Raquel Okyay made several damning accusations in her blog yesterday. Okyay writes that the New York State GOP has nominated a loser, Bruce Blakeman, for US Senate because Alfonse D'Amato is friends with the Democratic candidate, Kirsten Gillibrand and backed Blakeman so Gillibrand could win. "Why is D'Amato standing next to Gillibrand while she announces her candidacy in the above photograph?" Okyay asks.
Okyay notes that two good candidates, Joe Diaguardi for Senate and Steve Levy for governor, have been "kicked to the curb." Ed Cox, the colorless state chair, claimed to back Levy, but his motive may have been to give the appearance that he is not part of New York's loser-GOP machine. Levy only won 43% of the vote in a second ballot at the convention but needed 50% to force a primary. Cox lacked the courage and/or the integrity to insist that Levy be able to challenge Rick Lazio in a primary. Cox either is incompetent or never backed Levy in the first place, Okyay concludes. As well, Cox has gone along with D'Amato's demand for Blakeman for Senate.
The New York Sun blog seems to have been resurrected (Yay!) and they are endorsing David Malpass for Senate. Blakeman edged him out in the convention, but if the state's Republican voters back Blakeman and the ineffectual and corrupt GOP insiders whom he represents then the party is not worth saving. The Sun writes that the Republican Party "has been waiting for a long time for such a candidate as Mr. Malpass."
I e-mailed three GOP activists whom I respect inquiries about Steve Levy. Two of them have interviewed Levy. As well, I had suggested to one that he ask about Levy's position on the Wicks Law. Here are their responses.
I. First, while I have not checked all of the candidates thoroughly, I have given some thought to Levy, and I certainly think that he would do a better job than Lazio. I also believe that with adequate financing that he would not drag down the rest of the ticket the way Lazio will.
Regarding the Wicks Law
Second, as a very young man, I was a commercial banker. One of my best customers , was the owner of a steel company who at times was forced, because of economic conditions, to operate in New York City. One of his fixed costs was a 15% markup to handle the graft required to operate in NYC.
A year or two later, I ended up as President of a conglomerate which included a major highway and heavy construction contractor which operated primarily in southeastern New York and the NYC Metro Area. In time I learned that the bids were all fixed, and indeed all of the estimates were done by one of our "competitors". In on the fix were all of the asphalt and concrete producers, as well as corrupt union officials who all ended up with a piece of the "action". It was my understanding that the cost to the taxpayers was normally 15% or more of the total bill!. And of course, as you know, state government contracts require the highest prevailing labor rate to be charged.
While I have no knowledge as to current conditions in the "highway" business, I suspect that the same conditions prevail to this day.
II. As a member of the State GOP Committee and more importantly a VERY concerned resident of this state, I am supporting Steve Levy. He met with us two weeks ago and I was very impressed.
As a resident, and putting all politics aside, I have no faith that Lazio or Cuomo would do anything to turn this state around. I believe Levy is our only hope to get us back on track. Without him I am certain that in 2014 when my youngest daughter graduates from high school I, too, will be leaving for greener and cheaper pastures.
My honest two cents. Follow Up (after I stated that I was afraid that Levy might appoint Democratic staffers)
I agree that the fact that he’s a Democrat is worrisome, but rumor has it ... (deleted on request)...
I also liked Chris Collins, the Republican County Executive from Erie County, but his dreams of the governorship imploded after some anti-Semitic remarks. Too bad because he was a great candidate and has taken a hard line approach to government and turned things around in Erie County. He would have been a terrific candidate for the GOP, but he apparently suffers from foot in mouth syndrome like too many wannabe politicians!
III. I did have a chance to question him on a mouthful of issues including Medicaid waste and fraud and the mammoth public unions that control the state. He answered the Medicaid question adequately and although pressed for time...I did get to ask him if he would repeal Wick's Law. His answer to this was most comprehensive. He gave a detailed explanation of Wicks Law, similar to your description...He said he would fight to repeal Wicks and has been advocating for the same. He gave an example from his tenure in Suffolk of negotiating a contract with public construction unions I believe, where Wicks was suspended, and they did not have to abide by it.
