term with this best-of-both-worlds situation: If Mr. Walder ran into problems, the governor could easily blame his predecessor for the appointment. And if the transportation authority thrived, Mr. Cuomo could take credit.

Now, Mr. Cuomo must find someone willing to take on the Sisyphean task of running a troubled agency at a troubled time. Transit experts say the number of qualified candidates is limited. Officials in the transportation industry said they did not fault Mr. Walder for making a reasoned decision, saying the outlook for transit and infrastructure in New York is far grimmer than its competitor cities around the world. . . .

“When Jay was working in London, Jay had the total confidence of the mayor,” said Robert E. Paaswell, a longtime friend who studies transportation at the City University of New York.

In New York, Mr. Paaswell said, “the mayor and the governor have a very complex platform, and transportation is just one of many issues; it doesn’t really stand out.”

As for Mr. Cuomo, Mr. Paaswell said transportation “hasn’t been on his radar” because of priorities like legislative fights over the budget and same-sex marriage.

Mr. Cuomo may have gotten what he wished for. At the sole debate in the governor’s race last fall, he teed off on the transportation authority, repeating a long-discredited canard about the agency’s “two sets of books” and complaining that “no one is in charge of the M.T.A.”

“Put the governor in charge,” Mr. Cuomo said at the time. “If it does not work, it should be up to the governor, and everyone should know.”

Oops!

It may be worth remembering that the stepping stone to Mario Cuomo's political career was his impressive service in 1972 investigating and mediating a public battle over low-income housing planned in Queens. That required actually listening and understanding the stands and stakes of the parties to the controversy. His boy doesn't seem to be much of a listener -- except maybe to what's going on in his own head.

Maybe our Andrew really has a plan that will answer the transit needs of the huge number of New Yorkers who are captives of the MTA. Or maybe he's just a whole lot less smart than he thinks.

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Marriage equality in New York State, signed into law by Governor Cuomo, takes effect in 30 days

Last night at 11:55, New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the bill that had caused such furor in the closing week -- or should we say the post-closing week -- of the legislative session.

At 11:57 a report by Metro Weekly's Chris Geidner, "A Singular Sensation," was published online. Gay City News's Paul Schindler's account, "Victory So Sweet!," went up at 2:28am.

From The Telegraph (U.K.):

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Republican Billionaires Financing Marriage Equality In New York

Right-wing plutocrats switching sides

Friday the NY Times published an interesting story by Nicholas Confessore and Michael Barbaro on where some of the big Republican money is going this year. While the Kochs are busy bankrolling fascism in Midwestern states and underwriting the giant astroturf Tea Party, other Republican billionaires are sending in their checks to pay for a campaign to pass marriage equality in New York. In fact, most of the money going into the effort this year-- over a million dollars so far-- "is coming from an unexpected source: a group of conservative financiers and wealthy donors to the Republican Party, most of whom are known for bankrolling right-leaning candidates and causes." It puts Republican state senators in an awkward position. The bill will pass or fail in their hands.

And apart from some of the Daddy Warbucks characters behind the GOP's creeping fascism-- Paul Singer, Steven Cohen, Clifford Asness-- Mayor Bloomberg, a major financial backer of the state's Senate Republican caucus has given $100,000 to the marriage equality cause and is lobbying the lawmakers he's been so generous to.

The new donations represent roughly two-thirds of the same-sex marriage coalition’s fund-raising, making New York the rare state where a lobbying campaign in favor of legalizing gay unions is not being financed primarily by liberal donors and Democrats. The support is likely to jolt the traditional financial and political backers of gay rights causes, who now find themselves in the unfamiliar position of being outraised and outspent in New York.

The donations are financing an intensive campaign of television advertisements and grass-roots activism coordinated by New Yorkers United for Marriage, a group of same-sex marriage advocates. The campaign is aimed chiefly at persuading several members of the Senate Republican majority to join most Senate Democrats in backing same-sex marriage, which was defeated in the Senate in 2009. The State Assembly, controlled by Democrats, has repeatedly passed same-sex marriage bills.

The newly recruited donors argue that permitting same-sex marriage is consistent with conservative principles of personal liberty and small government.

“I’m a pretty straight-down-the-line small-government guy,” said Mr. Asness, who described himself as a libertarian who favored less government intrusion in both markets and personal affairs. Mr. Asness, a frequent Republican donor, has praised Tea Party activists on his blog and last year attended a conference of right-leaning donors held by Charles and David Koch, among the leading conservative philanthropists in the nation.

“This is an issue of basic freedom,” Mr. Asness said.

...The involvement of Mr. Singer is the most striking, given his devotion to conservative candidates and philanthropy: He is chairman of the Manhattan Institute, a right-leaning research group, and one of the most generous Republican donors in the country. But he also has a personal stake in the issue: he has a gay son who married his partner in Massachusetts, where same-sex marriage is legal.

Mr. Singer is coordinating much of the Republican fund-raising for same-sex marriage in New York, according to people familiar with the matter, donating $425,000 of his own money and personally soliciting an additional $500,000 in donations. At the same time, he has hosted private meetings to make the case for legalizing gay weddings in New York to other conservatives.

Among the deepest pockets have been Paul Singer, who's given around a million and a half dollars to Republican state parties and national committees and to the leaders of the anti-gay jihad, thousands of dollars in multiple donations to right-wing fanatics like Jim DeMint, Eric Cantor, Miss McConnell, Roy Blunt, Marco Rubio, George Allen, David Vitter, Richard Burr, John Boehner, Jon Kyl, John Cornyn, Rick Santorum and Jeff Flake. Similarly Daniel Loeb is ponying up big time for marriage equality but he's helped finance the careers of sworn enemies of any kind of equality from kooks like Allen West, Tim Griffin and Joe Miller to garden variety right-wing hacks like Roy Blunt and Steve Stivers. Ditto for Clifford Asness who's helped finance anti-gay fanatics Pat Toomey, Marco Rubio, Roy Blunt and dozens of other hate-mongers and misfits. It's good they're giving back after all the mischief they've caused with their money over the years.