‘Good, bad or indifferent’

“One thing I can tell you for certain, the replacement is going to be a Democrat… Good, bad or indifferent, that’s the way it’s done.”—Leni Binder (D-7) on replacing Republican Steven Kurlander (RC-9).

Most Republicans have interpreted the Sullivan County Legislature majority leader’s recent comments about the replacement of the resigning district-nine Republican legislator as Democratic crowing over the carcass of a political adversary.

Certainly, during their years serving together, there was little love lost between Binder and Kurlander, whose political disagreements were frequent, sharp and sometimes loud.

But perhaps Binder, a former teacher and one of the panel’s more insightful members, was also publicly displaying the status quo for our evaluation. Perhaps her very public, and unsolicited, prediction of an upcoming partisan appointment was also a heads-up for the public. She might have been saying, “Here folks, this is what’s going to get stuffed down your throats. Taste it before dinner.”

Can there be any other reason for a savvy politician such as Binder to make, borrowing the comments of Republican Chairman Greg Goldstein, such a “blatant remark,” about a process that would normally be conducted in the privacy of a party caucus?

Given the rationale that the Legislature was moving to oust Kurlander because his e-mail-styled representation of the district was providing new ammunition for critics who have never accepted the need or legitimacy of the Legislature, the last thing the county panel needed was evidence of political partisanship on a Legislature whose strongest point of comparison to the old board of supervisors has always been its relative non-partisanship.

What does it do for the Legislature’s credibility to, on the one hand, issue an open call for candidates, while leadership is at the same time saying that some of those candidates need not apply?

After many years of covering local politics and government, we cannot dispute the accuracy of Binder’s prediction in practical terms. The party in power almost always appoints one of it’s own to a vacancy in an elected legislative position. Opposition party candidates, when they are selected, are named to elected jobs with judicial or regulatory duties likely to draw public ire. Be mad at the other party, not at us.

Occasionally somebody bucks “the way it’s done,” and something surprising happens. When Bill Perez resigned as Highland supervisor in the early 80’s, the remaining town board was split between two Republicans and two Democrats. Republican William Werneke crossed over and cast the deciding vote that installed Democrat Andrew Boyar in a job he would hold for 16 years. During that time, Boyar went on to become chairman of the board of supervisors where he started the restoration of the county’s fiscal integrity and became a champion of the county charter, which provided for the creation of a county legislature.

But “the way it’s done,” was the rule then, and Werneke was harshly criticized for his vote, eventually left the Republican Party and was re-elected as a Democrat.

The overall outcome of “the way it’s done” was that Sullivan County gained an active leader and the Town of Highland Republican Party lost one. Where would Sullivan County be if Werneke had not followed his convictions instead of “the way it’s done?”

Republican minority leader Rodney Gaebel now is saying that there may well be a similar problem this year, if the people of district nine, after twice electing a Republican, are saddled with an appointed Democrat. “People might say that’s not the way it should be. Normally an incumbent has an advantage, but people could say this should have been their choice,” Gaebel said.

None of this is to say that Steven Sharoff, who lost two narrowly decided elections to Kurlander in the past, or Robert Rosen are not qualified candidates. This is not an argument that Republican James Carnell is the most qualified candidate.

This is, instead, an argument that “the way it’s done” is a dinosaur of old politics that survives today only when leaders in both parties, who are in positions to change it, simply nod and smile when somebody reasserts that “the way it’s done,” is the only way it can be done.

David Hulse, News Editor