Three Men in a Room: The Inside Story of Power and Betrayal in an American Statehouse

I finished my reading a few days ago on corruption in New Jersey as told by Bob Ingle and Sandy McClure in their book The Soprano State. A few of the comments on that book mentioned Three Men in a Room as a companion piece to it. The short tome on New York politics was an interesting read. Seymour Lachman was a New York state senator who represented parts of Staten Island and Brooklyn before leaving the legislature in 2005 and shares his experiences and frustrations with how the Legislature operates in Albany. He concentrated his story on the abuse of power by the Governor, the Senate Majority Leader and the Speak of the Assembly (The three men in a room) who would kill any legislation at will just by putting a bill aside in their meetings. He also mentioned the general corruption of the Legislature where payoffs and sexual trysts were the norm of the day. In one chapter he tells of the lack of accountability of the public authorities and corporations that were created obstensivly to keep decision making about infrastructure matters out of the poltical process, but with the board members being appointed by the three men in a room, partisanship and lack of accountability runs rife. He also rebukes the gang in Albany for running huge debt in these authorities in order to hide the debt from the public and postpone the need for taxes increases to pay for their obligations. Mr. Lachman closes the book by offering solutions to the problems in Albany such as term limits, even distribution on money for staff in both the majority and minority of each house and to establish a nonpartisan ethics commission to monitor all branches of government in Albany. For a short read of just under 180 pages, Mr. Lachman makes his case clear. Whether you are a liberal or conservative, you will enjoy this book.

Seymour Lachman spent five years as a State Senator in New York. He observed how, as he describes in the title of his book, three people-the Governor, the Assembly Speaker, and the Senate Majority Leader, have effectively controlled New York legislative politics. All major legislative decisions were made during discussions and compromises between these three leaders. These three leaders essentially decide which bills will become law. New York Governors traditionally are politically strong and legislators seldom challenge their final decisions. From 1870 to 1976, the legislature never overrode a Gubernatorial veto. The author notes that New York some years had the lowest percentage of bills introduced that became law, which was as low as 4% in 2002. Rank and file legislators were mostly pawns expected to either ratify the decisions these three leaders made or challenge them under risk of political penalty or ostracism. It is the author's personal observation that New York legislators enjoy the perks of office yet their offices have relatively little real political power compared to these three leaders. These leaders maintain their political power in New York by distributing campaign funds and maneuvering redistricting in seeing that those who follow their political lead are elected. (It should be noted that this book was written of the Republican George Pataki Administration. A legislator described in this book as more reform minded has since been elected Lieutenant Governor.) Legislative incumbents are usually reelected, according to the author. Those who follow the will of their leadership are provided districts through redistricting in which they are likely to be reelected. As the author was told when he arrived to serve the legislature, he could either follow his leadership "and rise to the top, or be an independent who votes on principle, and sink to the bottom." One method that this New York leadership uses to control the outcome of legislative votes is through manipulating proxy voting. The leaders get the proxies from the legislators and the leaders then decide how these legislators will be recorded as voting. Thus, this proxy voting has at times left legislators on record as opposing even their interests. The author noted times when even independent minded legislators would either give up and follow their leaders or give their leaders a proxy and wind up voting against their true positions on issues. This process does not operate smoothly, which is ironic for a process that so concentrates power. The three political powers often disagree on major budget items. The New York legislature is notorious for almost never passing a budget before a new fiscal year has begun. In fact, 2004 marked the 20th consecutive year the New York legislature was unable to reach a budget agreement by the end of the current fiscal year deadline. The New York legislative process was not open for general participation by other legislat

This is that rare political book that should appeal equally to Democrats and Republicans. It is a simply told account of how New York State government is run by a few men who are essentially exempt from the usual checks and balances of democracy (i.e. elections). Anyone who reads this book should see why it is that the current system in Albany needs to be changed.

Big name authors flock to national politics. But Seymour Lachman, a 71-year-old former New York State Legislator, has come out of nowhere to skewer state-level politics with surprising flair. Yeah, it's about New York. But you don't have to be a Yankee or Mets fan to learn its lessons. Lachman and co-writer Rob Polner have created a cigar-chomping, inside look at how the bottom has fallen out of local government -- and how a circus troupe of hacks and hucksters are bankrupting us by charging a fortune to patch its foundation. And you thought Halliburton was bad. If you want to run for the state house, or work for someone who does, this is an indispensable book. If you want to know how your tax money is being spent, it's a real eye opener.

THREE MEN IN A ROOM is the one-stop, go-to source that puts together -- in fewer than 200 pages -- what's wrong with New York State government. It's more valuable than a file cabinet full of yellowing newspaper clippings, a lot cheaper than an annual subscription to your local daily newspaper (which probably doesn't cover Albany's doings all that well -- if at all), and a lot better written. If it's scandals you want to read about, stick to the tabloids. That's what they're good at -- and why they fail to enlighten New Yorkers about what's really wrong in Albany. The unique advantage of this book is that its primary author, Seymour Lachman, was a State Senator, and he bring to it first-hand knowledge of Albany's peculiar, dysfunctional ways, illuminating how and why New York State's government can't and won't work properly until there are fundamental changes. What Lachman spells out better than any pack of reporters why state government is failing New Yorkers -- not because the State Legislature is filled with crooks, but because the state's entire legislative and political system has been set up so that voters have virtually no say in why the laws that get passed are passed; why New York's total tax burden just keeps skyrocketing, even while virtually every legislator runs for office as a "budget cutter"; why voting districts are shaped like inkblots from a Rorschach test, with little regard for natural boundaries such as neighborhoods or geography; and why party leaders are chosen on the basis of their ability to enforce conformity to their will rather than inspired visions about how to make New York the "Empire State" it claims to be but is no longer. This is no "tear it down" manifesto. This is a cry from the heart by someone who has spent a lifetime in public service and went to Albany expecting he could do some good. THREE MEN IN A ROOM is a clear-eyed explanation of why nothing is going to change until New York's voters take charge of their own destiny and demand that "business as usual" is has got to stop.