How Dean Skelos can save New York's Republican Party
Bill Hammond. Monday,
July 7th 2008,
7:45 PM ... NY Daily News
Dean Skelos has completely flip-flopped on property
taxes since taking over as state Senate majority leader - and that's a rare
sign of hope for New
York's GOP.
His U-turn suggests that maybe, just maybe, Skelos
could pull the state's Republican-in-name-only
Party out of a decade-long nosedive and give voters a real choice at
the polls in November.
That could be the difference between the party
keeping control of the Senate and losing it for the first time since 1965.
A few weeks ago - before outgoing Majority Leader Joe Bruno handed him the
reins - Skelos privately told fellow party members on Long Island that campaigning for a cap on
property taxes would be a losing strategy.
The teachers unions hate the idea, and they vote,
he argued, according to people who heard his comments. He counseled candidates
to focus on trimming gas taxes instead.
It was the perfect distillation of the Albany mind-set: When faced with a tough
decision, change the subject.
Lawmakers know full well that sky-high property
taxes are long-term poison for the state, killing the
economy and driving
families away. Polls show that 75% of voters support capping their
growth, as
Gov. Paterson has proposed. But legislators are so
afraid of ticking off a
powerful interest, and
paying a price at the polls, that they refuse to take
action.
Thankfully, Skelos started singing a very different
tune from the moment he started his new job.
"There's no issue that's more important to the
people of this state than relief from property taxes," Skelos said in his
acceptance speech on the Senate floor last month. "This is the No. 1
agenda, the No. 2 agenda and the No. 3 agenda."
He quickly introduced a tax-cap bill closely
modeled on Paterson's - which would limit
yearly hikes in school taxes outside New York City to 4%, or 120% of the
inflation rate, whichever is less - and pledged to cooperate with the
Democratic governor to make it happen.
Skelos' change of heart isn't just good news for
taxpayers. It bodes well for his party. If the GOP
follows through - and says no, for once, to a powerful lobbying force in Albany - they will have a much
stronger case to make to voters this fall.
New York's GOP is long overdue for
a rebranding. After 12 years of George Pataki
as governor and 14 of Bruno
as majority leader, the party stands for little more than
self-preservation.
Instead of fighting
for real Republican ideas that would improve the state's
economy - such as smaller
government and lower taxes - Pataki and Bruno
leaped into
bed with one big-spending interest
group after another.
Sure, when elections rolled around every two years,
Pataki and Bruno would talk about the need to maintain two-party government at
the state Capitol. But their idea of "checks and balances" boiled
down to contribution checks and campaign-account balances.
That content-free political strategy has pushed New York's elephant herd to the brink of
extinction. Republicans held four of six statewide offices in 1998; now they
have none. They lost control of Westchester, Nassau and Suffolk counties.
The GOP share of the
29-member congressional
delegation could barely field a basketball team. And in
the Senate - the party's last major foothold
Republicans are one seat away
from losing their majority.
Skelos makes an unlikely choice to reverse this
trend. He's a son of Nassau's Republican machine,
which brought about its own demise by focusing on power for its own sake rather
than good government. His main claims to fame have been politically safe
campaigns to bring home the bacon and beat up on sex offenders. He rarely
dissented from the Pataki-Bruno line.
But some politicians, handed power in a crisis,
rise above their past limitations to become true leaders. Skelos' change of
heart on the property-tax cap is a good first step.
whammond@nydailynews.com
