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Archive for March, 2011
Extras
Mar 30th - 5:37 pm
No pizza, no peace! (UPDATE: Legislative staffers who support the protests will be ferrying pizza from outside the Capitol up to the hungry demonstrators between 6:15 and 6:45 pm).
The whole sleepover thing might be in jeopardy, too, if lawmakers don’t pull an all-nighter.
Citizens Union decried the fact that the current partisan-based redistricting system is extended in the budget.
Common Cause/NY Executive Director Susan Lerner: “This year’s budget process is distinguished by only one difference from previous years: timing. Otherwise, it remains a closed process, where the people are cut out of the process.”
Senators sparred during the budget debate over the absence of the millionaire’s tax and continuation of the MTA payroll tax.
Assemblyman Jose Rivera said “shit” in the chamber. “Ooooh,” his colleagues responded.
Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos said Long Island will get its usual share of school aid….but we still haven’t seen any school runs (as of 5:30 pm).
Mayor Bloomberg had a change of rhetoric on the Cuomo budget.
Greg David takes an alternate view of the 2010 Census numbers.
The MegaMillions winners will reveal themselves tomorrow.
Bloomberg tapped Daniel Chu to serve as chair of the NYC Civilian Complaint Review Board.
Sound advice from a self-made billionaire: “Stay away from tax preparers who don’t play by the rules.”
An NRDC blogger calls on Cuomo not to rush the decision process on hydrofracking.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is losing her No. 2.
Clinton has gone from “likable enough” to eclipsing President Obama in the favorability department.
SEIU has filed internal charges against top official Bruce Raynor.
The Staten Island state legislative delegation is pushing “Caroline’s Law.”
NYC’s culpability in the 2007 Deutsche Bank building fire will be at issue in an upcoming trial.
Rep. Jerry Nadler is inviting a few of his closest friends (and enemies) to help commemorate the tenth anniverary of 9/11.
The House Republicans and the Obama administration are edging closer to a budget deal.
Coattails for embattled Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy? Not so long.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
The Long View
Mar 30th - 4:50 pm
ICYMI: State Conservative Party Chairman Mike Long, who did not endorse Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, but has some very nice things to say about his right-of-center approach to fiscal matters, declined to get on the Cuomo ’16 bandwagon, saying the real challenges for the newbie governor have yet to come.
“I think it’s entirely too early, and I don’t even think…I’m not going to comment on it, and I don’t even think the governor wants to comment on it,” Long told me.
“Like I said, his real test is coming in the second and third year, to see which way he takes the state. My hope is that he continues to do exactly what he’s doing when it comes to the economy, when it comes to the budget.”
“He keeps moving in that direction he will bring back businesses to New York, he will create jobs for the state of New York and that’s what we need in the state of New York.”
Koch: Skelos Has ‘Disgraced Himself’
Mar 30th - 3:43 pm
Former NYC Mayor Ed Koch has had it with Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos’ claims that redistricting reform is a non-issue for the remainder of the legislative session now that his conference has passed its constitutional amendment bill.
After Skelos said last night on “Inside City Hall” that he has no plans to revisit this issue after the budget has passed, Koch apparently could take no more. He just released the following statement:
“Dean Skelos has disgraced himself by repudiating his written pledge. After claiming for weeks that the Senate would address the issue of redistricting as soon as a budget was passed, he is now backing out of that promise too.”
“Dean Skelos is foolishly ignoring the mandate which returned his conference to the majority last year: A mandate for Albany reform.”
That’s not “liar, liar pants on fire,” but it’s close enough.
Koch then goes on to refute a number of what he calls “inaccurate statements” and “myths” expressed by Skelos, including the make-up of the nominating committee for members of the independent redistricting committee, as proposed by the governor; and the idea that the Legislature “can’t delegate away authority.”
Skelos also noted both Rep. Anthony Weiner and Sen. Chuck Schumer disagree with the concept of nonpartisan redistricting, which is actually true. But Koch argued:
“(I)t reinforces New York Uprising’s effort as strictly nonpartisan. Redistricting, as it’s currently done, isn’t about protecting Democrats or Republicans. It’s about protecting incumbents – the ones who follow-the-leader.”
Ed Koch & NY Uprising respond to inaccurate statements made by Dean Skelos
An Unconventional Candidate
Mar 30th - 2:26 pm
NY magazine’s Dan Amira interviewed the Green Party’s NY-26 candidate, Buffalo Beat editor Ian Murphy, producing a few gems.
On whether his campaign is real and/or serious:
“Oh, it’s very serious. It’s the most serious thing they’ve ever witnessed. This is far more serious a campaign than any of my opponents are running.”
“…Because I’m actually talking about real things, real issues. Some jokes mixed in, sure. Go to (Republican nominee, Assemblywoman) Jane Corwin’s website and try to figure out what the f?@# she believes in. She believes in nothing.”
On why Mayor Bloomberg shouldn’t have apologized for dissing Buffalo:
“Buffalo f*&@ing sucks. And everyone here knows it. There’s a lot of good things about Buffalo, but it is full of empty space, it’s full of urban decay, everyone’s leaving, and instead of putting on a cheery, happy face and denying it, let’s admit it to ourselves and make it better, yeah?”
“…Buffalo’s not in my district, so Buffalo can kiss my ass.”
Murphy later hastened to add that he loves Buffalo, grew up in the Queen City and thinks there’s “a lot of good things about it, but there are a lot of problems.”
On his awkward CapTon interview:
“Yeah, I didn’t know a lot about it at the time, and you’re supposed to have these rehearsed talking points ready to go, and that was obviously a pretty bad interview on my part (laughs). But yeah, if I don’t know something, that’s what I’m going to say. I’d rather do that than lie or just stick to some sort of script I’m reading like some normal politician.”
