Hevesi's Second Plea

By Chris Callaghan

Former New York State Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi will be serving time for taking kick-backs from brokers doing business with the consolidated pension fund.

While Attorney General Cuomo would have us believe that corrupt Albany politicians quiver at the sound of his name, Hevesi's is really the only scalp he has hung on his belt.

Cuomo certainly set his sights on the low-hanging fruit. It's a shame that, even with the ethics bar set so low in Albany, Alan Hevesi could still walk under it.

Hevesi didn't invent Albany corruption but it seems that, by the time he resigned shortly after he was reelected, he had become its most aggressive practitioner.

From stacking, with double and triple "dippers" (i.e. collecting pension and paycheck simultaneously), the upper echelon of the office charged with stopping pension abuse, to using tax money to pay for domestic service, to leaving the doors of the pension vault open to friends and relatives, Hevesi seems to have left no stone unturned in his pursuit of booty and his degradation of his office.

When I began my campaign for State Comptroller against Alan Hevesi, I was asked by a few reporters, "Why would anyone run against Alan Hevesi?" A supporter of mine who knew Hevesi described him as "the most honest man I know."

Even when, during the campaign, we pointed out the unsavory relationship between Alan Hevesi and Elliott Broidy, a relationship central to the charges against him (It had already been reported by Josh Gerstein of the New York Sun.) nobody cared.

Then we started pulling on a thread about a different part of Hevesi's corruption and, voila, his suit of sanctimony disintegrated.

Hevesi had assigned employees of his office, one on a full time basis, to act as domestic servants for his ailing wife.

He had done the same thing when he was NYC Comptroller, been caught, and reimbursed the City for the cost.

Still, most of the media shrugged - except for Fred (the Hammer) Dicker of the New York Post, who pursued the story relentlessly.

As the extent of Hevesi's abuse in that one area became clear, his viability as a public official evaporated.

However, New York voters were not, in 2006, ready to elect a Republican, or an upstater, or anyone wearing a bow tie.

Having admitted only to petit larceny, relatively speaking, Hevesi was reelected and resigned.

The New York State Constitution gives the replacement authority to the Legislature, effectively giving appointment authority to Speaker Sheldon Silver.

Governor Spitzer, at that time passing himself off as a paragon of rectitude, now of CNN, thought the Speaker should share that authority, so a sham process was conducted.

Ignoring the results (and in the process insulting former Comptrollers Regan, McCall, and Golden) Speaker Silver plucked Tom DiNapoli from corruption's seminary, the Assembly Democratic Conference.

I have a theory that Silver purposely chose the least qualified applicant in order to show Spitzer who was boss.

Some will use Hevesi's guilty plea as evidence that the Comptroller's role as sole trustee of the pension fund should be ended. But let's remember that because Alan Hevesi was the sole trustee, he has nowhere to hide.

A board of trustees diffuses responsibility and is no guarantee of integrity. Particularly when government corruption has risen to the levels that it has, the lines of responsibility should be, if anything, more boldly drawn.

Having said that, the need to have someone watch the watchdog, a need made obvious back with the chauffeur scandal, still has not been addressed.

Notwithstanding that lingering weakness, in last week's debate between the hapless DiNapoli and his Republican opponent, Harry Wilson, the incumbent Comptroller bragged about the many reforms he has brought to the office.

DiNapoli shouldn't dislocate his shoulder patting himself on the back. Since his predecessor is headed for jail, if DiNapoli hadn't made some changes, he would probably spend part of his own retirement in the hoosegow.

Beyond assuring the voters that the Comptroller's office was no longer a criminal enterprise (Andrew Cuomo has yet to sign off on that.), DiNapoli's debate strategy was to accuse Wilson of being from Wall Street and, therefore, as evil as Michael Douglas.

Having spent his entire career in government, DiNapoli is appalled that Wilson had spent his career pursuing - send the children out of the room - profits!

Three points have to be made. First, while much of Wall Street has acted irresponsibly over the past few years, DiNapoli's attempts to connect Wilson to those behaviors were tortured.

Second, the irresponsibility of New York State government over a couple of decades far eclipses the excesses of the financial industry.

Third, as sole trustee of the $125 billion consolidated pension fund, DiNapoli had a bigger investment in subprime mortgages than Harry Wilson.

Harry Wilson, born in Johnstown, an upstate New York mill town, to an immigrant mother and a first generation Greek father, worked hard, went to Harvard, went to Wall Street, and got rich. For a time, he specialized in turning around failing businesses. This year, he's tackling a doozy.

I've joined Harry Wilson's War on corruption and waste in New York State government.

After Hevesi and DiNapoli, it will take a man of his integrity and talent to scrub the stink off of the Comptroller's office.

In 2006, Chris Callaghan was the Republican candidate in the election for New York State Comptroller. Mr Callaghan receieved the endorsements of the New York Times, the New York Post, the New York Sun and the Times Herald-Record among others.