Going Coastal

For all the drama of the coup d’escort that brought down Eliot Spitzer and delivered David A. Paterson into the governor’s office, any shifts of power in the state since then have been as noiseless as a fog.

In the seven weeks that Mr. Paterson has been governor, he has replaced the head of one major agency: the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. If a governor had to pick one agency to quickly get a grip on, that was probably an excellent choice. The Port Authority spends $3 billion a year and takes in $4 billion.

Moreover, when it comes to government contracts, power and patronage, the Port Authority is the undisputed capital of gubernatorial spoils. During Mr. Spitzer’s short, noisy reign, he failed to replace any of the board members installed by his predecessor, George E. Pataki. The rich fields happily tilled for 12 years by Republican eminences like Alfonse M. D’Amato were, for practical purposes, left to go fallow under the Democrats. Now Mr. Paterson — sitting until mid-March in the drowsy stillness of the lieutenant governor’s office, with not much to do and certainly no transition team waiting to set up an administration — has shown that he was paying attention all along.

In swiftly sacking Anthony E. Shorris, the executive director of the Port Authority, a man widely regarded as very able, Mr. Paterson made it clear that mere competence would not carry the day.

Mr. Shorris, who was appointed by Mr. Spitzer, opened his stint in office by announcing — at a breakfast attended by many lobbyists — that he would not meet with lobbyists for any companies that were doing or seeking to do business with the Port Authority. He then passed that order down the line to other managers at the agency.

This was a highly disruptive development. Lobbyists had become part of the ecology of the agency, an extension of the money cultures of Albany and Trenton.

A few years earlier, under the Republican Pataki administration, a refueling company lost a contract at the airports and hired Mr. D’Amato, the former United States senator, to set matters straight. He spoke to three of his Republican friends and allies on the Port Authority board. They decided that the process that hurt Mr. D’Amato’s client was terribly flawed, and called for a do-over.

Any Democratic lobbyists could certainly be excused for thinking that the election of a Democratic governor meant that now it was their turn.

Because New Jersey and New York jointly operate the Port Authority, a formal system of cutting up the power is in place. The New Jersey governor gets to name the chairman of the board; New York has the vice chairman. New York provides the executive director; the first deputy is anointed by New Jersey.

And so the agency grew to have two of every kind, a Noah’s Ark of patronage. There was a chief of staff and a deputy chief of staff; a superintendent of police and a deputy superintendent. Mr. Shorris cut away some of these jobs, attracting little attention. He required contractors — even those that provided low-paying positions like security guard — to supply their employees with some health insurance.

Then Mr. Spitzer’s visit to the Mayflower Hotel became public. Mr. Paterson took over. Mr. Shorris was gone, sent on his way with a statement of the customary sentiments from the governor. In the absence of actual information, a story made the rounds, and appeared in one New York newspaper, saying that Mr. Shorris had bluntly turned away Charles B. Rangel, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, when he asked for some help in his district. Mr. Shorris was said to have been doomed for telling Mr. Rangel, “We don’t do politics in this office.”

IF this were true, it would be an excess of piety on the part of Mr. Shorris that bordered on clinical insanity. He declined to comment on Tuesday.

Mr. Rangel, however, made clear that the story of the meeting was fiction. “I don’t mean any disrespect to this fellow Anthony Shorris, but if my life depended on it, I wouldn’t know who the hell he is,” he said.

As for any notion that Mr. Shorris’s hard line against lobbyists was a factor in his removal, a Paterson administration official said, “I’m laughing at that, but the laughing is off the record.”

All right then. One of Mr. Shorris’s old bosses, Edward I. Koch, said the change was easy enough to understand. The Port Authority is a powerful force. Any governor would want a direct hand in running it. “The king is dead,” Mr. Koch said. “Long live the king — and the new dispenser of the spoils.”

By JIM DWYER

New York Times