Christie and Cuomo Deliver Tag-Team Veto to Port Authority Reform Drive

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Just before midnight on a holiday Saturday, the political patronage machine known as the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) received, figuratively speaking, two governors' pardon. The issue was the reform of the bistate agency in the wake of the Bridgegate scandal. Curiously, the Republican Chris Christie and Democratic Andrew Cuomo, both of whom have presidential ambitions, found common ground in their respective vetoes. They cited their alternative reform plans, which critics asserted would water down the effort to shine light on the PA's often opaque award and management of lucrative contracts.

According to The New York Times' report on the vetoes, the far stronger reforms had received unanimous approval votes from each state's respective legislatures. Due to the arcane nature of the PA's charter, change requires approval from both states' governors and legislatures. Unanimously positive votes are extremely rare. However, the shadow vote -- the fixers and deep pockets who appear on the PA's board of directors and executive positions -- was most likely unanimously negative.

Recently, I've been reading Italian crime fiction. The works often offer a window into the corruption that characterizes the Italian political process. Unlike Italians, Americans largely remain in denial of its embrace of a wink-and-nod society. While "networking" has become a watchword in American life, the implications of that concept, especially in relation to back-door deals and opaque transactions, has largely gone unexplored. The Port Authority reform episode demonstrates that "networked" crony corruption remains very alive and well, and transcends left-wing or right-wing rhetoric.