The question hanging over Queens is what happens to constituents when their elected officials are charged with felonies. State Sen. Malcolm Smith, whose district covers the greater Jamaica area, and City Councilman Dan Halloran, who represents a swath of the north, have been accused of bribery in a corruption scandal.
Their next court date is not until July, and in the meantime they have been stripped of most of their powers, leaving the neighborhoods they represent in limbo.
Smith, a popular public official in his community, was booted out as chairman of the Independent Democratic Conference, a form of coalition government in Albany, and is now virtually a man without a party. He lost other leadership posts, but even closer to home he was ousted as co-chairman of the Senate’s bipartisan task force on Hurricane Sandy to help guide where federal and state recovery aid should go in the Rockaways and other parts of the city.
This left Queens’ beleaguered victims with one less voice — an influential one — to make their case at the table.
Smith, like Halloran and other politicians, routinely sponsored community events like health fairs and school awards programs. What is the protocol now that they have been indicted?
In Halloran’s case, his office was slated to host a blood drive and after his arrest an aide put out an angry e-mail saying posters advertising the event had been torn down. The drive was held as planned.
Halloran was kicked off his Council committees and barred from touching any discretionary funds for nonprofits in his district, even as residents voted to rank the most important projects in a new venture called participatory budgeting. He will not seek re-election.
Now Christine Quinn, the Council speaker, will have the ultimate say on how his funds will be spent and some skeptical residents are wondering if they voted in vain.
Both Smith and Halloran are entitled to their day in court and the presumption of innocence, but with corruption cases reaching epidemic proportions in Queens, there should be some mechanism in place to fill the power vacuum so the men and women who elected them are not left holding the bag while justice waits.
