Quote of the day: The crooks in government get away with just about everything. Unfortunately, the good guys are stuck playing by the rules

"What in good golly goes through these confounded fellows' heads?" [language altered slightly to enhance publishability]
--keninny, contemplating the apparently looming end of the political career of New York State Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi (seen here with his wife, Carol, after his defeat in the 2001 New York City mayoral primary)

Probably many Americans recall that September 11, 2001, which turned out to be something altogether different, started out in New York City as primary day--in particular for the three citywide offices: mayor, public advocate and city comptroller. Again as many Americans probably recall, it was an unbelievably beautiful late-summer day, the kind of weather in which New York City is just the bestest place in the world to be. Or at any rate you don't mind being here.

Hardly anyone knows or cares that, partly braced by that gorgeous weather, I roused myself unusually early and, allowing myself extra time to be able to vote before work, actually was at my desk in Midtown before 9am, with my civic duty done. A bit later a coworker said something crazy about a plane flying into the World Trade Center. It turned out to be true, and . . . well, everyone knows what happened from there.

The primary election was canceled, of course. All of the votes already cast were thrown out. Most of us who had already voted were lucky enough to be able to participate in the rescheduled primary. An untold number of early-morning voters that day, eager to get to their WTC desks bright and early to attack the beautiful new day, weren't so lucky. It doesn't rank high on the list of the day's disasters, but it's worth remembering that for those folks, the last votes they cast were thrown out.

Now we get to the point: a fact that no one knows--or, surely, cares about. That morning, in the hotly contested four-way mayoral primary, I voted for New York City Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi--then finishing his second term as comptroller, following 22 years as a state assemblyman from Queens. And I did so without regret, unless you count the likelihood that, apart from me, it didn't look like it was apt to be much more than the comptroller's family and friends voting that way.

This is, of course, a political world dominated by 24/7 self-promoters like then-outgoing Mayor Rudy Giuliani (right)--who, you may remember, in the wake of 9/11 generously offered to stay on as mayor beyond the end of his legal term. Actually, he didn't so much "offer" as announce how things should be, in that familiar bullying tone, the tone that says, "Fuck you, you shithead, I'm always right, and if you don't like it, you can just drop the fuck dead." No one could have been more surprised than our Rudy when a city still under siege politely thanked him for his service but assured him that, even in the wake of a disaster like 9/11, we are capable of operating our government in accordance with the applicable laws.

Some of us wondered whether the newly canonized Saint Rudy of the Heaven-Sent Rubble, who in truth had kind of worn out his welcome in our town before 9/11 gave him the kind of TV platform he functions best on, would leave City Hall quietly when his term ended, or would we have to send New York's Finest in to drag his sorry ass out?

As I look back, it may in fact have been the depth of my loathing for our Rudy, who I believe is one of the truly awful people on the planet, that attracted me to a quiet, professorial candidate like Hevesi. (He actually has been a college professor a good chunk of his life.) In the dog-eat-dog political world of the likes of Rudy Giuliani, he has the aura of a lamb offering himself for slaughter.

Not that I really knew that much about him. In all his years in the state Assembly, he'd always seemed to me a bright, conscientious guy--and he'd gotten himself elected city comptroller twice and done, as far as I could tell, a terrific job. Most visibly, as the city's chief auditor, he was frequently pointing out the shoddy financial policy if not outright lawbreaking of the Giuliani adminstration.

What non-New Yorkers may not know is that our Rudy's chief principle of governance was to pay no attention to any law he didn't like and sneer at suckers who whined about it, in effect daring them: If you don't like it, sue! And did they ever, in staggering numbers. Because the law was usually pretty clear-cut, with the Giuliani administration on the wrong side of it, the city comptroller's office got to process a steady procession of losing judgments the city was forced to pay as tribute to our mayor's ruthless, relentless, pathological egomania. For better or worse, nearly every time Rudy's minions dragged the messsage "The Lord Rudy is the law" into court, the court responded, "No, actually, he isn't."

It seemed logical to me that Hevesi as the "anti-Rudy" deserved the first shot at running the city, well, differently. It wasn't going to happen before 9/11, though, and it certainly wasn't going to happen after. However, Hevesi brushed himself off and put together a campaign that, the following year, got him elected state comptroller.

Once again, he not only has done what has seemed to me a commendable job of watching over finances but has managed to be a frequent thorn in the side of an untrustworthy Republican chief executive, in this case Gov. George Pataki (right), who after nearly three full terms in office remains almost as shadowy a figure as he was when the unspeakable then-Sen. Al D'Amato plucked him out of obscurity to run for the job. (To the two things we've always known about him--that he's really tall and that he went to Yale, which I don't imagine they brag about, though despite his height he's hardly their biggest alumni embarrassment--we can add this: His "principles," such as they are, are highly subject to prevailing political winds, but are basically for rent to the parties with the deepest pockets.)

