SD-46: Martland Holds Sen. "Pay to Play" Breslin to Account

There's been quite a lot of talk here on The Albany Project this week about the Democratic "pay to play" fundraising scandal. I believe we are upset for good reasons, all of which are expressed in the linked-to diaries.

But we're just bloggers. We aren't the ones running for office. What we should be looking for is condemnation from these Senators primary challengers. Something like what SD-46 primary candidate Luke Martland has just released to the press today:

Martland Blasts Breslin, Senate Leaders on Pay to Play Scheme

(Albany) - State Senate candidate Luke Martland today blasted State Senator Neil Breslin (D-46th) and State Senate leaders for soliciting $50,000 payments from labor leaders and $25,000 payments from business leaders to join an “advisory council” and participate in “policy discussions.”

“Neil Breslin is assistant majority leader in the State Senate. He is a part of the Senate Leadership team. Why isn’t he standing up and saying no to this type of pay to play corruption,” said Martland.

“I think people have a right to know if Neil Breslin knew about these solicitations, did he approve these solicitations or did he just stand by and let these solicitations go out?” questions Martland.

“Ordinary people don’t have $50,000 to give to the State Senate so their voices can be heard,” added Martland. “This is politics as usual in Albany and that’s why we need new leadership in the State Senate.”

“Until we clean up Albany and clean out the professional politicians who think it’s fair to sell access, the State Senate will never do what’s right for average New Yorkers. Only then will the Senate stop being for sale and start making the tough decisions to get New York back on track, lowering taxes and fixing the problems that years of corruption, borrowing and wasteful spending have created,” added Martland.

Luke Martland's stands on issues can be found at http://www.lukemartlandsenate.com/issues.html

Emphasis mine - SP

Sound political analysis below the fold that any Democrat and any blogger should understand...

(Cross-posted on The Albany Project)

One of today's diaries linked to above suggests that RebootNY might be a good vehicle to get rid of this kind of thing and elect "more and better" Democrats like Luke Martland. They are asking for your help with the upcoming elections in November.

The analogy, I'm guessing, is that the New York State Senate is similar to a computer, and that this kind of money-grubbing is akin to a virus, so the analogy seems like it means the General Election will be like a "reboot" to the whole system.

But we bloggers should know a little about the way PCs and laptops work...

...so we should be the ones who understand that if you just restart a machine with a self-replicating virus on it, you've only just allowed the virus to reboot itself.

So instead of just "rebooting" our government in November, why not check out some primary challengers like

In other words, why not run some anti-virus software in September?

I think last cycle's primary challenger, David Weiss said it best after he lost his challenge against Sen. Breslin...the first primary challenge Breslin ever faced since being elected because he has the same name as the County Executive and County Judge in the same exact voting district, Albany County, in 1995. David Weiss pointed out something that should be very obvious to us Democrats as we seek to change this poor excuse of a Senate while still keeping a Democratic majority:

SEPTEMBER IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN NOVEMBER.

Sage advice, says I.

But will we follow it when decided who to support this primary season?

That's the big one we must ask ourselves if there's ever going to be any real change.