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Wasn’t it just 1998? Weren’t we just discussing the definition of “is”?

I asked the TU’s Casey Seiler, Cuyler News Service’s Betty Flood and the NY Daily News’ Ken Lovett which stories would make their lists of the Top 10 NYS Stories of the Decade. You would think that with three lists, there would be some overlap, right? Surprisingly, there was very little duplication. Here are their lists: (What would you include on yours?)

Casey —

Fall of Joe Bruno

Evolution of Sheldon Silver

The “Bluing’ of New York State

The “Shrinking” of Rudy Giuliani

The Coup

Betty —

Richard Ravitch wins the LG court fight

The Coup

Stock Plunge

The 4 Amigos

Marty Markowitz buys a house in Brooklyn

Gay Marriage vote

Kenny –

9/11

Spitzer’s resignation &  how the ”promise” of reform devolved into hookers and scandal

Fiscal Crisis

Hevesi & Bruno conviction and the deteriorating ethical climate in Albany.

Pension Fund scandal

1st Lady becomes US Senator

The Coup

Senate flips to Democrats

New York’s first Black & blind Governor (also first Black Majority Leader/Senate President & Hispanic Majority leader)

Hillary & Rudy run for President

US Senate Appointment (first time since 1965 that a NY Governor has gotten to chose)

Paterson’s fall, and Schumer & Silver’s rise

Best line of the day:

”He negotiated with terrorists”.

  – Ken Lovett, referring to Malcolm Smith, in response to a question about why the State Senate this year de-evolved into chaos.

Coming up on Wednesday’s edition of The Capitol Pressroom:

Mike Gormley of the Associated Press and Jimmy Vielkind of the NY Observer join me with the political headlines. Kelly Cheezum of Clarkson University discusses the challenges of bringing broadband to the Adirondack Park. And Mitch Abolafia, an expert on the Federal Reserve, will be here to discuss how the Fed’s response to the financial crisis affected both New York State and New York City — and how we may be feeling the effects of the response in 2010.

For more information on The Capitol Pressroom, visit www.thecapitolpressroom.org

Perhaps it is time to take Frost’s advice. 

 The coup, the prostitutes, the cocaine, the debauchery, the corruption.   It’s clear some of our elected-officials have come to Albany to indulge their baser selves. 

That is not to say that these men and women haven’t, at some point during their careers, contributed to a lively civic dialogue, some important community building or positive legislation.  They probably have contributed.  They may have their names on a slew of buildings, and we may thank them for a variety of projects they brought to our region. 

But ultimately their contributions weren’t coming from  individuals committed to “public service”.  They were coming from individuals using the idea of public service for personal gain.  

 Our Capital City is not alone in this. 

After the Blagojevich scandal, USA Today undertook a Department of Justice analysis  of the number of public corruption convictions the federal government had won from 1998 to 2007.  On a per capita basis, Albany was not the winner.  The winner was Bismarck.

Don Morrison, executive director of the non-partisan North Dakota Center for the Public Good, said it may be that North Dakotans are better at rooting out corruption when it occurs.  “Being a sparsely populated state, people know each other,” he said. “We know our elected officials and so certainly to do what the governor of Illinois did is much more difficult here.”

North Dakota had 8.3 convictions per 100K residents.   That’s 53 convictions.

Baton Rouge had 7.7 convictions per 100K residents.  That’s 332 convictions. 

Chicago had 3.9 convictions per 100K residents.  That’s 502 convictions.

Albany meanwhile, generated a mere 3.6 convictions per 100K residents; 704 convictions. 

No, that doesn’t seem like a large number given the fact that the state has 12.8 million residents.  But what if we were to tweak USA Today’s analysis, and count the number of convictions per number of elected officials?  Would the statistic seem more shocking?  

Perhaps it’s time to try the road not taken.

****

Blair Horner of NYPIRGwill join me on The Capitol Pressroom to describe the series of reforms he and other reform groups have been pushing in Albany for more than 20 years.  

Jimmy Vielkind of the NY Observer  & James Madore of Newsdaywill have our political update du jour.

And we continue to talk gas drilling.  Today, Dereth Glance, the Executive Program Director for the Citizen’s Campaign for the Environment. 

I hope you can tune in.

Today on The Capitol Pressroom we will be speaking to: NYS Speaker Sheldon Silver, Jimmy Vielkind of the Observer, Ken Lovett of the New York Daily News, John Sheehan of the Adirondack Council, and Steve Greenberg of the Siena Poll.