Ranzenhofer gets an earful on Albany mess
Albany’s three-week-old legislative stalemate moved no closer to resolution Saturday, prompting Sen. Michael H. Ranzenhofer’s constituents to howl in protest from a town meeting 280 miles to the west.
The Amherst Republican had to conduct the long scheduled gathering at a Town of Tonawanda American Legion post by telephone, because the governor ordered him and other state senators into special session attempting to end the deadlock.
And when he dialed in, Ranzenhofer got an earful from about two dozen frustrated voters. They moaned, groaned, complained and pontificated about the results of a June 8 parliamentary coup that produced a 31-31 Senate tie and paralyzed state government.
As residents of the 61st District trooped to the speaker phone to express their displeasure at the Milton J. Brounshidle Post on Delaware Avenue, Ed McKee of East Amherst may have summed it up best.
“I’m here, frustrated and angry,” he said. “I want to relay to you and your colleagues how fed up and disgusted we are with what’s going on in Albany. We’re the laughingstock of the nation.”
Though Ranzenhofer often encountered difficulty hearing the telephonic comments throughout the session, the applause that followed McKee’s observations apparently rang true in Albany.
“I heard that loud and clear,” the senator responded.
The gathering represented one of the first opportunities for local residents to sound off about the chaos in the Capitol since the coup was launched June 8. After two Democrats joined with Republicans to topple the Democratic majority that took over the Senate in January, one of those plotters returned to the Democratic fold. That produced the tie vote, and no progress in moving ahead on key pieces of legislation.
And despite Gov. David A. Paterson’s efforts to convene the Senate in special session, the stalemate continues, because the Democrats refuse to sit in session with Republicans and Republicans refuse to sit in session with Democrats. Those who gathered at Ranzenhofer’s meeting on Saturday were well aware of the Albany situation.
Randy Caughell of the Town of Tonawanda told a tale of going out Friday night to play baseball for his regular team.
“But then I looked over at the other team and thought they had better uniforms,” he said, “so I said ‘I think I’ll play for them.’ ”
Later in the game, he added, he thought he might play for both teams.
His point was to illustrate the party-jumping that produced the gridlock, and Ranzenhofer agreed that a solution must be found soon. He suggested binding arbitration, in which mediators hear both sides of the argument and impose a settlement.
“The most important thing is that it’s final,” he said.
No progress on Ranzenhofer’s suggestion or that of anyone else has yet been noted, however. And that is beginning to wear on New Yorkers everywhere, according to the latest poll from the Siena Research Institute at Siena College in Loudonville.
In a survey taken last week, the poll found more than half of New York voters say the Senate situation is a “farce” or an “embarrassment.”
“Democrats, Republicans and independent voters all strongly agree that the Senate fight is bad for New York and making it harder to enact critical legislation,” said Siena poll spokesman Steven Greenberg.
More than three-quarters of voters say it is very or somewhat important that the Senate address property tax relief (94 percent), state government ethics reform (89 percent) and reducing pension costs (77 percent) before they adjourn for the summer, Greenberg said. Mayoral control of New York City schools — particularly for voters in the five boroughs — and same-sex marriages are also legislative issues voters want addressed, he added.
Back at the Brounshidle Post, not everyone was snarling at Ranzenhofer.
Linda Byrnes of the Town of Tonawanda applauded his stand against same-sex marriage, late term abortions and Medicare funding of abortions.
“I appreciate your values,” she said.
But most of the speakers urged Ranzenhofer to do all in his power to put the Senate in a position to address larger issues.
“What is your priority?” asked Joe Reno of Kenmore. “Are you a Republican or a representative of the area who wants what’s best for the area?
“If the party comes first, they should be thrown out, no matter what the party,” he added.
As a rookie senator, Ranzenhofer said he feels much of the same frustration as his constituents. He railed against the New York City leadership of both the Senate and Assembly that he said passed a budget raising taxes and fees in a “secretive process.”
As a candidate last fall, he said that he felt just as upset with the Republican majority that then controlled the Senate as with the Democrats running the Assembly.
“When I won, I thought Albany was dysfunctional,” he said. “But when I got here, I learned it is more dysfunctional than I could have imagined.”
The senator called the entire situation a “disaster,” but offered little hope for those at his meeting beyond the suggestion of binding arbitration. Even after the stalemate is settled, he said, an entire “culture” needs to be changed in Albany.
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