C H A P T E R F I V E

Move the Crowd

The most important thing we gotta do

is make it cool to show up at rallies,

make it in style to pay attention.

â€" R U S S E L L S I M M O N S

Two days before the close of New York State’s 226th annual legisla-

tive session several major bills remained trapped in political grid-

lock. Lawmakers were working feverishly to hammer out deals that

they could take back to their various constituencies as proof that they were doing the people’s business. One of the most highly publicized

pieces of legislation was the attempt to repeal what had become

known in the state as the Nelson Rockefeller drug statutes. Though

most lawmakers agreed that the law was too severe, striking a deal to repeal had eluded them the previous two years. Now, just days before summer recess, the state’s three most powerful elected o‰cials, Gov-ernor George E. Pataki; Joseph L. Bruno, the Republican senate ma-

jority leader; and Sheldon Silver, the Democratic speaker of the state assembly, met in a closed-door session in Pataki’s state capitol o‰ce.

It was typical backdoor politicking but with one atypical twist. To

the dismay of veteran state politicos and a press that was covering the legislative session, New York’s three most powerful elected o‰cials

were joined by hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons. Pataki believed that

Simmons could help bridge some of the gaps that had precluded a

deal from being made in years past. Simmons’s presence, needless to

say, added double the intrigue and irritation to the politics-as-usual norms of state government.

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