A new article in the Washington Monthly, titled "Rudy Awakening" paints a stark picture of the well known but poorly understood dictatorial ambitions of Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani has shown at least as much, if not more, of the authoritarianism shown by not just Bush, but Cheney as well. Ideologically, Giuliani is closer to Cheney than he is to Bush. He isn't the intellectual midget that Bush is, but in some ways, he is more authoritarian than Cheney. This makes him far more dangerous than Bush could ever be. He has a malicious and vindictive streak that neither Bush nor Cheney have. Bush and Cheney, at least, respect the legitimacy of congress's power of the purse. Giuliani recently told a reporter that the president has the power to continue providing funding for the troops in Iraq, even if congress withdraws funding. Bush and Cheney, at least, show some respect for the right of people to say what they want (even if they call these people traitors). Giuliani, on the other hand, said that the MoveOn "Betray Us" ad "passed a line that we should not allow American political organizations to pass." If Giuliani becomes president, the years of George W. Bush will seem like 'the good old days.'
According to the article:
His [Giuliani's] methods, like those of the current White House, included appointments of yes-men, aggressive tests of legal limits, strategic lawbreaking, resistance to oversight, and obsessive secrecy. As was also the case with the White House, the events of 9/11 solidified the mindset underlying his worst tendencies. Embedded in his operating style is a belief that rules don't apply to him, and a ruthless gift for exploiting the intrinsic weaknesses in the system of checks and balances.
From Giuliani's days as a prosecutor, he had surrounded himself with a small circle of yes-men. These people referred to themselves as the "yesrudys". According to the journalist James Stewart, the term "yesrudy" was correctly pronounced with a southern slave accent.
As soon as he became mayor, Giuliani consolidated his powers, and took steps to ensure that there would be no dissenters. He appointed a former bartender in his 20's, Tony Carbonetti, to the job of filling the ranks of the entire city government (not just the positions at the top) with loyalists. They all were to understand that undying loyalty to Giuliani was their only important qualification. According to a former deputy mayor under Giuliani, when Giuliani read The Godfather, "he studied it from the point of view of how to communicate effectively down to the lowest ranks of an organization, so that every foot soldier understood his marching orders"
Most city commissioners were required to submit their speeches to aides of Giuliani for approval. Giuliani once gloated that he approved all precinct-level detective promotions. A senior aide to Giuliani once said to James Traub of the Times that all job applicants, even those to low-level positions, were asked if they would "take a bullet for the mayor."
This style of management quickly caused the city government to fall into a state of terror over Giuliani. Former New York City mayor Ed Koch once said about Giuliani that "people in his administration were terrified of him." Police Commissioner William Bratton, the brains behind many of the successful crime-fighting policies, was driven out in 1996 for being insufficiently loyal. Rudy Crew, a very successful education chancellor, quit in 1999. This stalled many educational reforms that were urgently needed. The complete absence of dissent and independence created an environment that made it very easy for Giuliani to test the limits of his power.
The mayor of New York City has a level of power nearly unmatched in American executive offices. He can, for example, install judges and executive officials without any type of legislative ratification. He is more powerful than most governors, and arguably even more powerful than the United States President. According to Mitchell Moss, an historian and expert in New York City government, the New York City mayor is "really is the king of New York."
The New York City mayor has three major checks on his power. The first is the city council. Another is the Independent Budget Office, which is an independent office that monitors the finances of the city. The third is the Office of the Public Advocate, which is more or less the advocate for the city's residents. Giuliani constantly fought with the city council. He also attempted to cut the funding for the Office of the Public Advocate. And he refused to provide any money for the IBO until 1996.
As soon as his second term began, Giuliani attempted to rewrite the city charter (more or less the city constitution) to give himself more power. To change the city charter, a commission must be appointed and rewrite the charter. During the prior fourty years, the city charter had only had two commissions to change it. During Giuliani's second term, he appointed three different commissions. Prior commissions had always consisted of independent experts. All three of Giuliani's commissions consisted of little more than Giuliani yes-men. Its members were largely experienced in city government, but they had mostly acquired that experience by working for Giuliani. His commissions were "advised" by Giuliani's Law Department. They mostly met in secret.
The first commission attempted to accomplish a major goal of Giuliani, the elimination of the Independent Budget Office and the Office of the Public Advocate. Ultimately, the public outrage forced the commissions to conclude without enacting any major changes. But the commissions were still very useful for Giuliani. New York state law says that if a city commission is appointed, neither the city council nor the public can put a referendum on the ballot. Therefore, Giuliani was able to enact many new laws without having a ballot referendum prevent the enactment of those laws. According to a former city council staffer, "Giuliani's commissions were painted with the brush of respectability, but it was a subtle device to block anybody else from getting a referendum on the ballot."
