From Albany, this is the Legislative Gazette, a weekly magazine on New York State government
and politics, your host is Dave Glethletlick, with commentary by political scientist Dr. Alan
Shartock.
Coming up this week, we'll fill you in on the financial and personnel troubles and the
strategy changes in the campaign of Pierre-Enfrey.
The final report from the Commission on Government Integrity is out and it contains some harsh
words for the state's government.
And New York is considering magnetic levitation trains as a transportation alternative.
Those stories, Alan Shartock, and much, much more on this week's Legislative Gazette.
It's been a difficult week for Republican gubernatorial candidate Pierre-Enfrey, Bruce
Robertson reports.
By Thursday afternoon, speculation was that Renfrey might stop campaigning actively in the
governor's race.
He had scheduled a major announcement for Friday past our deadline.
We can reconstruct the events, though, leading up to Friday.
On Monday, a poll by the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion showed Governor Cuomo leading
Renfrey by a four-to-one margin.
On Tuesday, rumors surfaced about just how much money the campaign had remaining.
That night, a Renfrey fundraiser with Vice President Dan Quail, as the special guest,
drew only 150 people, even after ticket prices had been dropped from $1,000 to $250.
Wednesday's edition of the New York Daily News reported that Renfrey sent a letter to
top-state GOP officials saying his financial situation was desperate, and that he might
have to shut down his entire operation by Friday.
That Daily News article was only the beginning of what would turn out to be a tumultuous Wednesday
for Renfrey.
Shortly after noon time, word came that his campaign manager, Kinderhoek Asambulamon
John Faso, had quit, although speculation was that Faso did not quit, rather that he
was fired.
Many say Faso was angry with Renfrey, over comments he made about housing an urban development
secretary Jack Kemp.
Renfrey called the Buffalo Area Republican a lackey for Governor Cuomo and a traitor
last week because Kemp would not participate in a Renfrey fundraiser.
As if matters couldn't get any worse, Renfrey said he would no longer campaign upstate
because he couldn't afford it, and he was getting no financial support from Republicans.
Renfrey said County Chairman would have to pay expenses if he were to appear upstate.
While eyes for all the speculation, Faso maintains his decision to leave was mutual.
Outside of that, I'm not going to engage in any public speculation or recitation of
the whole thing.
Suffice it to say that it's kind of like when you're on a major league baseball team
and you're behind and you're in the panic, you're trying to get in the panic race,
sometimes you change the manager.
So it was a mutual decision.
I feel comfortable with what I've done and I feel comfortable in supporting Pierre
Renfrey and the entire ticket.
But my time has come on the campaign and it was time to leave and I'm happy with my
decision.
And while it may seem that Governor Cuomo has clear sailing now to a third term, Governor
Cuomo's campaign official William Cunningham says the campaign still takes all challenges
seriously.
And as for Faso's resignation?
Well, basically it's not a surprise and it's not totally unexpected.
And then again, nothing really is totally unexpected in the Renfrey campaign.
Also Thursday, GOP chairman Patrick Barrett rushed to New York City to meet with Renfrey.
Renfrey and Barrett were scheduled to meet with major New York Republican leaders on Friday
morning.
While Republicans are sweating about the state of their candidates campaign for Governor,
New York Conservatives are smiling.
Conservative Party Chair Michael Long says Pierre Renfrey's statement that the Republican
campaign is out of money was a big shot in the arm for the Conservatives campaign for
Governor.
Long says it was like getting a check for a million dollars.
The Conservative Chair says his candidate Herbert London would be more than happy to speak
for free at Republican functions upstate.
In fact, Long says Conservative Party workers will begin contacting Republicans to see if
they want London to come speak at GOP upstate events.
For the legislative Gazette, this is Bruce Robertson.
A poll release this week offers few surprises in this year's gubernatorial race.
The Marist College survey says Governor Cuomo would win in a landslide.
Marist College is a member of the Marist College of Education.
The Marist College poll offered few surprises.
It shows that if the election were held now, 60.2% of voters would re-elect Governor Cuomo
if their support translates to votes.
And only 14.5% would vote for his Republican challenger, Pierre Renfrey.
Says Pulsier Lee Merringhoff.
The good news for the Renfrey campaign is that their candidate has gained some name recognition.
62% of the 821 voters surveyed know who he is.
But with a 24% negative rating and a 14.5% positive rating, it seems the more voters know
Renfrey, the less they like him.
You know, when you look at his favorable unfavorable ratings, the candidacy has reached a point
of diminishing returns.
