The Times-Union, January 23, 2010, Saturday

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The Times-Union

January 23, 2010, Saturday

138 STATE NOMINEES STILL IN LIMBO

BYLINE: RICK KARLIN CAPITOL BUREAU

BODY:
ALBANY -- The calendar and the legislative session are new. The logjam of nominations to state boards, commis-sions and regulatory posts is not.

While there are typically a number of nominations from the governor awaiting Senate confirmation at any given time, the current list of 138 people is longer than usual, say observers, who wonder if it's symptomatic of the chaos and conflict that has visited the chamber in recent months, as well as delays from Gov. David Paterson's office.

Some of the nominations are more than 10 months old; Ashop Gupta, nominated to the state's Energy and Research and Development Authority, has been in limbo for a year.

"Now that the Senate is back in regular session, I am hopeful that they will begin to work through their backlog of appointments," Cornell professor Ronald Ehrenberg said in an e-mail. A nationally known expert on higher education and work force issues, he was nominated to the State University of New York board of trustees last May.

Some of the names are renominations of people already serving on boards or commissions. The list even includes famous names such as singer Natalie Merchant, who is up for another term on the state Council of the Arts.

Sen. Carl Kruger, D-Brooklyn, chairs the Finance Committee, which handles many of the nominations before they go to the full Senate for debate and confirmation. His spokesman Jason Koppel said work should get moving as early as Monday, when lawmakers return to session.

"It's a slow process, but they are starting to move," Koppel said, explaining that appointments to New York City's Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation are on tap.

"A lot of it depends on the discretion of the chair," Senate Democratic spokesman Austin Shafran said of the process.

In years past, nomination backups were blamed on friction between the executive and legislative branches. About four dozen nominations piled up during the summer of 2006 as Gov. George Pataki and Senate Republicans -- who were then in charge of the chamber -- battled over the budget.

Kruger and many of his Senate Democratic colleagues have been critical of Paterson on issues ranging from the budget to ethics reform. Both Koppel and Shafran said they didn't believe friction between senators and Paterson led to the current backlog.

But while nominations are only rarely shot down, the ability to delay them can be an extension of power.

Governors put their stamp on state policy through appointments to organizations such SUNY, NYSERDA or Adi-rondack Park Agency -- where a potential new board member, Francis William Valentino, was nominated in June.

With some of the appointments good for years, governors can extend their influence beyond their term of office. SUNY trustees, for example, serve for seven years, making it easy for them to outlast governors.

In the absence of new nominations and approvals, holdovers can continue to serve. SUNY's Aminy Audi and Mike Russell are both Pataki nominees serving despite expired terms. That's also true of two Adirondack Park Agency board members, Art Lussi and Jim Townsend, whose terms expired in June.

On lower-profile boards, people can serve for years -- under both Democratic and Republican administrations.

"This is the fourth governor's appointment for me," said Regis Obijiski, a member of the Advisory Council to the Commission on Quality of Care and Advocacy for Persons with Disabilities. That organization helps the CQC, which has oversight of state institutions.

"My experience has been that it just takes time," Obijiski said of the nomination and approval process.

Still, the Senate's chaotic summer -- marked by a failed interparty coup and the ongoing fragility of the Democrat's 32-30-vote majority -- means that even a non-controversial nominee can get hung up.

In addition to feuds between coequal branches, partisan conflicts have also blocked nominations in the past.

Assemblyman Jack McEneny, D-Albany, recalled his own 1975 nomination to the Adirondack Park Agency. At the time, Democratic Gov. Hugh Carey was at odds with the Republican Senate, and the nomination never made it to the floor for a vote.

"I got caught in the cross-fire," McEneny said.

Reach Rick Karlin at 454-5758 or rkarlin@timesunion.com

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