frozen SEN. DAVID VALESKY
treats Fa m i ly • s u m m e r • Y u m !
with the principles of the Democratic Party. Whether it is a primary or a general election, you run on your record, you run on your results that you hope to produce for your constituents, and then at the end of the day voters will make their say. GR: I wanted to ask you a bigger question about reform. In the last few years, there have been big promises of reform that don’t materialize: the Moreland Commission, campaign finance, redistricting. Do you see any significant reforms that are going to get serious looks in the next session? DV: Reform of any structure is a process. I have always maintained that it is not a switch that is going to be flipped and someone is going to say, “OK, reform is done. Let’s move on to the next issue.” Campaign finance — certainly much more can and should Grant Reeher hosts and will be done on that issue moving WRVO Public forward into the next session. On Media’s program redistricting ...
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Conversations on Twitter @campbellconvos. You can also access earlier interviews by going to tinyurl.com/mplxaex. Reeher is director of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute and a professor of political science at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. He is the creator and producer of The Campbell Conversations. You can reach him at gdreeher@maxwell. syr.edu.
GR: That window is kind of closed. DV: Not really. Most people think it’s closed. It closed from a legislative perspective a couple of years ago, but it is still open because of this year’s ballot in November. Remember, we passed the constitutional amendment. It is for all of us as New Yorkers to decide. GR: So to keep real reform alive, we vote “No”? DV: That’s a matter of opinion. GR: To reopen the question then. DV: To reopen the question. There had been, I think, some legitimate questions about how much reform could have been done without amending the constitution in the first place. And I still believe that. So, if the voters do turn that constitutional amendment down and send the issue back to the legislature, and in this case back to the drawing board, I’m not sure what else we’ll be able to come up with unilaterally as a legislature. We could go back to the people and put another constitutional amendment on the ballot.
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GR: The announcement of the (IDC) switch to the Democrats arguably creates some confusion for voters in your district, because unless they are paying a lot of attention, it’s unclear what they are voting for in November. What is the impact of one’s vote on the kinds of legislation and proposals that are going to be considered? DV: Very rarely can you point to elections where the populous votes for political control of a body of a legislature, of a house of representatives, of a United States Senate or of a New York State Senate. The vast majority of people go into a ballot box voting for the incumbent or against the incumbent. They weigh the choice that they have in that particular election and say, I think he or she is better for the job or this other candidate is better. I don’t know that what you are articulating is necessarily at the top of most voters’ minds. They look at our records as individual legislators and they say he is doing a good job or he is not doing a good job. My insistence, in addition to many of the other members of the IDC, was that the Independent Democratic Conference remains an independent conference. There was pressure for the IDC senators to fold back into the Senate Democratic Conference. From my perspective, that was a deal breaker really. There is no backing away from the intent to work on individual issues in a bipartisan fashion doing what’s best for the people of the state or for a specific geographic region. GR: What’s the IDC’s worst trait? DV: We at times have been overly deliberative and maybe not moved as quickly as perhaps we should have on particular issues, not in terms of this coalition government or decisions that we made to form the coalition, but more on individual issues.
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GR: What achievement of the IDC so far has surprised you the most? DV: How well and quickly the IDC was able to take leadership of a governing construct — coalition government — that is completely foreign to almost all, not only New Yorkers, but all Americans. We don’t have coalition government; we are not a parliamentary democracy in the United States. So the ability that we were able to have in a two-year legislative cycle — to put together and really change the status quo in Albany for the positive — would be my answer. SNT
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