I was just looking at the bio Hevesi has posted on the New York State Office of the State Comptroller website. Of course it's self-serving, but it goes on and on and on listing the things the guy has accomplished or proposed over all areas of state business. Of course I don't understand this stuff, and to tell you the truth I didn't more than glance over it. But I have a feeling it's all, or mostly, legit and serious stuff, of the sort that's likely to be done only by someone really destined to do that job.

As Michael Cooper, a really good reporter, points out in the New York Times story linked above, "For most of this year [Hevesi] was considered such a shoo-in for reelection that some pollsters did not even ask about the state comptroller's race." Cooper continues:

Then his little-known Republican opponent, [J. Christopher] Callaghan, the former Saratoga County treasurer, revealed that Mr. Hevesi had been using a state employee to drive his wife for more than three years.

Mr. Hevesi quickly acknowledged using one of his state employees to drive his wife, Carol, saying that she needed a driver for security reasons. He apologized "abjectly" and reimbursed the state for nearly $83,000 to cover the driver's costs, saying that his failure to do so for more than three years had been an oversight.

But the State Ethics Commission released a scathing 26-page report on Monday, accusing Mr. Hevesi of breaking the public officer's law and calling his defense of using the driver at all into question. The report found that there were never valid security reasons to assign a driver to Mrs. Hevesi and that Mr. Hevesi's reimbursement might not be enough, and questioned whether he had intended to repay the money.

Before the Ethics Commission report came out, I figured this would just be a little cloud hanging over Hevesi as he was reelected and served his next term as state comptroller.

Everyone is aware that Mrs. Hevesi has been ill, and one would guess seriously ill. The particulars don't seem to be much talked about, and frankly, that's none of our business. But of course, neither is it the state's business to provide her with chauffeur services. That Hevesi knows this is made abundantly clear by the woeful pretense of "security" concerns. As far as I know, the Hevesis aren't prosperous people, and providing Mrs. Hevesi with the kind of transport she has apparently needed would likely have been a tremendous financial burden on them. Again, alas, not the state's problem.

This is, rather, the price you pay for spending your life as a reasonably honest public servant. Somehow I don't imagine, say, Tom DeLay getting himself into this fix.

Nobody quite knows what will happen next. Even the law is unclear, providing at least two totally different mechanisms for removing the state comptroller--if it comes to that. Our soon-to-be governor, Eliot Spitzer (right), who we have to remember is actually still running for that office, stresses that he has read the Ethics Commission report carefully, and is "reevaluating my position" in the comptroller's race. A raft of investigations are under way, including one by the state attorney general's office, from which Attorney General Spitzer has recused himself on the ground of his political support of Hevesi.

As Cooper points out, Hevesi's problem now isn't so much his political enemies as his normal supporters:

Citizens Union, a nonpartisan civic group that had supported Mr. Hevesi for New York City comptroller, said that unless he could persuasively rebut the charges against him, "Citizens Union believes his actions are so inconsistent with one of the fundamental responsibilities of the comptroller--being the watchdog over the use of taxpayer dollars--that he should resign his position."

And Assemblyman William L. Parment, a Democrat representing Chautauqua County in western New York, called for Mr. Hevesi's resignation as well.

"I really can't quite figure out how he can continue in office," Mr. Parment said in an interview, adding that it was a hard position for him to take because he liked Mr. Hevesi. "The comptroller is the person who goes around the state and audits people's books, and has an oversight capacity on the conduct of public officials. Consequently, he has to be above suspicion. It's like Shakespeare: Caesar's wife has to be above suspicion."

Kirsten E. Gillibrand, a Democrat running to unseat Representative John E. Sweeney upstate, also called on Mr. Hevesi to resign. "Kirsten is running a campaign on ethics and accountability, and, given the present circumstances, she believes resignation would be appropriate," a Gillibrand campaign spokeswoman, Allison Price, said on Tuesday night.

And an important police union, the New York City Sergeants Benevolent Association, withdrew its endorsement of Mr. Hevesi. The union's president, Edward D. Mullins, said that the charges against Mr. Hevesi "suggest a total lack of regard and respect for the law."

Man, this sucks. If the Ethics Commission report stands unchallenged, and is as "scathing" as suggested, it seems pretty clear that Hevesi is going to have to go. And it's no help, I'm profoundly sorry to have to say, to point out that Republicans operate under a totally different set of "ethics."