There is nothing new under the sun, and the British Parliament in the days of Queen Victoria seems to have been run on much the same lines as New York state today, at least according to Charles Dickens' novel "Little Dorrit."
"It is true that every new premier and every new government, coming in because they had upheld a certain thing as necessary to be done, were no sooner come in than they applied their utmost faculties to discovering How not to do it. It is true that from the moment when a general election was over, every returned man who had been raving on hustings because it hadn't been done, and who had been asking the friends of the honorable gentleman in the opposite interest on pain of impeachment to tell him why it hadn't been done, and who had been asserting that it must be done, and who had been pledging himself that it should be done, began to devise, How it was not be done."
This principle has broad application in Albany, where every politician is an advocate of numerous reforms that, even if eventually adopted in some form, tend to dissolve upon contact with reality. It''s why Gov. Paterson's initiatives are greeted with skepticism by informed observers, and why it's hard to take seriously the pledges by the new Democratic Senate majority to open up that chamber. I have previously made fun of something freshman Sen. Dan Squadron had to say about the Senate business, and now comes to my attention a March 18 Senate majority press release, touting "Open Government and Freedom of Information During Sunshine Week." That was, of course, precisely the period when Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith was negotiating the state budget in secret with the governor and Assembly speaker. It was a secrecy deep and dark even by Albany standards despite the passage of a touted reform law in 2007 supposedly designed to open up the budget process, and of of course in flagrant violation of everything that "Sunshine Week" was supposed to stand for.
Here's a paragraph from the press release:
"State Senator Daniel Squadron said, 'My 11-year-old nephew completes his homework, communicates with his friends and posts short stories on the internet. Sunshine Week is a great time for New York State to begin catching up. Citizens' access to the business of government is not just a matter of convenience; it is a fundamental pillar in creating an effective, efficient and accountable government. This package of bills is an important step forward in that direction.' Senator Squadron is the Senate sponsor of the resolution to study proactive disclosure."
Sure, it starts slowly, but it builds, and that last sentence about studying proactive disclosure is a comic masterpiece.
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