Merringhoff says Renfrey's biggest failure in the campaign has been his inability to
identify themes.
The wide support for Mario Cuomo does not necessarily mean that voters are content, though.
56% think the state is going in the wrong direction.
But the dissatisfaction, Merringhoff says does not seem to be blamed on Cuomo, but is
not worked to Renfrey's advantage, either.
When you're the challenger against a long-term incumbent, the challenger usually gets the dissatisfaction
with the incumbent.
Renfrey has managed, I guess it's got to your point, Pierre Renfrey has managed not to
even tie down his core base of support in this race, which takes some doge.
Political novice Renfrey's favorable unfavorable ratings are much worse than Westchester
County executive Andrew O'Rourke's where when he ran against Cuomo in 1986, at that time
30% liked O'Rourke and 15% did not.
Cuomo beat O'Rourke in the biggest landslide in state history.
Cuomo campaign spokesman Bill Cunningham insists the Marist pole results are a surprise
to him.
He says dissatisfaction by voters is normal, and the numbers indicate that the voters
don't think Mario Cuomo is to blame for the state's problems.
I think most people, and it's human nature, would always say things can be better for them
personally and for society.
Everybody can always do a better job.
Unless there's one the lottery in Florida, they're going to tell you that they're not
as well off as they'd like to be.
Beyond that, I think the fact that they're not laying it at the governor's doorstep is
a reflection of the fact that they know he works hard.
They know he is always at work.
Cunningham says the low familiarity of voters with the Environmental Bond Act 71.5% have
not heard of it.
But they show that Cuomo was right to spend the summer visiting numerous upstate communities
promoting the Bond Act and making the Bond Act the subject of his summer campaign commercials.
People wondered why we were spending so much time talking about the Bond Act and the need
to protect the environment, and this justifies the way we're campaigning.
The fact is that we knew it would be a long process, and we started in August, and the
plan is to carry it through to election day.
Of the 25.8% of voters who knew about the Bond Act, more than half were undecided about
how they would vote on the $1.9 billion proposal.
The poll found that the biggest concern of upstaters was taxes.
New York City residents were most worried about crime.
US Senator Alfonso DiMato, who was attempted to focus attention away from allegations of
his possible involvement in the HUD scandal, and on his travels to the Middle East instead,
scored a favorable job performance rating of 42.3% up from 37% in February.
Your Moynihan rated his highest performance rating ever at 62%.
Although the poll did not ask specific questions about state Senate seats, answers to a general
question indicate that more than half of those surveyed intend to vote for incumbents.
The Republicans control the Senate by just four seats.
But Miringhof says Republicans could be hurt by the low amount of voter interest the
poll has found for the gubernatorial race.
Republican voters, somewhat independent voters to a lesser degree, suburban voters and
upstate voters are the ones that are less likely to vote than they were four years ago.
In Albany, I'm Karen DeWitt.
Karen DeWitt's report courtesy of the New York Public Radio Albany Bureau.
After more than three years of work, New York State's Commission on Government Integrity
has come out with its final report.
Brian Shields has more.
Mr. Cuomo created the Commission in 1987 after a wave of political scandals in state
government and politics.
Since then, the Commission has questioned over 1,000 witnesses in order to prepare its
final report.
The report itself sharply criticized the state government for failing to demonstrate any
real commitment to government ethics reform.
Commission Chairman John Fierrick says the state's laws are far short in guarding against
abuses in a number of areas.
In particular, we have focused on heavily as a whole area of campaign finance in the
state.
The system under which people can contribute large sums of money which feeds the perception
that government is for sale.
We've also been very critical of the enforcement of the law by the state elections board.
We have set on a number of occasions that the elections board has to do a much better
job in showing vigor and independence in its responsibility area.
We've also been quite critical of the disclosure provisions of the campaign finance law of
the state.
We have said repeatedly that the current provisions deny the public information about who is
making contributions to bring their leaders to public office.
So we've asked that in our reports for a major overall of that whole area.
We've also commented on the dismal nature of the ballot access law of the state that
seems designed to make it difficult for people to challenge incumbents.
And we have been quite critical of the matter in which we select judges believing that judges
should be essentially selected through a system similar to the system we have in place
for the high court of New York State.
But we don't have in place for other courts.
Fierrick says municipal ethics standards are also suspect.
So now that the report is out, what happens next?
Fierrick says some of the responsibility lies with New Yorkers.
