Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie seems to now think he’s “King Carl” — and not just when it comes to The Post.
“I’m not going to be disrespected,” Heastie whined Tuesday, lamely justifying his refusal to take questions from The Post’s Albany chief, Zach Williams, for the second straight week.
He’s clamped down on all other reporters, too, by retaining COVID restrictions to keep them off the Assembly floor, though the state Senate has lifted similar restrictions and the pandemic is so over. Interview lawmakers in their seats, as journos have done for decades? King Carl won’t put up with such insulting scrutiny.
Heastie’s also lowering the number of times lawmakers can force debates and committee votes to four a year, down from (theoretically) 200. So Republicans, perennially in the minority, will be even less able to hold Democrats accountable by getting them on the record on bills they oppose, such as ones to fix disastrous criminal-justice “reforms.”
It’s also a slap at Dem dissenters, whether moderate or progressive: Now nearly all legislation must get King Carl’s OK just to be considered.
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More: He’s forcing anyone who opposes a bill (again, mostly Republicans) to vote in person, but no need to show up to to vote “yes.” King Carl appreciates his yes-men and -women.
Heastie hasn’t said exactly how we “disrespected” him or what ticked him off. To make it easier on His Majesty, he could just let us know which of the below crossed the line:
- One recent editorial blamed him for how his Raise the Age law has plainly fueled a doubling of teen killings and teen victims — yet he refuses to consider changing it.
- We’ve also labeled him a “tool of the pro-criminal radical left” for his head-in-the-sand approach to all of New York’s broken criminal-justice laws.
- Editorials repeatedly flag how he’s single-handedly turned the state Board of Regents, and thus the entire State Education Department, into anti-standards, anti-testing jokes that cheat New York students of any hope of learning.
- We also call out his refusal to give children a shot at a better public education by lifting the charter cap. (This, even though families seeking charter seats are overwhelmingly lower-income blacks or Hispanics.)
- Surely worse (in King Carl’s eyes), we’ve drawn the obvious conclusion that he sold out the kids to win the support of the teachers unions to become speaker in the first place. (Before then, he was pro-charter, and as a proud grad of Stony Brook University he’s generally supported excellence for SUNY.)
- We’ve also noted his role in illegally gerrymandering district maps to lock in Democratic power, in defiance of voters’ expressed wishes, and flagged his “chutzpah” in claiming lawmakers “deserved” a raise last year amid voter anger over Albany’s refusal to act on crime.
- Or maybe it’s how The Post reported, in 2015, that the Bronx DA’s flubs allowed him to haul in a profit of $200,000 off his mother’s crime.
We stand by every word. It’s our job to hold the powerful to account.
By the way, we’ve also sometimes credited him — as when he blocked Gov. Kathy Hochul’s nutty idea of banning new gas hookups and nixed a plan to give Dems more power by holding elections only in even-numbered years when more national issues are on the line and more liberals and progressives turn out.
We’ll keep on calling them as we see them, however much it miffs the “king.” He may not budge: A speaker, in the end, is only answerable to his members (and his district’s voters). But if Heastie persists in his increasingly tyrannical ways, King Carl may find even those he seems to think his “loyal subjects” turning to rebellion.
