Budget drama makes 'Albany' a dirty word

After all the sound and fury of this year's torturous budget process in Albany, voters might be forgiven for feeling a little doomsday fatigue.

There was paralysis amid rumors Gov. David A. Paterson would resign. Battles over state worker furloughs and threats of a government shutdown. For months, even the Belmont Stakes was deemed at risk.

In the end, the governor stayed, state workers kept working and last Tuesday New York's $9.2 billion deficit was closed.

But all that drama has taken a toll. By the time the final revenue measure limped to passage 125 days late Tuesday, most voters were telling Quinnipiac University the entire Senate should be thrown out of office - including their own member - come November. And "Albany" has become the dirtiest word in the November campaign.

Given that control of the closely divided Senate will determine who draws the state's Assembly, Senate and Congressional districts for the next decade, the impact of this mayhem could be far-reaching.

"It looks like no one's running the show," said Democratic consultant George Arzt, while to Assemb. Phil Boyle (R-Bay Shore), it seemed the Capitol was being run by children.

"It reminded me a little bit of 'Lord of the Flies,' " he said.

Recession-year budgets are never a harmonious process, given that their central task is fairly dividing painful cuts, noted Frank Mauro of the Fiscal Policy Institute. But this year's political process was so damaging, Arzt believes, that its end product - the budget - simply won't be judged on its own merits by voters.

Senate Republican Leader Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre) called it "chaos." Even Democratic Comptroller Tom DiNapoli piled on, saying, "The entire budget process reeks of dysfunction."

Slim majority in Senate

For months, suspense has hung on every bill dependent on the razor-thin majority of Senate Democrats, who might withhold their votes or their presence to leverage pet issues. One, Hiram Monserrate (D-Jackson Heights), was expelled after being convicted of assaulting his girlfriend. Tuesday itself provided more of the same: Senate Democratic Majority Leader Pedro Espada Jr. (D-Bronx) announced midmorning that he and his crucial 32nd vote would stay home. Hours later he arrived, but got into an altercation with protesters that ended with him throwing crumpled currency in their faces.

Spectacles like that are fueling the central story line of the campaigns for governor and comptroller.

"Our state government in Albany is disreputable and discredited," Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has said, while others have vied to pin "Albany" on their rivals like the tail on the proverbial donkey.

Cuomo's Republican rival Rick Lazio issued a news release after the budget: "Andrew Cuomo's Albany Gang Failed to Save Our State From Financial Ruin!" GOP comptroller candidate Harry Wilson routinely calls DiNapoli "Albany Tom."

For these candidates, the best way to prosper in this election is to run against the budget process itself.

But for senators, who know control of their body could rest on the swing of a couple of seats, November has hung like a specter over the budget deliberations. The chaos has been a gift for Republicans, led by Skelos, who last week said the budget deliberations have proved that "the results of one-party Democrat rule have been a complete disaster for virtually every New Yorker."

Work ahead for LI Dems

For Long Island's two Democrats elected to seats long held by Republicans, that means this is a year to remind voters of their worth.

Sen. Craig Johnson (D-Port Washington), now running for his second full term, last week challenged the Democratic-controlled Assembly to "do the right thing" and vote on the property-tax cap the Senate passed last week, and made a point of noting he had voted for the same measure when it was proposed by Republicans two years ago.

Brian Foley (D-Blue Point), whose support for the MTA payroll tax has made him a prime target for Republicans, nearly brought the budget process to a standstill last week by holding out for greater autonomy for Stony Brook University, his district's biggest employer.

Of course, Long Islanders will not have the opportunity to decide the fate of controversial senators like Espada, who faces probes and a lawsuit over alleged corruption; that power rests with the voters in his Bronx district.

But some political experts said that, if history is any guide, most senators will have little to fear at the polls despite the voter anger that has been stirred by their recent theatrics, experts still believe.

"I don't sense a populist revolt here," said Baruch College political scientist Douglas Muzzio.

"I don't hear it in the supermarket; I don't hear it in the general store. People aren't focused on it. They're worried about things much closer to home."