Standing in line at a Starbucks in Albany the other day, Bruce Roter scanned a headline on a BlackBerry about a new ethics probe in the New York State Assembly. “Micah Kellner,” he said, with a hint of bemusement. “It just doesn’t stop.” Kellner, a Democratic assemblyman now running for City Council in Manhattan, was accused of sexual harassment in 2009 (“I wouldn’t mind falling asleep with you but not remotely,” Kellner instant-messaged a young female staffer, after midnight), and the Assembly’s subsequent failure to pursue the case has led to an investigation of a potential coverup—a seeming pattern of protecting legislators from embarrassment. You could argue that this scenario is itself an embarrassment, no less damaging to the state’s reputation than Anthony Weiner and Eliot Spitzer. But Bruce Roter is an opportunist. “What does the rest of the world know us for?” he said. “It knows Albany and corruption. And I’m thinking to myself, What a great resource!” . . .