Although I did not agree with him on 100% of the issues, he was upfront and honest and did not try to squirm and conceal some of his more "liberal" leaning agenda, such as promoting the US to take the lead in a "Green Revolution" (it's in his plan to reform the state economy on his website) to provide a boost to the economy which he believes is the next revolution following industrial and information technology, for which we gave him hell! I respect him more for talking straight and not being disingenuous about his disagreeable issues. All in all, I would support him as a man who excels and has a proven track record on fiscal issues like balanced budgets and standing up to special interests and public sector unions. I believe he has the ability to beat Cuomo and I want to ask others who feel the same to write to State Chairman Cox pronto and their County Chairmen of both the Conservative and Republican Parties, since he needs their lines in order to win.
I haven't heard any others except for Rick Lazio and one other fellow who recently dropped out. But I believe I have a good knack for spotting good people...I have also recently seen some other candidates who have impressed me, such as Michael Faulkner running for Congress in Harlem against Charlie Rangel, and Dan Maloney running in CD#4 (Nassau)against Carolyn McCarthy. There are more than a handful of other impressive figures who I believe have the integrity not to cave in to special interests, (like unions, wall st, etc.) that have impressed me. But I could be wrong on them.
However I believe there are the beginnings of a new type of leader emerging among Tea Party, Repub. and Libertarian circles. People who identify with the Constitution and have taken the plunge and are going into politics to serve their country and the people, since they have seen the ruin that radical Marxism and political cronyism can bring to our great nation through our current crop of leaders, and yes, I'll admit it, past Republican presidents and congresses as well are just as guilty.
A friend will be interviewing Steve Levy, a prospective New York State candidate for governor, as part of a Republican group. Levy is a Democrat who is considering running as a Republican. Although I am skeptical of over-zealous emphasis on partisanship in part because there have been too few differences between the parties for too long, I am also somewhat skeptical of cross-party candidacies, basically for the same reason. If a Democrat is really for reducing government, why on earth is he or she in the party of Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Barack H. Obama?
But I am not dogmatically opposed to Levy and may in fact support him if he can prove himself as a small government or at least a reduced government candidate (the GOP's other best bet, Rudy Giuliani, is hardly a small government man--although there were no large increases in New York City government during Giuliani's incumbency there were no large reductions either and it is hard to know because of accounting shenanigans).
At first I suggested that my friend ask a wide range of questions, but I realized that only one are two are necessary if there is too little time. One very good litmus test is Levy's position on the Wicks Law. Senator Arthur Wicks was a Republican from Kingston, the very city in which I am a member of the County Committee. This is what I wrote to my friend:
All you have to ask him is about whether and how he will repeal the Wicks Law. The Wicks Law has been on the books since 1912. The law is named for Senator Wicks who amended it. Wicks, I believe, was from my own Town of Olive in the Village of Olive Bridge which is a few miles from my home in West Shokan. Ultimately Wicks was forced to resign as Senate Majority Leader and acting Lieutenant Governor because "it became known that he had made frequent visits to convicted labor leader Joseph S. Fay while the latter was incarcerated at Sing-Sing prison."
The Wicks law says that the state or any other public entity (New York City, Town of Olive) may not hire a general contractor (GC). Four separate categories of contractors, (a) heating, ventilating and air conditioning (b) plumbing (c) electrical (d) all other, must be hired and supervised directly by the state or other public entity. The lack of a GC opens the door to abuse, crime, coordination problems and law suits. Government officials lack the knowledge and experience required to supervise mammoth construction projects. That is why private sector developers hire GCs. Studies find that the Wicks Law increases public construction costs in the state by 15-30%. No one except construction unions and public contractors supports the Wicks Law. Even the New York Times has editorialized against it. Mario Cuomo had appointed an anti-crime commission that found that the Wicks Law fosters organized crime. When I served on the State Assembly staff in 1991 I attended a meeting at Alan Greenberg's office in Bear Stearns. The meeting was meant to devise cost cutting strategies. Presidents of the leading construction firms in New York City were the majority of the participants. I asked one privately about this and he told me that public construction in New York is so corrupt that he never bids on any public contracts.
Compounding the Wicks Law, if you have time there is a second issue, the diffusion of responsibility for construction in four or five different state agencies. These include the Dormitory Authority (whose existence in itself is an outrage) and the Office of General Services. There are two or three others. What happens is that the actual costs of construction are back charged to the agencies on whose behalf the construction is done. So if the Dormitory Authority does work for SUNY it gets charged to SUNY. This buries the true construction costs around the state. Openly comparing the construction costs in one agency would prove embarrassing to the state because the costs are so high, much higher than other states. The state avoids this.
