After weeks of tumultuous uproar and bitter partisan wrangling, state senators finally got their act together — and agreed on how to divvy up $85 million in special-interest pork spending.
Terrific.
As for deciding vital outstanding issues, like who should run the city’s public schools, well, “We’re not in a hurry,” says Queens Democrat Shirley Huntley. “I could be here forever.”
At least they’re clear about their priorities — however misguided.
The deal to “reform” Senate rules — which supposedly sets new rights for individual senators and term limits for leaders, along with how much each party gets to spend on discretionary projects (i.e., pork) — came at 4 a.m. yesterday.
Some “reform.”
Meanwhile, those, like Huntley, who’ve been fighting Mayor Bloomberg’s attempts to let City Hall continue running the schools, were actually coming up with yet new conditions as the price for their support — like requiring all future chancellors to be certified educators.
What of Gov. Paterson, who vowed this week to “do everything I can to force the Senate to consider” the mayoral-control bill? He was nowhere to be seen.
Talk about squandering the new political capital he’d acquired after his appointment of a lieutenant governor seemed to fuel a break in the Senate’s month-long stalemate.
But senators got their pork-splitting rules, by golly! Indeed, they also — with lightening speed — agreed to new pork outlays for this year.
Such efficiency, huh?
Somehow, calling this a circus just doesn’t do it justice.