Rival's Revenge

After his booming victory in 1958, New York's Governor Nelson Rockefeller enjoyed a blissful first-session honeymoon with the grateful Republicans in control of the state legislature. But even as popular Newcomer Rockefeller got what he wanted in the way of tax increases and a pay-as-you-go budget, dark thoughts were percolating behind one steadily smiling face in the legislative crowd. Liberal, Manhattan-rooted Rocky had steamrollered upstate Conservative Walter Joseph Mahoney out of the G.O.P. gubernatorial nomination, and Senate Majority Leader Mahoney was not disposed to forgive.

Convivial Walter Mahoney, a Republican Roman Catholic, was elected state senator from Buffalo at 28, three years out of law school, won his way by hard work and political savvy to the majority leadership in 1954. He soon formed a rural, right-wing opposition to Rockefeller's state-financed welfare program, demanded a token tax cut that Rocky fought off with the help and ill-concealed smiles of Democrats. Ten days after Rockefeller withdrew from the Republican presidential race, Mahoney endorsed Vice President Nixon--the only state party official thus far who has not followed Rockefeller's example of silence. But Mahoney saved his biggest blow to Rockefeller's prestige for the waning hours of the 1960 legislature.

Closest to Rockefeller's heart was a bill outlawing racial and religious discrimination in the sale, rental or financing of private, multiple-dwelling housing. The bill excluded one-and two-family houses occupied by the owner and dwellings in developments of less than ten units, but its scope went beyond New York City's Fair Housing Practices Law.* The bill passed the assembly by a thumping 131-17 vote, but Mahoney shelved it in the Senate. Angry, Rockefeller said the ma neuver did not "represent the feelings and beliefs of the great majority of the people of this state," hit back at Mahoney by refusing to go along on a bill creating 13 New York City supreme-court judgeships ($34,500 a year for 14-year terms), one earmarked for a close friend of Mahoney's.

Also buried by Mahoney were Rocky's bills to 1) combine school districts and give them new tax powers, 2) provide tax relief for thousands of Manhattan commuters, who live in neighboring Connecticut and New Jersey but pay higher New York income taxes than residents, and 3) encourage, by tax deductions, voluntary construction of atomic fallout shelters in homes and commercial buildings. Originally advanced on a mandatory basis, Rockefeller's deadly earnest shelter plan was viewed as political poison by assemblymen, who sent it back to committee amid hoots of laughter that might some day have a hollow ring.

At week's end, a wan Nelson Rockefeller left Manhattan for a brief vacation at his Venezuelan ranch. To his rapidly growing file on practical politics, he could add another lesson learned: the best intentions of study groups, the most carefully drawn legislation, and even the best-laid political plans can be swamped in the tides of personal rivalry.

*Passed in 1958 and upheld by the state supreme court in its first test last week. Wrote Justice Aron Steuer: "Just because a man is a Negro, he is not, ipso facto, a desirable tenant. But the statute does not say that. It says the converse--because a man is a Negro he is not, ipso jacto, an undesirable tenant."

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