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Lavelle on Himself, Staten Island politics
John Lavelle, who died Jan. 24 of a massive stroke, had served in the Assembly since 2000.
Speaking in July 2006 to City Hall, he reflected on his role as a liberal politician,
county leader and sometimes freethinking member of the Democratic caucus in Albany.
He referred to himself as "the only liberal Democrat that is elected a leader in Staten
Island," insisted that he was proud of his record.
"I don't hide that that's what I am," he said.
His wins alone, he insisted, belied the idea of Staten Island as the conservative cousin of
four more Democratically-inclined boroughs.
"I think that's a misconception of the city generally. Because we have elected officials who
are Republicans from Staten Island-that's a rarity in New York-everyone thinks it's a Republican
stronghold, but it's not."
That was a particularly important point for Lavelle, who was also Richmond County's Democratic leader.
As for what that role consisted of, he said, "basically we help candidates get on the ballot, help them
get elected, and try to help our county committee members," adding "it's different than it used to be
in that there used to be a lot more patronage."
He acknowledged that he had less power than his counterparts in the other five boroughs.
"There are people who get involved in politics because they want to work in government. But the county
organization, really other than maybe sending along a résumé to someone, we really don't have that much
pull, at least not in Staten Island," he said.
He noted that zone leaders-the Staten Island equivalent of district leaders-never had much sway in their
neighborhoods.
"The party never developed like the other parties," he said. "District leaders in Brooklyn seem to have
much more power than our organizations ever developed out here."
The different structure of borough politics made for different kinds of power players in Lavelle's mind.
Though he saw unions as important in borough politics, Lavelle said that he believed smaller, much more
local groups like the Staten Island Council on the Arts and the federation of PTAs (which "probably has
my ear on education more than anyone") had proportionally more power there than in other boroughs.
As for his role in Albany, Lavelle dismissed the idea that the Assembly conference is simply an instrument
of Speaker Sheldon Silver.
"Although Shelly is always viewed as this dictatorial person, what he pursues is almost all of the time what
is the consensus of the conference," he said. "Everybody in the conference gets an opportunity to speak. By
the end of the conference, you have a true sense of what the body feels."
Silver "takes the direction," from what the members seem to feel, Lavelle said, and he claimed to have never
felt compelled to vote for a bill.
"Not if I didn't want to," Lavelle said. "If it was something that I wasn't in agreement with, I'd make
that known to him, and that would be it."