Phil Orenstein of Democracy Project has blogged in support of Steve Levy's candidacy for governor. According to the video below, Mr. Levy has a strong record in Nassau County. He is a Democrat who aims to run as a "post partisan" candidate. Academics coined the term "post modern" a generation ago and "post partisan" is indubitably a corollary. Indubitably.
I am not yet convinced that Mr. Levy is the candidate of choice. We need to ask more questions.
Mr. Levy's candidacy is controversial. Mike Long, the head of the Conservative Party, suggested in the New York Post yesterday that given the massive failure of the Democratic Party to manage the state's economy competently, the Republicans ought not nominate a Democrat. This is the very sort of thing I had previously feared from Republicrat Edward F. Cox. Also, the article reports allegations that there is a corrupt deal involving Edward F. Cox's son, Chris Cox, who like his father desires a nepotism deal, and Suffolk Republican Chair John Lavalle:
"There has long been a rumor that Cox, Levy and Suffolk Republican chair John LaValle have a domino-style deal going, with the main goal being to get Chris Cox nominated in his own seven-way primary in Suffolk. Ed Cox has strenuously denied it."
If so, this is not the sort of candidacy the Tea Party ought to support. We need clarification of Mr. Levy's relationship to Ed Cox and John Lavalle.
Which is not to detract from Levy's record. Levy's website says that he has delivered "six consecutive operating budgets, each with a General Fund tax freeze or tax cut." He says in the video that he has cut spending for two consecutive years. His website adds that he "has delivered three operating budgets with spending lower than the previous year's adopted levels -- a record that is unprecedented in Suffolk County and extraordinarily rare in any level of government anywhere."
In his blog, Orenstein points out that in his Op Ed in the New York Post Levy said "no" to:
"the exorbitant pay and pensions of the County police officers, who are the highest paid police force in the world, (which) shows he is one of the rare politicians with backbone. We need a courageous figure to govern a state with the nation’s most dysfunctional legislature. Could Levy be a ray of light for our troubled state on the verge of fiscal disaster?"
We'll see. So far, the jury is out.
Despite the allegations of insider shenanigans, according to the Daily News Levy has already taken the initiative to develop a relationship with the Tea Party. The Daily News writes that Levy will hold an informational video conference with New York's Tea Parties.
According to his site, Levy has called for a state of emergency because of New York's incompetently managed budget. In a year when there was deflation, the state increased spending by nine percent, according to Levy. New York voters are undoubtedly to blame, electing the same tax-and-spend Democrats like Ulster County's Kevin Cahill year after year. New Yorkers never saw a wasteful or corrupt Democratic Party scheme that they could not support. Newspapers like the Kingston Freeman in my county are also to blame, refusing to take any initiative in demanding fiscal responsibility and providing ongoing propaganda for the massive waste in Albany. Millions have left this state, and the remaining population is mostly on the dole, but what do the editors of the Freeman care? When Wall Street crumbles, which it will, there is going to be a serious problem, with greedy unions and corrupt contractors clawing at each other for state handouts that are no longer available. New Yorkers will, undoubtedly, blame everyone but their greedy selves.
I am concerned that I did not see a prominent statement on Mr. Levy's site of the two chief fiscal issues facing the state: (a) the badly mismanaged Medicaid system, whose waste likely amounts to in excess of 15% of the entire state budget (yes, it is fair to say that 15% of the entire New York State budget is attributable to Medicaid waste) and (b) the egregious handling of the state's unions, specifically the Service Employees International Union and the New York State Union of Teachers in facilitating massive waste. I can blame Democrats like Ulster County's Kevin Cahill for the waste, but the fact is that during 12 years of the Pataki administration things only got worse. Governor Pataki failed to live up to his mandate, failed to curtail Medicaid waste, failed to rein in the bloat associated with the SEIU and failed to rein in administrative waste in the schools. What plan does Mr. Levy have to offer?
I have researched and written about employee benefit issues and in my previous life was a corporate benefits administrator. I am currently associate professor of business at Brooklyn College. I hold a Ph.D. from the Columbia University Graduate School of Business, an MBA from UCLA and an AB from Sarah Lawrence College. I am working on a project involving public policy. I blog on academic and political topics.
