The conviction of greedy Brooklyn payola pol William Boyland Jr. means there are now 12 districts across the state that don’t have representation in Albany — and might not all year.
A spokesman for Gov. Cuomo said nothing has changed since January, when the governor told reporters “we are looking at” the possibility of calling special elections, even though they are “very expensive.”
The governor is also concerned that special elections would allow party-picked hacks to grab the vacancies, insiders said.
But critics are demanding that he act.
The vacancies — 10 Assembly seats and two Senate seats — mean more than 1.8 million New Yorkers, comprising more than 12 percent of the state’s population, are without an equal voice in the state capital, Public Advocate Letitia James complained.
“This flies in the face of good-government principles and the promise that every single American has equal representation in their government,” she said Friday.
“We must hold special elections to restore equal representation for all,” said James, who has been joined in demanding elections by Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and groups including UnitedNY and the Center for Law and Social Justice.
But good-government groups say residents may ultimately be better off waiting until the seats are filled via regular elections in the September primary and November general election — even though most of the dozen vacancies have been there since January, meaning voters in those districts will be without representation for a full year.
“Nobody’s representing them on any votes,” said veteran political consultant Jerry Skurnik.
“And legislators do other things — introducing bills that effect their constituency, or being there when someone calls and says my tax refund hasn’t arrived or I need a permit to open a liquor store. One argument is that somebody is better than nobody.”
“The number is getting uncomfortably large,” Citizens Union Executive Director Dick Dadey conceded of the empty seats, which include three vacated due to proven corruption or alleged misdeeds.
Boyland, 43, is in jail awaiting a sentence of as much as 30 years after being found guilty of soliciting bribes and pocketing more than $70,000 in unearned expenses. Buffalo’s Dennis Gabryszak resigned his Democratic Assembly seat in January after seven female former staffers accused him of sex harassment. And the South Bronx’s Eric Stevenson left his Assembly seat in January after being found guilty of taking bribes.
“But these special elections aren’t really elections — they’re coronations by party leaders,” Dadey said, noting that party bosses choose the candidates, who then, without the public scrutiny of a primary campaign, almost invariably win.
Once “coronated,” these special-elected pols are almost inevitably re-elected, Dadey said. New York state incumbents are re-elected at an astounding 94-percent rate.
Boyland himself was installed in the district covering Flatbush, Brownsville, Bed-Stuy and Crown Heights via a special election in 2003, Dadey noted.
Additional reporting by Yoav Gonen