It’s Alive. It’s Dead. It’s Three Men in a Room!

5:26 PM EDT on July 11, 2007

Erik Engquist at Crain's says a potential deal is in the works that would nix Gov. Spitzer's call for campaign finance reform and give Albany legislators a long-sought pay raise in return for congestion pricing approval.

An Assembly Member that I spoke with this morning, however, says that congestion pricing is totally dead or, as the Assembly Member put it, "There's no legislation to vote on, no one is planning on returning to Albany, it's in 'Nowheresville.'" Mayor Bloomberg's political people, the legislator says, are "in denial."

Meanwhile, Chad Marlow at the Public Advocacy Group reminds us of the awesome powers of Three Men in a Room and how these powers may render moot the objections of dozens of state legislators. Marlow's 30-second civics lesson is as follows:

In almost every other legislature in the country, when a bill isproposed, only the original sponsor of the legislation has the ability to pull that bill and prevent it from coming to a vote. In Albany, the original sponsor can pull his or her bill but so can the Assembly Speaker and the Senate Majority leader. So, regardless of how many of a legislator's colleagues support the bill, ifthe leader doesn’t support the legislator, it will never come to a vote. This gives the Silver and Bruno "veto plus" powers.When the governor vetos a bill there's an opportunity for the legislature to override the veto. But when the Leader pulls your bill,that’s it. It's done. That's why Albany legislators are, essentially, forced to fall in line with Silver and Bruno. If they don't, they may never get to pass another piece of legislation.

Aaron Naparstek

AARON NAPARSTEK is the founder and former editor-in-chief of Streetsblog. Based in Brooklyn, New York, Naparsteks journalism, advocacy and community organizing work has been instrumental in growing the bicycle network, removing motor vehicles from parks, and developing new public plazas, car-free streets and life-saving traffic-calming measures across all five boroughs. Naparstek is the author of "Honku: The Zen Antidote for Road Rage" (Villard, 2003), a book of humorous haiku poetry inspired by the endless motorist sociopathy observed from his apartment window. Prior to launching Streetsblog, Naparstek worked as an interactive media producer, pioneering some of the Web's first music web sites, online communities, live webcasts and social networking services. Naparstek is currently in Cambridge with his wife and two young sons where he is enjoying a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. He has a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and a bachelor's degree from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Naparstek is a co-founder of the Park Slope Neighbors community group and the Grand Army Plaza Coalition. You can find more of his work here: http://www.naparstek.com.

It’s Alive. It’s Dead. It’s Three Men in a Room!

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