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Bruno, R-Brunswick, had announced last month that he would not seek re-election in November and relinquished his leadership position.
That done, there apparently was no reason he could think of for him to stick around, such as finishing the job he was elected to do -- specifically, represent the voters who put him in office.
It's unlikely that many in Bruno's 43rd District actually feel cheated. Bruno larded it up with so much pork that it threatened a major geological subsidence under the weight. No less than Bruno, constituents were Bruno winning, willing participants in a free-for-all system that sees state governance as a grab bag of goodies for parochial needs. His sustained popularity within his district despite federal investigation, gaming of state travel rules and other ethical issues are ample testament to that complicity.
For unselfconsciousness, it's also hard to beat Bruno's successor as majority leader, Dean Skelos, R-Rockville Centre. Under Bruno, there's been no substantial reform of state campaign finance rules, no reform of the self-serving reapportionment system, no reform of the three-men-in-a-room style of government, and, this term, no willingness to grapple with the growing crisis of the state's local property tax system. Yet, there was Skelos, a product of the Republican machine that produced former U.S. Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, last week proclaiming Bruno "one of the greatest leaders in the history of the state."
Now, Bruno is leaving office with more than five months to go in his term, demonstrating an egocentric intolerance for the dimmed limelight. In the end, he just couldn't bring himself to finish the job to which he was elected, which includes representing the little people of his district with the dozens of individual problems they bring each week to the office of a representative. Got a problem with a state agency? You should bring it to your representative. Only, the residents of the 43rd District no longer have a representative to whom to bring those problems.
"Frankly," proclaimed Bruno, "my work is fairly well done," which should be news to the taxpayers of New York, who will continue paying salaries of no less than $79,500 per year to the remaining 211 state representative over the next 24 weeks.