Shortly after the first commission ended, a second was appointed. One of its major goals was to ensure that if Giuliani were elected to the US Senate in 2000, Mark Green (who, as head of the Office of the Public Advocate, was the first in line to replace Giuliani) would be taken out of the mayoral line of succession. Mark Green, a democrat who was planning on running for mayor in 2001, was a major enemy of Giuliani. After public outrage derailed this attempt, the commission passed a series of fourteen changes that would drastically have given the mayor even more power. Voters overwhelmingly rejected all of these proposals.
In 2001, Giuliani appointed a third commission. While this commission also accomplished nothing, Giuliani was able to prevent any ballot referendum from occurring for three entire years. This reflected a constant tactic of Giuliani. He would abuse his powers so as to prevent the forces that could check his power, from actually checking his power for as long as possible.
In 1996, we would see this delaying tactic again. That year, a former federal budget analyst named Doug Criscitello became the head of the Independent Budget Office. He expected to start auditing the entire city government. However, as soon as he took office, he was told by Giuliani's lawyers that he had to have any requests for information approved by Giuliani's administration before he could request that information from the city departments. The city charter plainly says that the Independent Budget Office can request this information directly from the city departments, and without the approval of the mayor's office. According to Criscitello, Giuliani's lawyers told him "Here's how we've decided to interpret the charter, and if you disagree there's a legal process you can go through and we can get a judge to rule on this." And so just like Bush reading unlimited "inherent" powers into the presidency, Giuliani decided to make up unlimited mayoral powers.
Criscitello went to court, and the courts eventually said that Giuliani had to comply with Criscitello's requests. But again, Giuliani had prevented the Independent Budget Office from accomplishing anything for two entire years. So by defunding the budget office for his first four years, and then tying it up in court for the next two years, Giuliani functioned for almost his entire administration without having to answer to a functional Independent Budget Office.
Criscitello had run into what was becoming a signature feature of Giuliani's governing style. Chafing against the limits of his authority, Giuliani was taking an increasingly instrumentalist view of the law: it was only as good as how well it was enforced, and should be overstepped when doing so served his ends......When Giuliani wanted to do something and was advised by his staff that it was illegal, it was "hard for him," one of his former commissioners explained to me. "As a lawyer, it offends him. He thinks, 'Isn't there a way around this?'" Giuliani often preferred to barrel ahead and force his opponents to go to court to restrain him.
Giuliani also showed his contempt for the first amendment. He lost thirty-five first amendment cases in court. Giuliani's administration prevented legal protests, stopped city employees from being critical of Giuliani, and illegally stopped people from gathering on the steps of City Hall. In one of his failed cases, the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals said "[W]e would be ostriches if we failed to take judicial notice of the heavy stream of First Amendment litigation generated by New York City in recent years."
Giuliani also used his power to prevent needed oversight and reform at the New York Police Department (NYPD). Cases of brutality were reaching unprecedented levels, partly due to Giuliani's own heavy-handed police policies. He refused to let anyone besides the NYPD investigate the NYPD. Unsurprisingly, the NYPD rarely ever found cases in which it excessively used force.
The Civilian Complaints Review Board (CCRB) is an independent body meant to oversee the NYPD. As soon as he was elected, Giuliani cut funding for the CCRB. In 1997, a Haitian immigrant named Abner Louima was arrested by the NYPD. While at the Brooklyn precinct house, Louima was beaten. He was then sodomized with the handle of a toilet plunger. Due to the outcry, Giuliani restored funding for the CCRB. But he filled it with his own cronies, who were mostly former prosecutors sympathetic to the police. The NYPD was investigated by the Department of Justice, the Civil Rights Commission, and the state attorney general. In 1999, half of the city's recent felony gun convictions were declared unconstitutional.
Understanding that "the best disinfectant is sunshine," Giuliani took major steps to limit the amount of information released to the public. He denied information to the public, and refused to release policy decisions and deliberations. Giuliani forced people to file Freedom of Information Act requests for information that had normally been given routinely, such as how many water fountains were functioning in city parks. Giuliani even denied a Freedom of Information Act request regarding the number of Freedom of Information Act requests that had been denied.
The constitution and our system of checks and balances only function when people respect the legitimacy of the system, and promise to play by the rules. When they don't, the entire system can break down. This is what has happened during the last seven years. People say Giuliani is a "moderate," and yet he is actually the most extreme conservative of all the republican presidential candidates. His dictatorial ambitions are beyond those of even Bush and Cheney. Electing him would be national suicide. Lets just hope that voters realize this before it is too late.