By Doug Miller
Skelos, a Rockville Centre native who has represented the 9th Senate District for more than 20 years, is indeed among the top power brokers in Albany, and says he uses that power, effectively, to bring influence and state aid to the district.
But Goldberg says Skelos must be held accountable for what she and several critics have called a culture of dysfunction in the capital, a place where favors are returned and loyalty is rewarded by "three men in a room" -- the governor, the Senate majority leader and the Assembly speaker, according to a recent book by a retired senator.
Goldberg has seized on that theme in her attacks on Skelos.
"I can't believe we have a senator who says he is more interested in results than the democratic process," Goldberg said in a recent interview with the Herald's editorial board. Her comments during the one-hour session were almost entirely about Skelos and his record. She accused him of using his position on the Senate's Rules Committee to stifle important legislation, and said that his deep pockets made running against him an uphill battle. "He's got unlimited money from the GOP," Goldberg said. "People can't know about me."
Nearly every topic that was broached with Goldberg was steered into an attack on Skelos. She said the laws he has written recently fall into three categories: "safe laws, smoke screens and too little too late."
Megan's Law? "That is so safe," Goldberg said. "Who wouldn't want to protect children?"
The School Tax Relief (STAR) program of school tax rebates for homeowners? "That's a smoke screen," she said. "It's a bribe for voters."
New affordable housing initiatives? "Too little too late," Goldberg said, without elaborating.
She said that high property tax rates could be directly tied to Skelos's support of teachers, and blamed him by name for the troubles in the Lawrence Public School District.
Skelos, for his part, said he was proud of his record and that he thought the voters in his district were also more interested in results than the process, while dismissing Goldberg's accusations about a secret oligarchy. "We voted out [former Senate Majority Leader Ralph] Marino when the conference didn't support him," Skelos said. "If reform is needed, it is in more joint conferences with the Assembly."
He said the STAR payments and property tax rebates were timed to coincide with people's property tax bills, not with elections, and that eliminating these programs, as Goldberg seems to say she wants, would raise Long Island property taxes by about $1 billion.
Skelos estimated that the Medicaid inspector general's office, which his staff created, will save the state about 5 percent of its Medicaid costs every two years, and that he helped pay for a lot of the programs in the Lawrence schools that the local board simply couldn't afford under the contingency budget it has been restricted to for the past three years.
"It's my feeling that elected officials should be getting results for the district," he said.
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