Reboot NY is a grassroots organization dedicated to reforming the way the New York State Senate does business. We are fed up with the mess in Albany and we are equally fed up with the apparent refusal of the existing senators to do much about it.

Why we need to RebootNY

Years ago, the Brennan Center for Justice tagged the NYS legislature as the nation's most dysfunctional. They cited many reasons but mainly the cause was due to decades of one party rule in the Senate and the Assembly. But this dysfunction had gone ignored by the public because of insider power plays, apathy on the part of the media, and the fact that every ten years, each body would redistrict itself to insure they stayed in power. In short, the Senators picked their voters instead of the other way around.

How effective were they in keeping their power? Statistically, more Senators have left office through criminal indictment or death than being voted out. 

The Coup

However, this past summer we hit new a new low that the media and public couldn't ignore. We had "The Coup." If you need a primer, you can go here. In short, the senate was deadlocked for over a month while we witnessed a shameful explosion of high stakes power grabs and all out partisan warfare.

Daily, we were assaulted with news articles and TV appearances with childish quotes from Senators blaming each other for the mess, while the economy fell apart, local budgets were threatened and important civil rights and environmental legislation rotted from inaction. "Gavel in, gavel out" passed for legislative action.

The simple fact is, at some point during that time, each and every senator--all 62 of them-- voted to elevate Pedro Espada, the main architect of the paralyzing "Coup", to either the position of President of the Senate or to the position of Senate Majority Leader. Every Republican voted to elevate Pedro Espada the position of the President of the Senate -- second in line to succeed the Governor in case he couldn't continue. Every Democrat voted to elevate Pedro Espada to the position of the Senate Majority Leader giving him extended power, staff and responsibilities; a position he holds today.

Then Came Brunogate

The Coup was, it turns out, small potatoes compared to the abuse of power of the previous Republican Majority. After they lost power in 2008, it was discovered that the Majority had secretly set up a fully staffed state-of-the-art TV studio and printing warehouse along with other insider real estate holdings...all on the public's dime. These discoveries, along with years of member item abuses where  people in Republican districts received hundreds of millions of dollars in pork while those New Yorkers who had Democratic Senators received little to none, were kept from public view by clouding transparency through legislation.

It came as little surprise when former Majority Leader, Joe Bruno was indicted and convicted of abuse of power...but what was even more shocking about the revelations discovered during his trial were the things the Majority's office did that weren't illegal, because he and the majority had created the laws under which they operated.

Shameful upon shameful upon shameful.

Now its our turn

We have to completely reform how this so-called legislative body does business or we will simply see more of the same. And, in our opinion, the first step is to elect better Senators.

We believe that real reform should be the most important issue for voters this fall when they cast their vote for state senator, because, as has been proven time and time again over the past five decades, popular, common sense legislation has been stalled, neutered or outright killed by the self-interested power struggle in the Capitol Building.

You Can Help

Traditionally, polls in the state have shown that the public is unhappy with their legislature, but pleased with their senator...until now. For the first time since anyone can remember, the public is ready to replace their senator and that's good news, because that's the only way we are going to get real change.

We have created a PAC so that we can raise money in order to educate the public about why this is so important. We plan to find and endorse reform minded candidates and run ads across the state echoing our Reboot NY message of change.

Who We Are

John McBride, Esq. is a current board member of Reboot NY PAC, having been the one who had the original idea to create this PAC. As is the way in participatory democracy, Reboot NY has evolved, for the better, from those early ideas. John has been a lifelong political activist. The most recent activity involved being a leader of one of the Albany for Dean meetup groups, a founder of Democracy for the Hudson Mohawk Region and Democracy for New York. He has been a volunteer campaign advisor for several progressive candidates at the local, state and congressional races. John was also a volunteer advisor to Democracy for America during its early formational period. Additional political associations include the Cortlandt Democratic Committee, the Croton Democratic Committee, Take19, New York Democratic Lawyers Council, and Democracy for New York City.

Andrew C. White is a founding member of the Board of Directors of REBOOTNY.org. Andrew has served as the Chair of the Stephentown Democratic Committee in Rensselaer County since 2004. He was Rensselaer County Coordinator for Gov. Howard Dean's Presidential Campaign in 2004. He served in the same role for Senator Kirsten Gillibrand's 2006 Congressional Campaign. Andrew also served as Internet Outreach Coordinator for Senator Gillibrand's 2006 campaign. Andrew was the founding President of Democracy for the Hudson-Mohawk Region and organizer of the Democracy for New York State Conferences. He was also Chair of Darius Shahinfar's 2008 Congressional Campaign Committee. Professionally Andrew has over 25 years experience in Information Technology. He is the son and grandson of civil rights activists.

Cynthia Kouril, Esq. Is a former federal prosecutor. She is currently in private practice and is a front page writer for the political blog www.FireDogLake.com. Her political experience includes, but is not limited to: being a member of the Steering Committee, Regional Coordinator and National Committeewoman for the New York Democratic Lawyers Council; Board Member of the Nassau Women's Democratic Caucus; member emeritus of the Election Law Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York; Graduate of the Women's Campaign School at Yale Law School; and NYS statewide election day litigation counsel for the Obama presidential campaign; former Chairwoman of the Steering Committee of Democracy for Long Island.

This is a short list of organizing folks. There are many more behind the scenes helping out to help change the way the State Senate operates.