Andrew Cuomo would love to be known as the governor who cleaned up Albany — and a poll out yesterday suggests one way he might do so: by demanding Shelly Silver step down as Assembly speaker.
Cuomo has claimed that “government is working” and “legislators want to keep it working.” He’s called the state Senate and Assembly “the best legislative body in the nation.” Yet yesterday’s Quinnipiac University poll suggests he may be the only person in the state who thinks so.
Two out three voters, the poll shows, still call Albany “dysfunctional.” The same share gives a thumbs down to the job the Legislature’s doing.
Six in 10 don’t want their daughters anywhere near the Capitol. That no doubt reflects our lawmakers’ record for harassment, fueled by ex-Assemblyman Vito Lopez’s groping scandal. But it also reflects distrust of Sheldon Silver, the man who covered up the scandal, put more women at risk and yet remains speaker. Voters want Silver out, 51 percent to 22 percent.
For the governor, this is a flashing neon light. After all, Silver’s coverup of the Lopez sex-scandal is of a piece with the rest of his management. The speaker shills for the unions, the tort bar and other special interests. (At the same time, he reportedly earns seven figures serving “of counsel” at a top New York law firm, Weitz & Luxenberg.)
When US Attorney Preet Bharara recently announced the arrest of six politicians, he attributed the problem to the corrupting culture in Albany. “What can we expect,” asks Bharara, “when transgressions seem to be tolerated and nothing seems to ever change?” No one has done more to shape that culture than Silver.
Cue the governor. Nine out of 10 voters, according to the poll, say corruption is a “serious” problem. Half say he has “primary” responsibility for cleaning it up.
So forget legislative “reforms,” like Cuomo’s 2011 ethics bill. Never mind government “watchdogs,” like his Joint Commission on Public Ethics. The only thing that would signal real change has come to Albany would be a push by the gov to end Silver’s two-decade reign of sleaze. And nothing signals business as usual as much as Cuomo’s insistence that Shelly’s fate is not for him to say.