Desire by people throughout the state for reform is not simply based on the work of our
commission, but I've observed it through my travels throughout the state.
And I think there's a sense around New York that the leaders of both major parties have
not done a good enough job in putting in place new ethics standards and new ethics reforms.
Fierrick hopes the legislature will institute new ethics reforms in the next session.
If it doesn't, Fierrick thinks New York's government will have failed its citizens, but
is there enough pressure on the government to force it to look into ethics reforms?
It really is really no longer a question of pressure, but it's a question of whether
or not we have leadership in an area of the utmost importance in terms of confidence in
government.
Leadership in this area isn't shaped by response to pressure, but it's something that
is in advance of scandal and pressure.
And that's what it would be taking place because we've sure had a lot of scandal over the
last five years.
And I think people everywhere in the state expects leadership at this point.
Now that the commission's work is done, it doesn't mean that the individual members work
for ethics reform is over.
The seven members of the commission have pledged to work for reform in their private capacities.
With a legislative casette, I'm Brian Shields.
Concern over rising fuel costs due to the Persian Gulf crisis has prompted many to think about
the use of alternative energy sources.
Others are thinking about alternative transportation.
High-speed rail systems are in use in Europe and Japan, and a conference in Albany this
week discuss the future of high-speed rail and magnetic levitation, or maglev trains.
Lee Farbman reports.
The future of transportation was discussed in Albany Monday.
Three New York State offices sponsored a day-long conference on trains which travel much faster
than what Americans are accustomed to.
The State Energy Office, the Department of Transportation and the Energy Research and
Development Authority, brought together transportation specialists to discuss the new technologies.
Gary Schuffer is a spokesman for the State Energy Office.
What maglev actually is is a train that's levitated off a guideway by magnetic force.
That magnetic force also propels the train forward at up to 300 miles per hour.
High-speed rail technology is a bit different.
High-speed rail uses existing tracks and you commonly here refer to as bullet trains.
Again, these are technologies being put to use by the French and by the Japanese.
For those who have traveled to Disney World in Florida, Schuffer says they may already
have seen the maglev technology in that facility's monorail system.
A maglev would look something like that.
That's a monorail, as you say, Disney World or Disneyland.
That would look similar to that, would sort of be raised and has the look, aerodynamic
look, of being actually wrapped around its guideway.
Again, that magnetic force that runs along that track lifts it off the guideway.
The train actually travels about a half inch off the ground, is actually suspended by that
force.
Schuffer says the high-speed trains travel at speeds of over 150 miles an hour.
Only half as much as a maglev would travel, but still very efficient.
Two of the speakers at the conference were Gordon Dan B. and James Powell of Long Island's
Brookhaven National Laboratory.
Dan B. and Powell pioneered magnetic levitation technology, the principles of which are being
used in other countries.
The conference takes place amidst concern of rising oil prices because of the Persian Gulf
crisis.
Schuffer says once the crisis is over, he hopes people don't forget about the new technologies.
This is the third time in 17 or 18 years that we've been reminded that our dependence on
foreign oil cannot continue and our dependence on petroleum has to be reduced.
And hopefully, I guess that this impetus would not be lost to the situation in the Middle
East, resolve itself quickly or in the near future anyway.
Our highways are becoming more congested.
Our airports are becoming more crowded.
And these are technologies that offer relief for those problems.
And they offer relief from air pollution, their cleaner technologies.
And so we had hoped that this would move forward beyond the near future.
That's Gary Schaffer of the New York State Energy Office.
The concept of maglev train sounds interesting, but the cost is high.
It would cost $10 million to lay one mile of maglev track.
Will New Yorkers be willing to spend that kind of money?
Our Mike Fonda-Karrow put the question to Assemblyman Michael Bragman, the Syracuse Democratist
chair of the Assembly Transportation Committee.
When we consider what could be accomplished through a maglev system, we really believe
that it could be cost-effective.
We have to take into consideration the various transportation problems that are plaguing
our state right now.
Our roads and bridges are deteriorating.
Our mass transit systems need vast capital dollar infusions.
We could see a maglev system, in my opinion, that would allow us, for example, to travel
from New York City to Boston in a little more than an hour.
It could provide a future where Buffalo, which could be the financial gateway, or will
be the financial gateway for Canadian trade, could be the hub of a great economic wheel that
would link cities like Toronto and Chicago and Pittsburgh and New York, other cities and
the industrial Northeast.
It could be a future where New York, again, forges to the forefront of unparalleled innovations
and transportation and commerce.
