The Hevesi Mess Thickens

A month ago in this space, we lamented State Comptroller Alan Hevesi's lack of judgment in having one of his staffers, at state expense, chauffeur his wife for several years, but expressed the opinion that the lapse wasn't serious enough to warrant him resigning.

It now seems increasingly likely that, if he hangs on to his suddenly precarious lead in his re-election race against Christopher Callaghan, Mr. Hevesi's new term may never be launched. Matters have deteriorated enough that he may have to resign or face removal by the State Senate.

That it has come to this is partly a consequence of the nature of his position, one in which he is supposed to ensure that officials in other agencies are not making inappropriate expenditures. It is also being driven by Republicans desperate to gain some political traction at a time when they are virtually certain to lose control of the Governor's Mansion and are fighting to keep their majority in the Senate, and by Eliot Spitzer's determination to be viewed as intolerant of any impropriety, including that committed by a political ally.

But at least as importantly, Mr. Hevesi has brought his political career to a crisis point by either failing to perceive he had a problem or hoping that if he ignored it, he would be able to maintain much of what had been a 40-point lead in the polls and ride out the storm.

It's hard to be sure whether it was arrogance or the timidity that has sometimes been a trait of Mr. Hevesi's that prompted him to continue his Rose Garden re-election strategy and refuse to debate Mr. Callaghan until last week, when a State Ethics Commission report lambasting him over the use of the state employee to chauffeur his wife left him no choice politically but to get into the arena and try to make his case to voters.

One commentator on New York 1, which aired the debate from its studios, afterward compared his performance to the "Checkers Speech" of Richard Nixon - who, under fire for receiving questionable campaign contributions, stated that the only gift he had received from a donor for his personal use was a dog named Checkers.

Mr. Nixon's speech swayed public opinion enough that he stayed on Gen. Dwight Eisenhower's ticket and wound up serving two terms as Vice President. Mr. Hevesi, while easily besting Mr. Callaghan in the debate and renewing questions about why he had been ducking him, seems unlikely to fare as well.

During the debate, he referred to an "environment" in which he operated while City Comptroller in which security details were assigned to the families of both then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani and then-Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro. The difference in those cases was that threats against those officials - in Mr. Mastro's case, for his role in rooting out organized crime's influence at the Fulton Fish Market - led to NYPD determinations that their families required protection.

What Mr. Hevesi didn't say was that there was reason to believe that Mr. Giuliani got more than the benefit of the doubt on that score. At a time when his relationship with his then-wife was teetering, the then-Mayor had bodyguards traveling with him when he spent nights with the woman who became his third wife, Judith Nathan. There have been reports from NYPD sources that Ms. Nathan and at least one other woman in whom Mr. Giuliani had an interest had their own security details.

In that "environment," as Mr. Hevesi put it, the sense of entitlement may have been contagious.

Not that this makes his behavior excusable. As hard as he played the "my wife is seriously ill" card, and as legitimate as that claim is, it doesn't override the fact that transporting her was not the public's obligation; it was Mr. Hevesi's, and he should have paid for it.

He has belatedly sought to do so, but the Ethics Commission asserted that his failure to keep records of the time that his aide, Nicholas Acquafredda, spent driving his wife indicated that Mr. Hevesi didn't intend to provide reimbursement until he got caught.

Governor Pataki last week asked former U.S. Attorney David Kelley to look at the matter and make a recommendation on whether Mr. Hevesi's transgressions were serious enough to mandate proceedings to remove him from office. It was a wise move by the Governor on two counts: Mr. Kelley is a Democrat and is well-respected, and Mr. Pataki has sometimes shown an inflated sense of entitlement when it comes to his own travel and the deployment of a Republican Party staffer as a kind of maid to his wife, Libby. (Yes, that involved party funds rather than public money, but it was a perk not available to Republicans lower on the electoral totem pole, as far as we know.)

When public employees go to the polls next Tuesday, they should be considering whether Mr. Hevesi, after 35 years of solid service in government, has rendered himself unqualified with a single, though significant, ethical lapse. They should also ask whether Mr. Callaghan, after an undistinguished stint as the Treasurer of Saratoga County - a 2002 audit by Mr. Hevesi's predecessor found financial records missing from an office with just 12 people, compared to the 2,400 on the Comptroller's staff - is a qualified alternative. And they should take into account Mr. Callaghan's proposal to replace the traditional pension program for government workers with a 401(k) plan for future employees.

Tarnished though he may be, short-lived as his tenure in office could prove, Mr. Hevesi remains the best choice on the ballot.

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