Whoa.
It's been clear for years that the Republicans in the State Senate used state money to keep their operations afloat, but on this scale? That's an amazing patronage and PR infrastructure.
We need more transparency, period. The only reason this nonsense can go on is that nobody talks about it while those benefiting from it are in power.
(And no, I don't think slicing the minority party's staff allotment is smart, though I'd appreciate the Republican party maybe sending the state a few bucks to cover their plainly political use of tax dollars over the past few decades.)
Posted by simon at February 12, 2009 8:28 AM in politics (state)
However, reading to the end of that NYT article, it doesn't seem like the Dems are in the giving vein now that they're in charge...
Sadly, you're quite right.
I'd really like to think the Senate Dems would learn from their years in the minority that abusing majority privilege is a bad idea, but so far I've seen very few signs of it. Some hearings on reform that may yet bear fruit - may yet...
As I keep muttering, the Senate Republicans lost, but we don't seem to have won.