We should be in a position where if we proceed with the maglev concept that we would be
manufacturing and exporting that technology from this state, not importing it.
We have industry giants like Grumman and General Electric and Morris Knutson in this state,
who I believe are capable of manufacturing and exporting this technology not only to other
states across this country, but throughout the world.
Any enthusiasm, of course, is one thing, but when any state taxpayer, here is $10 million
a mile.
Of course, the jobs will likely drop.
How tough a sell do you think it will be to New Yorkers?
Well, I think first we have to gather all of the information so that we will be armed to
know that this would be a cost-effective project, a cost-benefit project as far as New York
is concerned.
As I indicated before, I think it would be a project where there has to be a public
private relationship.
But at the same time, the people of this state are being told right now that because of all
of the problems that we are facing with our roads and bridges and mass transit systems
and our local roads and bridges and problems resulting from lack of preventive maintenance
and problems from lack of a mobility management program, that we need to put a comprehensive
blueprint, a transportation infrastructure blueprint in place, that will cost us approximately
$5 billion a year.
If we are going to keep our current roads, bridges, mass transit systems in place to keep pace
and to do the same with our railroads and our airports and our canals, we are going to
have to spend massive amounts of money.
People are indicating that they do not want to do this through bond issues.
The 1983 and 1988 bond issues, if that was the last structure of that kind that they
wanted to support for our transportation infrastructure.
So the people of this state have got to be made aware that if we are going to do the things
that are necessary for our transportation infrastructure, that we are going to have to
spend billions of dollars.
Assembly Transportation Committee Chair Michael Bragman, speaking with the legislative
Gazette's microphone to Carro.
The New York Post's Fred Dicker took some time this week to discuss the latest in issues
with our Brian Shields.
Two state agencies are spending over $200,000 to print pamphlets and tout the $1.9 billion
dollar environmental bond act.
Now a state lawmaker certainly couldn't use taxpayer money to get himself reelected,
but the state is using this to get a bond act possibly passed.
Is there a conflict there?
Well, Brian, I think there's no question that Governor Cuomo was using his agencies to
try to get a bond issue passed and he's just kind of walking the edge of the law.
I would note, by the way, just parenthetically, if I could, that the state court of appeals
now is just about to rule on whether or not lawmakers can use public money to run their
campaigns.
You can recall that man for the Ornstein, the Senate Democratic leader, has been indicted
for doing just that, but there's still a question of whether or not it is actually against
the law.
But in the case of spending state money to advance a bond issue, it's pretty clear that
the law says they're not supposed to do it.
Now the Cuomo administration claims, well, this is basically just an informational brochure,
but I think it's pretty clear to everybody that they're trying to push this proposal
and they're pushing it very hard.
I think the public would object, but generally, as we saw from a poll this week, most of
the public, Brian, still doesn't even know about the bond issue, much less the use of state
money is to advance it.
Attorney General Robert Abrams has come out in favor of the bond issue.
Is there any organized opposition in the legislature or among state officials?
Really not.
The only prominent state official to oppose the bond issue is the state controller, Nidrigan,
and once again, I don't think he's got much influence.
The public generally doesn't even know who he is.
There's very little opposition.
The bond issue is on the ballot because the state legislature authorized it to be on the
ballot.
The great uncertainty, though, is the turnout.
And because this year's election will probably see a very low turnout, it's a good possibility
that this bond issue could be defeated because there are some organized grassroots opposition
where there is some organized grassroots opposition to it, in particular in the Adirondack
area where I would say at 20 to 1, people are going to be voting against it and while
it's a low population area in the northern Adirondacks, I think everybody is going to
be turning out there to be against it because they don't like the fact that some of the
money would be used to take even more private land out of circulation in the Adirondacks.
The New York Post's spread dicker speaking with Brian Shields.
You're tuned to the Legislative Gazette on Public Radio.
I'm Dave Galatley and joining us right now is our political observer, Dr. Alan Shartock,
publisher of the Legislative Gazette newspaper and political scientist at the State University
of New York College at New Ponce.
One Pierre Infrey is basically closing down his campaign operation.
Well, as you know, David, this week's Maris Pol really was terrible, and this is Pierre
Infrey, barely 15% of the vote, Cuomo was at 60%, the other guys were insignificant
to the other parties.
Infrey, of course, has not been running a good campaign.
We've known that all along, I've said so, I've had some nasty mail, why are you being so
tough on the guy?
But I think events have essentially proven me right.
He hasn't been able to energize his campaign, he hasn't been able to get going, he shoots
himself in the foot a lot.
