So when the do decide to pull their heads out of their butts it’s a political hit job… Well maybe we can see more of this and truly watch them squirm and then implode. It would be the best thing for this state. Just think, all their secrets exposed!

Sadly though, they would all get re-elected.

How Albany Hides Its Secrets

The “Troopergate” mess still bubbling in Albany is the latest example of how New York’s lawmakers use secrecy as their default mode. When in doubt, their instinct is to keep everything under wraps. Though the debate now is focused on whether Gov. Eliot Spitzer and his staff publicized State Police records to smear Joseph Bruno, the Republican Senate leader, the bigger question is: why weren’t these records public in the first place?

Albany’s lawmakers prefer, as a matter of course, to keep the way they do business under a rock. One of the reasons that Mr. Bruno and his allies are so angry is that the Spitzer administration revealed to the press and public how the majority leader was misusing state aircraft and troopers for political purposes.

The latest report on Troopergate from P. David Soares, the Albany County district attorney, reveals just how obsessed with secrecy Albany really is. The report includes a footnote about a “handshake promise” between the administration and legislative leaders in which the three leaders agreed not to disclose details of personal expenditures by members of the Legislature.

The hearings into Troopergate, a Republican sideshow to a more serious inquiry by the Commission on Public Integrity, provides still more evidence of how far legislators will go to keep their operations secret. The Republicans’ latest ploy was to subpoena the acting State Police superintendent. Their stated motive was to determine whether the superintendent acted correctly in giving out information about Mr. Bruno’s use of state transportation, and whether New York’s Freedom of Information Law was used correctly. That sounds fine. But the subpoena could also be seen as an instrument of intimidation, a way of forcing state workers to think twice about handing public information to the public.