Seneca casino scheme bends the state Constitution and the norms of voting

Yesterday, we explained how Gov. Hochul voluntarily and correctly recused herself from upstate gambling matters due to her husband’s position as general counsel to Delaware North, a major player in upstate casinos, thus turning over her authority to a group of her aides we called the Blob.

The Blob, composed of five smart people, made a dumb move to agree to a non-disclosure agreement in negotiating a new tribal-state compact with the Seneca Nation of Indians. Left in the dark were the people and local officials in Rochester, where the Senecas are eying a new casino.

Today, we want to point out the failure of Albany procedures in the both executive and legislative branches that thwart transparency and stoke public cynicism in government.

Even though the Blob knew that the annual legislative session was due to end on June 8, last Thursday, it waited until that day to introduce a bill to seal its deal with the Senecas. When the Legislature went into extra innings on Friday, the Blob sent a message of necessity to bypass the rule in the state Constitution requiring all bills wait three days before being voted on.

The recused Hochul had to sign that message. Imagine this: “Boss, you have to sign this, but we can’t tell you what it is about.” So was Hochul momentarily unrecused? Nice. The Blob abused the purpose of the message of necessity and embarrassed Hochul.

The unaware Senate then passed the bill at 3:19 Friday afternoon, according to the Senate’s Twitter on a vote of 62-1. But by the time that the vote was formally recorded later on, the official tally was 59-4, with three Rochester area senators switching their votes after the fact. They can do that? Yes, just as a vote to water down the new campaign finance program barely passed Friday at 4:35 by 32-31, only to change to a more comfortable margin of 34-29 later on.

The practice of vote switching wasn’t even known to longtime Albany hands we spoke to. How convenient. We are sure that plenty of citizens would like to change their votes as well.