And what has ended up happening, of course, is that either he's unknown or he's seen
as a bit of a, you know, a bad fly without real credentials.
So the, he hasn't made it happen and he's looking for money.
Now I think the irony of all of this is that the reason they gave it to him in the first
place was that he was going to be able to raise a lot of money as a big shot pool street
economists who had all of these contacts and who knew all of the right people and they
were going to get money for him.
And it just simply hasn't happened because as your credibility goes down, it's unfortunate
part of politics, as your credibility goes down in terms of your ability to win people
to want to make an investment in you, which is one of the most insidious points that
we can tell about politics.
People don't give you money because they think you're right or they're wrong.
Most of the most part because they're going to get something back from it.
And so the Rinfra campaign doesn't look good.
Now he says, because people don't give money and because the upstate events are so hard,
he's not going to go upstate.
But there is a school of thought that says, hey, they don't really want them upstate because
one of the things that the Marist Poll showed was that Rinfra was doing very badly among
Republicans.
Cuomo was literally beating him across the board, including Republicans.
And so I know that he, you know, has to see this thing through to November, but it is
clear by now he just sort of wants to fold his tent.
What happens to the rest of the ticket mail?
It's very bad, very bad for Ned Regan.
It's very bad for the Republican candidates for the Senate because a lot of Republicans
may stay home.
But of course that works two ways.
If you think your guy is going to win, you may not be empowered or propelled to the
voting booth yourself because you say, well, my guy is going to win, Cuomo is going to
win, so I may as well stay home.
And of course that could work out another way.
I think a lot of New York voters, by the way, David, are very intelligent and have the
ability to choose and to know that Ned Regan may be an important component of the ticket.
And to say that I'm going to go out and vote for my Republican senators, but we do know
that the lesser the office, the less likely somebody is to vote.
So that if there's no real gubernatorial candidacy, then you'll have a lower vote of turnout.
The legislative gazette political observer Dr. Alan Shartak, taking a look now at some
of the other events in state government this week, is Paul Rosenthal with our legislative
notebook.
Attorney General Robert Abrams has endorsed the proposed $2 billion environmental bond
act before voters in November.
Democrat Abrams, who was seeking re-election to a fourth four-year term this year, says
the borrowing would help New York protect natural resources and deal with the garbage crisis.
The money from the bond act would be used by environmentally valuable land, help localities
pay for garbage programs, deal with medical waste, and help build a park on Manhattan's
East Side River Front.
A state panel says New York's prisons chief may continue to put inmates in bunk beds,
as long as he faces out the program by the end of January.
The state commission of correction has extended the so-called double-bunking policy through
January 31st.
Correction's commissioner Thomas Coglin began the double-bunking in March to relieve over
crowding.
As part of that extension, however, the commission said that Coglin must put the inmates in single
beds as new prison space becomes available in October, December, and January.
About 10,000 inmates are in bunk beds, meaning about 5,000 of them would have to be moved
by the end of January.
There are about 55,000 inmates in the state prison system, or about 125 percent of capacity,
as according to the State Department of Correctional Services.
New York State's top court has rejected a challenge by New York City to a state law that
permits statin islanders to vote this November on whether to set up a commission to study
the borough's secession.
State Court of Appeals voted four to two against the challenge.
One of the state's top officials is asking New Yorkers to stand up and be counted.
The assembly speaker Mel Miller is urging New Yorkers who were not counted in the census
this year to call a special toll-free telephone number to be included in the population total.
Miller, the Brooklyn Democrat, says he wants state residents to keep the Census Bureau's
phone lines burning up from now until September 30th.
Miller says it's the state's last chance to let Washington know they've botched the count
in New York State.
The assembly speaker estimates the Census Bureau may have missed more than 1 million
New Yorkers.
The Census figures are used to calculate New York's federal aid, and how many seats the state
receives and the House of Representatives New York is expected to lose at least three
congressional seats.
The toll-free telephone number is 1-800-999-1990.
For the legislative Gazette, I'm Paul Rosenthal.
And that about does it for this week's show.
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Release Distribution.
For the legislative Gazette, I'm Dave Galette Lake.
Pierre-Rinfraise campaign has gone through a very tough week.
Can he make it to Election Day?
I'm Dave Galette Lake.
On this week's edition of the legislative Gazette, we'll have details of Rinfraise
troubled week and Alan Chartac will share his thoughts on the entire matter.
Join us each week for the legislative Gazette.
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