Three Men in a Room: The Inside Story of Power and Betrayal in an American Statehouse

About this book

The inside story of one of the countrys most secretive and misruled statehouses by a former New York State senator;. "Democracy takes decades to take root and flourish. New York is learning that it takes just three men in a room to maim and seriously harm a vigorous and representative system of government."from Three Men in a Room It might be a scene from a movie: three powerful and secretive men sit in a private corner of an exclusive New York club imperiously making decisions that affect the lives of millions of people. But the scene takes place in Albany New York and the exclusive members are the governor the senate majority leader and the speaker of the assembly of the New York State legislature. Three Men in a Room is an insiders expos of how one of the countrys largest and most powerful governmentswith the fourth-largest budget behind only the federal governments Californias and Texasshas become a model of corrupt inefficient and undemocratic governance. Seymour Lachman ran the New York City Board of Education taught political science and was then elected to New Yorks legislature. What he found when he arrived in the halls of the state senate was a Potemkin village of government where legislators vote on bills they havent read during legislative sessions they havent attended. After four terms Lachman left his safe seat in disgust and has now written this sharp mordant and impassioned call for reform. Although Lachmans story takes place in one of the countrys most progressive states the problems described in this book are rampant in statehouses throughout the country.