In a 1993 referendum, New Yorkers voted to limit city politicians to two terms or eight years. Three years later, the city council tried to revise the law with a new referendum that provided for staggered terms not to exceed twelve years. The voters rejected it. Until Bloomberg, Quinn, and their soldiers in crime overturned it, the rule was up or out in eight years. That’s what this election is about:

Forcing Politicians to Respect The People.

The incumbents and their supporters want to talk about other things of course, and they will seek to distract voters from the only issue that matters in this election. For those who haven’t focused on how skilled most politicians are at this sort of thing — in other words, those folks who have a life — here are a couple of stories. I hope others will contribute theirs.
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Global Warming? Call it Climate Change.

Estate Tax? Call it a Death Tax.

Don’t Oppose Health Care Reform, Oppose Government Bureaucrats.

Dr. Frank Luntz: “I just give them the words.”

What they do with them is none of his business.

Before launching Bloomberg Watch, we started hacksandflacks.org. We’re long-time New Yorkers and the Bloomberg/Quinn term limits putsch convinced us to put that site on hold until November to try to take our city back. We thought our readers would be interested in this piece that we commissioned right before we put the site on hold.

We haven’t heard that Frank Luntz is working for Bloomberg. So far the mayor seems to be taking the Big Lie approach from everything to his bogus support for gays, affordable housing, public schools, non-partisan elections, and so forth. He’s flooding the airwaves trying to drown out dissident voices.

But we wouldn’t be surprised if he reaches out to the master of the more insidious and subtler approach. Welcome to the World of Lunz-Speak.
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It isn’t only the words by which the Republicans fight health care reform in Washington. And it isn’t only the Republicans. In case you missed the Obama Press Conference, take a look at this post by The Liberal Curmudgeon.

(Video via The Liberal Curmudgeon and SEIU)
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Michael McKee of the Tenants Political Action Committee provides an update on what’s happening in Albany. Thanks to Sue Susman for pointing us to this story.

REPORT FROM ALBANY-LAND
By Michael McKee
Wednesday evening, June 24, 2009

The power struggle between the State Senate Democrats and Republicans continues, with no apparent settlement in sight.

With 31 Democrats on one side of the aisle, and 30 Republicans + one turncoat Democrat on the other, nothing can be accomplished without some kind of agreement between the two sides that would provide for bi-partisan power-sharing.

The Democrats have made such a proposal, but the Republicans have stated that they will reject any deal unless the Democrats recognize that Pedro Espada, Jr. is the president of the Senate, and that Dean Skelos is the Majority Leader – in other words, that the Republicans are the majority even though they have only 31 votes.

The Democrats have understandably refused to agree to those terms.

With neither side able to muster the magical number of 32 that would make it possible to establish a legal quorum and pass bills, no business at all has been accomplished since the billionaire coup d’état of June 8 in which Espada and Skelos were supposedly elected.

Enter the Governor. It is hard to fathom what Governor Paterson thinks he is accomplishing by convening repeated extraordinary sessions of the State Senate alone, rather than calling both the Senate and Assembly into simultaneous special session. The state constitution gives the Governor the power to convene Senate-only extraordinary sessions for the purpose of confirming gubernatorial appointments to state agencies and boards, a function (advice and consent) that the constitution bestows on the State Senate.

But if the purpose of an extraordinary session is to enact legislation, then it would seem that the Governor must convene both houses. An extraordinary session is a discrete session of the Legislature: for example, today was labeled Extraordinary Session II.

All bills, even if they have already passed the Assembly, must be re-introduced, with new bill numbers, during an extraordinary session.

For example, the Governor’s program bill to repeal vacancy decontrol and re-regulate decontrolled apartments is S.111. While we were unable to get a copy of the bill today – it was not available at the Senate document room as late as 4:00 pm even though the Governor placed it on the agenda of today’s 3:00 pm extraordinary session – it is apparently identical to our bill, S2237-A, by Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins, et al.

It is helpful, certainly, that the Governor introduced the bill, but we still have an uphill battle until we see this bill finally enacted into law.

With only one house in town, it seems that no bill on the Governor’s agenda can become law, and many observers believe that the Assembly could not return to Albany later to pass these bills.

See the rest of the story here: REPORT FROM ALBANY-LAND - Tenantplanet.org

(Photo Credit: albany tim)

By Neil Fabricant

For those who are appalled at the antics of the towel-snapping frat boys in Albany, we thought it would be useful to provide a brief account of how Albany works or doesn’t.
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All the candidates for public advocate joined together to protest a 40% cut in an already modest budget of $2.9 million, amounting to $1.8 million. Mark Green asked rhetorically, “Why has only the watchdog over City Hall been cut 40 percent?”

Quinn’s response?

The notion that politics was behind the cut was “ridiculous.” It’s because of the extraordinarily grim economic forecast.

And Bloomberg?

“Nobody’s suggesting cutting them out, but it may just, it may very well be that we cannot afford to have any one agency at the level that it was before,” he said. “So it’s no slap.”

No slap? The royal couple thinks we’re stupid. Remember — whenever Quinn says “That’s ridiculous” — as in the slush fund scandal — you know you’re onto something.

Ed Note: We started to write that not even Bloomberg could cut the office out altogether because the public advocate is a charter-mandated office. But that bit of irony was immediately obvious.

(Source: The New York Times)
Also see Betsy Gotbaum’s article in the Huffington Post.

We absolutely love The Angry New Yorker’s Bloomberg-opoly game. They point out, “NO MATTER HOW YOU PLAY, WITH BLOOMBERG, YOU ALWAYS LOSE.” But we’re pretty sure that no matter how he’s stacked the game, this time the result will be different.

Click on the image to see the full game board

(Source: The Angry New Yorker)

Quinn: What, me worry? Are the taxpayers paying for her high-priced criminal defense lawyer?

Two former staffers to Councilman Kendall Stewart are reportedly set to enter guilty pleas in connection with their slush fund scandal indictments. Stewart is one of the 29 Council Members who voted to extend term limits without a voter referendum.
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