|
Staying
the Course
‘We
don’t get a lot of sympathy.” Shawn Morris, Albany’s Common
Council president, was referring to legislators, and she was
commiserating with the Albany County Legislature. Of course
this was a week ago Monday (May 8), and Morris was one of
about 20 speakers who had shown up, along with supporters
spilling out into the halls, to speak up on behalf of Albany
County District Attorney David Soares as part of the political
firestorm that followed his remarks on U.S. drug policy on
May 2 at a Vancouver, B.C., conference on drug use and harm
reduction.
The real subject of Soares’ remarks, said Morris, was lawmakers
are afraid of change, and while she understood personally
the difficulties of being a lawmaker (hence the sympathy comment),
resolutions like the one proposed by Loudonville Republican
Ann Comella calling on Soares to apologize for his remarks
prevented useful dialogue on the matter at hand from taking
place.
She might as well have said lawmakers are afraid of offending
law enforcement (who, interestingly, get far more sympathy
in general than they themselves do). Although the call that
went around that generated the crowd had said that the legislature
was considering a “no confidence” vote in Soares, it was actually
specifically a call for him to apologize for small parts of
his remarks that were perceived to criticize the police.
For those who missed the hullabaloo, in the process of critiquing
U.S. drug laws, Soares said that one of the motivations for
keeping them in place was that they provided many lucrative
jobs for top law-enforcement officials like himself. That
he referred to top officials like himself, did not in any
way criticize the work or dedication of the officers themselves,
nor implied that street-level officers were in some way impeding
reform was all missed entirely—well, at least by representatives
of local law enforcement with a bone to pick with Soares.
They took a critique of a nationwide system personally, and
like a parent rewarding a spoiled child with what they asked
for, Comella was right there to back up their right to pout
over it.
Of course Soares had clarified his remarks earlier in the
day, reiterating what is obvious to anyone who has spoken
with him about crime and policing—that he deeply respects
police work—and by the time the meeting had rolled around,
Comella had accepted this as an apology and withdrawn her
resolution.
This gave an unusually buoyant feel to the room (not to mention
the admirable situation of people passing on their turns when
their point had been covered by another and nearly everyone
staying well within time limits). Still, a broad cross-section
of the coalition that elected Soares took the opportunity
to scold those legislators who might have considered the resolution,
and call on them to use their time more productively in investigations
of the costs and benefits of the drug laws themselves.
Sadly, this seems to have fallen on deaf ears, as Comella
insisted her resolution had nothing to do with the drug laws
themselves, and even the Times Union wrote “The County
Legislature has no authority to reform the Rockefeller Drug
Laws . . . yet speaker after speaker slammed the laws,” as
if there were no measures that could be taken on a county
level on the topic. This after speaker Michael Roona had specifically
referred to studies undertaken by Syracuse and Hartford, Conn.,
in this vein, and speaker after speaker had called for more
county support for programs that work, like drug court and
the community accountability boards.
But of course, the whole thing was political, not practical,
as Soares himself, in a perhaps-too-candid rebuttal to the
original criticism, made clear, with phrases like “They want
me? They’ll have to go after me,” and saying he’s glad the
behind-the-scenes resistance he’s been facing since he took
office came out in the open “before 2008.” Fred LeBrun’s observation
in response was that being cocky is a political-survival no-no
is not out of place.
But Soares’ return shots at the mayor and police chief and
sheriff don’t strike me as cocky so much as frustrated. That
doesn’t mean they were politically wise, but being an unpopular
(with your colleagues, that is) reformer in a closed, old-boy
political system is a very tricky thing.
Much as in a dysfunctional relationship that most of the family
is trying to hide from the rest of the world, those who outnumber
Soares can easily conspire to make the status quo seem fine,
and him like the troublemaker for trying to say there is a
problem. “I thought he was part of the team” (Jennings) and
“When he comes back, he really needs to meet with us to explain”
(Tuffey), are terribly patronizing things to say about your
peer who just got a standing ovation at an international conference
for saying things that had nothing to do with you. But they
nonetheless managed to paint themselves as the aggrieved parties
who were trying to make the relationship work until Soares
spoiled it, instead of the other way around. It’s a classic
passive-aggressive stance, and they should be called on it.
Of course since Soares can’t walk away from the relationship,
as it were, he will still have to pick his words carefully,
taking pains to stay on an “I meant what I said” moral high
ground. He needs to find a way to remind the public that he
is prosecuting drug dealers—not to mention other criminals—without
sounding defensive about it, and a way to balance modesty
with the honesty and loyalty to his campaign promises that
have made it possible for people who supported him during
the election to still be enthusiastic about him now.
It must be galling to be asked for these things in the face
of false accusations and pettiness, but a larger portion of
the public cares about his stance on drug reform than cares
about the mundane backbiting of Albany County politics, so
if he is looking ahead to 2008, that’s the message to stick
to.
—Miriam
Axel-Lute
www.mjoy.org
|
Classifieds
