Special Edited Version From Our Time Press
As state assembly members scramble to find new leadership in their legislative body in the post-Shelly Silver era, freshman Assemblymember Charles Barron is beginning his own new era of asserting his vision on the legislative body.
Barron, who is succeeding his wife, Inez Barron, in the assembly representing East New York, was the only Democratic member to vote against Silver as speaker when members re-elected him earlier this month.
“Shelly should have never been elected leader in the first place,” said Barron. “My wife voted against Shelly around the Vito Lopez fiasco for protecting and supporting a sexual abuser. But what made me the most angry was Silver’s support behind the governor not calling a special election last February that hurt 10 open assembly districts and two senatorial districts statewide.”
Barron noted that not calling the special elections left 1.5 million people out of the democratic process with a majority of these people being from the black and Hispanic communities. While this wasn’t Silver’s call, he could have taken the money allocated to these districts to keep offices open and continue constituent services, but instead he put it back in the general treasury for other things, Barron said.
“People in these districts lost homes to foreclosures and jobs and there was no constituent services except for some volunteers,” said Barron.
Barron said the assembly’s selection process for a new speaker should start with addressing reforms in the assembly.
Among these reforms is to have discretionary funds allotted to the assembly doled out on a needs based formula instead of the current formula which owes more to loyalty to the speaker and governor as to where funds are spent, said Barron.
When Barron was in the council he championed the same kind of reforms on that legislative body, which were long dismissed by colleagues, but has since been instituted.
“I’d like to bring something like that to the assembly. The state legislature and its leaders are supposed to be a checks and balances, and not in cahoots with the executive branch. For the speaker to determine capital and expense money and a whole lot of other things is too much power. Let the new speaker be a facilitator and not a dictator,” said Barron.
”We have to explode this concept of three men in a room determining a $142 billion budget,” he added.
Barron noted that each council member gets a $93,000 allocation for their staff, but that discretionary money comes through the speaker’s office and there are no direct allocations.
“We need the speaker to protect the issues of the people, and not the real estate interests or the more wealthy that the last speaker seemed to be protecting,” Barron said.
Meanwhile, Fort Greene Assemblymember Walter Mosley said that now that Silver is gone as speaker it is more important than ever that the New York City Caucus rally around one person from the city to become speaker when the vote is taken on Deb. 10.
“We need to gather around and support a single candidate in order to uphold our principles while at the same time being reform minded,” said Mosley.
Mosley said there is an unwritten rule that the assembly leadership come from the city.
“The speaker has to represent all of New York State, but also be mindful of the fact that New York City is engine that drives the economy. We want to be fair and sympathetic and sensitive to the unique policies and issues coming up that will change the city for the better or the worse – particularly affordable housing, quality education and judicial reform,” Mosley said.
Currently there are two are three assembly members from the city that are in the running for the speaker position. They are Carl Heastie from the Bronx, Keith Wright from Manhattan, Joe Lentol from Brooklyn and Cathy Nolan from Queens.
