.@chairmanedCox has no plans to step away from New York State GOP chairmanship; Flanagan trying to remain state Senate Republican leader
Cox has no plans to step away from New York State GOP chairmanship; Flanagan trying to remain state Senate Republican leader
Cox has no plans to step away from New York State GOP chairmanship; Flanagan trying to remain state Senate Republican leader
What brought the New York Republican Party to death’s door (NYP)
Tuesday brought the state Republican Party to a new low, and the city GOP to the edge of extinction.The biggest change has been a long time coming: Republican control of the state Senate has been at risk for decades now, preserved by extreme gerrymandering and the votes of renegade Democrats.
And while the chamber’s GOP members fought off the occasional tax hike and other progressive priorities, its members have mainly focused on what bacon they could deliver for their districts or favors for special interests.
Notably, then-Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno went right along in 2002 when Gov. George Pataki struck his squalid bargain with 1199, the health-care workers union, showering its members with huge permanent raises in exchange for its support in a single election cycle.
Above all, they failed to fundamentally alter New York’s high-tax, high-regulation approach to . . . everything, which has gradually eroded the upstate economy to dust — leading to the depopulation of the state’s most rocked-rib-Republican areas.
Long Island’s economy has done better, but the GOP machines there turned too utterly venal, with misgovernment and outright corruption turning the party brand into a sick joke. The main legacy of these machines will be massive debt, high electric rates, insanely paid cops and white elephants like the Nassau Coliseum.
That’s the other main leg of state Republican power gone.
And the New York City GOP, after generations of not really standing for much of anything, is a walking corpse. With Rep. Dan Donovan’s loss, the city will now send no Republican to the House of Representatives for the first time since the party’s founding back in 1854. Thanks to Staten Island, it still has members in the Assembly and state Senate . . . for now.
Some would like to blame state GOP Chairman Ed Cox, but the simple fact is that he lacks the power and cash to make much difference: Factions like the GOP Senate leadership and the Long Island machines have kept the chairmanship close to ceremonial for years now. Bill Powers was the last strong state chairman, back in ’90s under Pataki.
Frankly, Sen. Al D’Amato, though two decades out of office and regularly aligned with Democrats, may well have more influence in the party than Cox. And lots of Republicans resent that: One reason Marc Molinaro had trouble raising funds this year was that many donors turned cold after he turned to D’Amato- and Pataki-aligned consultants.
And that’s the state of the New York party: scattered factions; some principled, some venal, some just holding on to their ever-smaller club.
The only good news is that there’s nowhere to go but up: to learn and grow enough that Republicans just might possibly be ready to lead when Democrats, now in total control, fail badly enough that voters have to turn somewhere.
If the GOP remnants look to the future, they might be able to have one.
