NEW YORK — The California Legislature -- the domain of "girlie men," according to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger -- doesn't come close to matching the assessment of its East Coast counterpart in a new study. The legislative process in New York state has been labeled the most dysfunctional in the nation.
In a scathing report, a research and advocacy group said that fewer than 1% of the key bills passed by lawmakers from 1997 through 2001 were the subject of public hearings and that fewer than one in 20 were debated on the floors of the state Senate or Assembly.
Making the process even more opaque, the report said, New York has the only state legislature that routinely allows empty-seat voting, in which the votes of absent representatives are automatically counted as favoring a bill's passage.
Adding to the limitations on the public's ability to participate, the group said, Democrats and Republicans routinely discussed bills behind closed doors without any transcript or public record.
"New York State's legislative process is broken," the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University's law school said in a report issued last week. "Neither the U.S. Congress nor any other state legislature so systematically limits the roles played by rank-and-file legislators and members of the public in the legislative process."
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno challenged the conclusion.
Charles Carrier, a spokesman for Silver, said the speaker constantly communicated with members and committee heads. "Everybody is involved," Carrier said. "His leadership is based on dialogue."
In comments to reporters in Albany, the state capital, Bruno called the report "pure nonsense" and a document written by people who are "just reading books and studying and doing research."
The majority leader said the Legislature exemplified representative government and compared it to a large corporation in which the chief executive must possess communication and leadership skills.
"People elect representatives, representatives elect their leader, their leader represents their interests," he said.
The Brennan Center, named after late U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr., portrayed the Legislature as dominated by Bruno, a Republican from upstate New York, and Silver, a Democrat who represents a district in Manhattan.
