by Erik Kriss in Albany

By Thursday, New York state government will have a new milestone to symbolize the futility of the 2004 legislative session: the latest State budget ever.

In a session marked by few noteworthy achievements, the failure to adopt a budget more than four months after the fiscal year began April 1 is likely to stand out - especially because it's the 20th year in a row the State has been unable to pass a budget on time.

The word "dysfunctional" has become synonymous with Albany, to the point where pollsters have moved beyond asking voters about the issues to querying them on whether they think their government is broken.

And the voters' answer? Yes, in two thirds of cases, according to a recent survey by Quinnipiac University - prompted by a year-long study of the State Legislature by New York University's Brennan Center for Justice that endeavored to show why.

"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," maintained the 56-page report, released earlier this month.

Its authors, as well as government reformers representing the ideological spectrum, plan to use the document to promote debate about Albany's dysfunction in this election year for all 212 State legislators, and to try to force those lawmakers to take positions on changing the rules that make the system so leader-driven.

Government watchdog groups also cite other fundamental reasons for Albany's paralysis.

As sessions drag on without resolution of issues, special interests continue contributing campaign cash to protect their positions and continue breaking records in spending on lobbying.

Lawmakers schedule Albany fund-raisers until nearly the end of the regular annual session, which runs from January through June.

"You can see what their priorities are," said Blair Horner, legislative director for the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG).

In election years, lawmakers are normally eager to dispense with the budget, and the session, to hit the campaign trail.

In fact, while lawmakers set the old August 4 record for late budgets in the non-election years of 1997 and 1999, the latest the State had ever gone in a legislative election year was July 13, in 1996.

What's different this year?

In an acronym, CFE.

The New York City-based Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) won a lawsuit claiming the State's school aid formula short-changed the Big Apple.

The State's highest court, the Court of Appeals, gave Governor George Pataki and the Legislature until yesterday (July 30) to come up with a solution.

Pataki and his fellow Republicans who control the state Senate have blamed Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and his majority Democrats for refusing to deal on the budget until the CFE matter is solved.

Silver, a Manhattan Democrat, accused the Republicans of failing to offer a plan that comes close to meeting the additional aid required by the court's order that all children receive a "sound, basic education."

The result? Gridlock.

The lack of progress prompted Pataki to order lawmakers back to the State Capitol in extraordinary session July 22 to deal with CFE a month after they had finished their regular 2004 session. He sent them a bill aimed at satisfying the court's order. The Assembly's education committee rejected the bill along party lines.

Pataki's Republican Assembly allies accused Silver and the Democrats of violating the constitutional spirit of the extraordinary session by failing even to allow the governor's bill to be debated on the floor of the house.

But it was just the latest in a laundry list of major issues, identified by lawmakers themselves and advocates, that failed to make it to the Governor's desk.

Rank-and-file lawmakers failed in open, joint conference committees to negotiate compromises on bills easing the State's 1973 drug laws and modernizing its voting processes following the Florida debacle in the 2000 presidential election.

Mental health insurance parity, new rules for siting power plants, action on automobile insurance laws that expired years ago, bills to reform public authorities, and to better regulate lobbying on State procurement contracts all fell prey to the inability of the two houses and the governor to deal. Environmentalists complained they were shut out.

If the past is a guide, some, or even all, of those issues could be resolved if and when Pataki and the legislative leaders agree on a budget.

Lawmakers are due back in Albany Monday (August 2) for another special session and are likely to pass another six-week emergency spending bill to keep the State running, in the absence of a budget, until September 12.

It has become standard practice for one party or another to hold out on major issues until all issues are resolved, normally with agreement on the budget.

The theory is none of the leaders wants to surrender what have become bargaining chips in the elaborate negotiations that produce a big, end-of-session, catch-all agreement that NYPIRG's Horner and others have dubbed, "The Big Ugly."

"The problem is nothing gets done until everything gets done," Horner said. "They can't address anything else until they deal with the budget."

Barbara Bartoletti of the League of Women Voters said things have changed. "They used to do the budget and then would do programmatic issues," she said.

If electoral politics has spurred quicker action on the budget and related issues in the past, it is by many observers' reasoning the driving force behind perhaps the most significant piece of legislation passed in Albany so far this year: an increase in New York's minimum wage. In their own special session last week, the Senate and Assembly passed a bill (July 21) to boost the $5.15 minimum wage to $7.15 by 2007.

Senate Republicans had long resisted the move, but Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, (a Republican from Brunswick, near Troy), was said to be aiming to help at least two Republican candidates running in heavily Democratic New York City districts: Assemblymember Stephen Kaufman of the Bronx, and Roosevelt Island's own Senator Olga Mendez, who switched from the Democratic Party after her 2002 re-election. She faces an uphill battle trying to win on the GOP line.

But as the Brennan Center report pointed out, Mendez, Kaufman, and most lawmakers have little ability to shape and steer legislation.

The report called the Legislature's committee system "moribund," documented how many major bills are rushed through after secret deals by the governor and legislative leaders, and found a lack of meaningful open, cross-party debate on virtually all major legislation.

"Top staff are more involved in negotiations of top issues than the rank-and-file members," said Horner, who has observed the Capitol for two decades. "It's the nature of the beast in New York. Much of the rest of the country doesn't operate like this."

Bruno and Silver dismissed the Brennan Center's report, saying their colleagues are well-informed and very involved in the decisions and action of government.

The Citizens Budget Commission (CBC), a well-regarded, business-funded New York City group that analyzes State finances, became so frustrated with Albany that it recently asked every legislator to demand a three-day review before voting on the State budget.

Such a review is the rule for legislation, but Pataki often uses a "message of necessity" to allow an immediate vote after cutting secret deals with Bruno and Silver.

Only one of every four lawmakers - most of them in the frustrated, powerless minorities - signed the CBC's pledge.

The Brennan Center argued rank-and-file legislators fall prey to the legislative leaders' control over virtually all hiring, the flow of all legislation, even members' ultimate salaries.

Bruno and Silver, along with Pataki, have held their posts for about a decade, the longest the same three people have been in the top leadership positions simultaneously in New York history. By most accounts, the three, particularly Pataki and Silver, have developed a distrust over the years that has hurt their ability to deal in good faith on the budget and other major issues.

Adding to the public cynicism about Albany is the corruption that's bubbled to the fore this year.

Former Senator Guy Velella, a Bronx Republican; former Assemblymember Roger Green, a Brooklyn Democrat; and former Pataki Labor Commissioner James McGowan all pleaded guilty to crimes, which forced Velella and Green from office.

"It's been a uniquely terrible year with regard to government corruption," Horner said. "That is one open sore. They haven't addressed it."

What's the cure?

"We need more competitive elections," Horner said.

Bartoletti suggested Albany's peformance this year should help in that regard.

"I would ask, why should I vote for someone in the State Legislature if I see no accomplishment?" she said. "Why should I send you back?"