Gov. David Paterson with his former Chief of Staff Charles O’Byrne, who resigned amid a tax scandal.
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By Trenton Straube and Joelle L. Quartini
Friday, October 24, 2008
When the governor’s chief of staff Charles O’Byrne resigned last week amid a tax scandal, many leaders in the LGBT community took note.
O’Byrne was one of the most powerful players in Gov. David Paterson’s inner circle. He is also openly gay. What’s more, insiders speculate that the resignation will lead to other shakeups in Paterson’s staff—specifically regarding first deputy secretary Sean Patrick Maloney, also openly gay.
None of the headlines has revolved around either man’s sexuality. O’Byrne stepped down because of criticism he failed to pay $300,000 in back taxes over a five-year period. (He had alerted Paterson of the situation back in 2004.) And Maloney has raised eyebrows because he was brought over from former Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s office and because he wasn’t promoted to O’Byrne’s post this week.
But the situation has gays looking at the larger picture and asking: Does it hurt the community to not have representation at the table? With at least three LGBT bills hopefully on the table in upcoming legislative sessions—including same-sex marriage equality, which has already passed the Assembly—could this flavor the governor’s support of gay civil rights?
“LGBT New Yorkers should know they have a governor who sees them as full citizens, full human beings, and is personally committed to equality under the law,” Maloney said. “He doesn’t need a staff member to convince him of that. His concern is not dependent on lobbying or any other influence.”
Matthew Carlin, president of the New York City branch of the Stonewall Democrats, agreed. “Gov. Paterson has such a long-term commitment to LGBT issues that it will be fine,” Carlin said. “He’s not a newcomer to same-sex marriage or other gay rights issues. At this point he’s totally on board.” Carlin recalled a time when Paterson was running for lieutenant governor and went on a pub crawl with the Stonewall Dems: “He was out there campaigning with us, talking about his dad, being funny, and everyone loved him.”
Even among gay-friendly politicians such as Paterson, it can make a difference to have openly gay staff, maintained Kenneth Sherrill, a professor of political science at Hunter College and the first openly gay elected official in New York City.
“The fact that the governor is pro-gay doesn’t mean that he’s going to think like a gay person, have had the same experiences as a gay person, or know what it’s like to be in the gay community,” Sherrill said. “Simply being in the room makes it harder for people to forget our needs—not that it’s intentional, but in the rush to get things done, people forget.”
Maloney, who has been openly gay and very public about his partner Randy Florke and their three adopted children, also said it’s important for LGBT people to have a seat at the table.
“It’s important for LGBT people to run for office, to work in politics and to be in the room where important decisions are made,” Maloney said. “But this is a governor who sees LGBT equality as a civil rights issue, and he cares about it personally.”
Paterson accepted O’Byrne’s resignation last Friday. Bill Cunningham, a former aide to Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi, is the acting chief of staff.
O’Byrne, who has ties to the Kennedy family, has said clinical depression kept him from paying taxes from 2001 to 2005, before he took the job titled secretary to the governor.
O’Byrne’s problems were first made public in the New York Post earlier this month, and O’Byrne had been fighting against mounting pressure to keep his $178,500-a-year job since.
But so far, the press has not focused on his sexuality. “There was very little mention of his being gay, if any,” noted Dan Pinello, an openly gay political science professor at New York’s John Jay College. “I breathed a sigh of relief that I didn’t see it. I think that is very helpful, that the media didn’t fall into that trap.”
The public’s perception is that O’Byrne’s sexuality didn’t matter in this case, Pinello added, so no one seemed to toss that around.
O’Byrne, a former Jesuit priest who officiated at the wedding of John F. Kennedy Jr. and counseled the Kennedy family three years later after he died in a plane crash, was the top aide to Paterson. He was responsible for mapping out policy and politics as Paterson rose from the near powerless Democratic minority in the Senate to lieutenant governor and then governor after Democrat Eliot Spitzer resigned in March amid a prostitution scandal.
O’Byrne’s resignation is a blow to an administration that has fought one crisis after another, beginning with Spitzer’s resignation after just 14 months, much of which was spent in gridlock after fights with the Republican-led Senate.
Additional reporting by the Associated Press.
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