Editorials are simply not emergencies

To the editor:

(re: “Passing health care reform in New York isn’t easy,” Oct. 5)

Yes, health care reform is difficult — apparently, too difficult for state Sen. Jeffrey Klein.

He whines that he hasn’t been able to get a hearing on the New York Health Act. But if a legislator is truly committed to a bill, he will use his leverage and political capital to prevail upon his colleagues to move it forward — especially if he is in a leadership position.

Sen. Klein says caucusing with the Republicans in the state senate gives him influence over them. If that is the case, he should use that influence.

But the real reason Sen. Klein formed the Independent Democratic Conference and joined it to the Republicans is that this has made him personally very powerful. 

It has made him one of the “men in the room” who control state government, and enables him to steer large sums of money to local institutions, while claiming misleadingly that the money is from him, when it is really our tax dollars he is giving out in exchange for his own self-promotion.

It is a matter of simple honesty: If the people elected you as a Democrat, they expect you to serve as a Democrat. 

And you are cheating them if you then caucus with a different party. It reflects a lack of personal ethics and integrity.

Oh, and one more thing, Sen. Klein: Using your cell phone in a synagogue on Rosh Hashana is disrespectful to your fellow worshippers, and to God — unless you are an emergency first responder.

An editorial in The Riverdale Press is not an emergency.

Ron Wegsman