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Connor: Why I Want to Be Comptroller
For weeks as he was mulling the decision about whether to get involved, State Sen. Martin Connor (D-Brooklyn/Manhattan) kept quiet about his interest in becoming the next state comptroller. Other candidates and five Assembly members pushed their prospective candidacies in interviews and articles. Some had their candidacies pushed for them in editorials.
Connor, meanwhile, quietly let the legislative leaders in Albany know his intentions, surprising even some members of his own staff.
The stealth is over, and Connor is ready to explain his bid.
“Some of the candidates have made a big hoo-hah,” Connor said. “Under this process, that’s really putting the cart before the horse.”
Connor insists that the mix of experiences during his 28 years in Albany make him the ideal candidate for the job. He contends he knows the people, and he knows the processes.
“I’ve done things I don’t think other candidates have done,” Connor said.
“Some of the candidates have made a big hoo-hah,” Connor said. “Under this process, that’s really putting the cart before the horse.”
For the first time, the comptroller will be charged with making a revenue forecast to be used in the budgeting process. As one of the four leaders of the Legislature, Connor was required to do such forecasts during his last four years as Senate minority leader, which he says were always the most accurate among his colleagues’.
The experience with revenue oversight translates perfectly to being comptroller, he argued.
“You can delegate tasks, but you can’t delegate responsibility,” he said. “At the end of the day, I reviewed what they did and made a decision about the forecast.”
For a person looking to be comptroller, this managerial experience is more important than direct background in finance, Connor believes.
“I’m not doing this to be a bean counter,” he said.
Much has been made about the comptroller’s authority over investing the state pension fund. Connor says that the fact that only 25 of the office’s 2,400 employees work on these investments shows that “the job is not about sitting there picking stocks.”
He does, however, point out that he has experience with audits, another major responsibility of the comptroller. He believes he is the only person in contention for the position who has ever actually worked in the comptroller’s office.
He spent one year there before first being elected to the State Senate in 1978, but says he had a major role in bringing in $100 million in money returned to the state from audits.
Connor remains undecided about whether, if picked, he would seek reelection in 2010. One other candidate, former New York State Commissioner of Taxation and Finance Andrew Eristoff (R), has pledged that he would not.
“That would be a decision I’d be making in the beginning of 2009. I wouldn’t run for the sake of running. We’ll see where I am then, where my family circumstances are, where my head is,” he said.
Last summer, Connor survived a hard-fought primary challenge for his State Senate seat, insisting that he had recently become recommitted to his work in Albany after seriously considering leaving following being stripped of his position as his chamber’s Democratic leader.
The comptroller’s office “is about the only thing I’d consider leaving the senate for,” Connor said.
As he makes his case, he believes personal connections will help. He was Eliot Spitzer’s lawyer during the vote-counting argument coda to the 1998 attorney general election, and says the relationship has remained warm. He says he is friendly with Lt. Gov. David Paterson (D), though Paterson led the 2002 coup which knocked Connor from the leadership.
“He seemed positive,” Connor said of Paterson’s reaction to his candidacy during a Jan. 22 meeting in Albany, though he declined to comment any further on their conversation.
“I will just say that David and I have a friendly relationship,” he said, noting that Paterson gave $5,000 to his reelection campaign last year.
That, Connor said was “not as much as Eliot, but he doesn’t have as much money as Eliot.”
Connor said he also had a passing conversation with Rich Baum, secretary and close adviser to Spitzer. Baum’s reaction, Connor said, was “‘oh, gee, that’s interesting.’”
Connor also remains on friendly terms with State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno (R), whom he worked closely with from when both were leaders of their respective conferences from 1998 to 2002. Connor also has a long working relationship and an overlapping downtown district with Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who as the leader of the 107 Democrats in the Assembly controls a near majority of the 212 total legislators who will make the final decision among the five finalists.
Connor said that unless and until the prospect of being chosen become more realistic, “I’m not really asking anyone to commit to anything.”
If he is in major consideration, he expects to push his case with full force.
“I’m not spending any chits to get someone to say ‘Hey I’m with you,’ before I’m on the list,” Connor said. “You don’t want to not be on the list and then you owe somebody.”