Diaz Sr.: Can’t Trust Governor Who Aspires To White House
Mar 30th - 2:10 pm
Sen. Ruben Diaz Sr., who has been urging his fellow Democratic colleagues to vote “no” on the budget since it doesn’t include rent control, was in his glory during a debate last night on the Legislature’s ceding power to Gov. Andrew Cuomo – particularly when it comes to prison closures.
“We are giving the Honorable Andrew Cuomo all the power in the world to decide all for himself to close these prisons, and that we trust him and that we are telling all those residents, all those businesses, elected officials are telling their communities: Oh, don’t worry. We have an on-time budget, and we trust the governor,” the Bronx Democrat said.
“Ladies and gentlemen, if that is the way that people do campaigning upstate, in the South Bronx, this black guy, with the kinky hair from Puerto Rico, I campaign differently…I trust no one. I trust no one. Not the governor. Not the lieutenant governor…No one. When it comes to the well being of the residents of the 32nd senatorial district that I represent, I trust no one.”
Later, Diaz Sr. gave voice to the growing belief that Cuomo harbors White House aspirations, saying:
“Trust Governor Cuomo? He wants to be president! Governor Cuomo wants to be president, and he would do anything to be president. He would take away the Medicare from the people, he would take the services from the poor, he would take the money from education…He would put everybody on the unemployment line and then he would say, ‘I balanced the budget. Elect me for President.’ Shame on you.”
Mayor Bloomberg? About That Mailer…
Mar 30th - 1:34 pm
Mayor Bloomberg is taking some heat for the full-color mailer he sent out to NYC residents that slams Albany for trying to balance the state budget for “cutting billions of dollars” from the city and touts his own efforts to hold the line on taxes, create jobs and protect “vital services.”
Those claims didn’t sit too well with NYC Minority Leader Jimmy Oddo, who released a letter he sent to the mayor after receiving the mailer, in which he asked if “protecting vital services like police and fire” means the mayor’s own budget plans to close 20 fire companies is now off the table.
“Respectfully, I ask that the appropriate individual within your administration publicly state whether the aforementioned direct mail piece does, in fact, signal a change in administration policy eliminating the threat of closing any fire companies in the FY2012 budget,” Oddo wrote.”
Bloomberg has made clear his displeasure with the state budget, taking the unusual step of spending his own cash on a budget-related TV ad designed as pushback to union spots that criticize him.
The Alan Hevesi Sentencing Memo (Updated)
Mar 30th - 1:05 pm
Here’s the sentencing memo referenced in today’s DN story on disgraced former state Comptroller Alan Hevesi’s plea for leniency in which he admits to behavior that was “wrong, stupid and improper.”
The 71-year-old Hevei’s own letter to state Supreme Court Justice Bart Stone is “Exhibit A.” In it, he expresses remorse that he “failed to live up to the trust of all New Yorkers and destroyed my reputation,” adding:
“I have also humiliated myself and made my family suffer…I want Your Honor to know that I am sorry. It is with great humility that I simply ask for Your Honor to render that tempers justice with mercy, a sentence that takes into consideration my life as a whole and not simply my misconduct and failings as Comptroller of the State of New York.”
The memo also inclues a number of heatfelt letters from Hevesi’s friends, family and rabbi, including his sons, former Sen. Dan Hevesi and Assemblyman Andy Hevesi, who were both implicated in and/or impacted by their father’s pay-to-play pension fund scandal.
Earlier this week, Stone refused to withdraw from Hevesi’s case and rejected allegations that he has a conflict of interest involving a relationship with the parents of the former comptroller’s attorney. However, Stone, who accepted Hevesi’s initial guilty plea, did transfer the case to another judge for sentencing and set a new court date for April 4.
UPDATE: A reader with a longer memory than mine noted some discrepencies in the Hevesi memo. His observations appear after the jump.
Silver’s Warning
Mar 30th - 12:36 pm
ICYMI: Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver suggested during a CapTon interview last night that the Legislature won’t stand for this new budget dynamic in which the governor holds all the cards thanks to the extender bills method pioneered by former Gov. David Paterson.
While admitting this is “not the discussion for this year,” Silver said the practice of forcing lawmakers to choose between accepting a governor’s budget as-in and shutting down the government if they blow the April 1 deadline has “not been fully tested” – and should be.
But not by him.
“I’m didn’t say I’m willing to challenge, you know, some innocent child, somewhere, who’s deprived of something might be willing to challenge the governor’s use of power somewhere down the line,” Silver told our Erin Billups.
“There is not a clear cut definition of what’s what. But that’s not the discussion for this year. There are significant limitations on what a governor can do in appropriation language.”
“You know, can a governor impose a death penalty when he appropriates money for the State Police? That may very well be a question that ultimately will come to the Court of Appeals of this state as to what the ability of the governor will be.”
“To do substantive law change with appropriation language and how far a governor can go. There’s no question the governor can do it in relation to an appropriation. How far he can go with it still remains to be seen.”
I’m not sure why Silver used the death penalty example here. The death penalty was a big issue for former Gov. Mario Cuomo, who steadfastly refused to reinstate it after the state’s Court of Appeals struck it down. Former Gov. George Pataki ran on reinstating the death penalty when he ousted Mario Cuomo in 1994. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has long been a death penalty opponent.
Much is being made this year about Paterson’s role in Cuomo’s powerful negotiating position during this year’s budget talks. (Paterson himself seems to be a bit fuzzy on how, exactly, he got the idea to use the extender method last year).
The Legislature clearly will be permanently over a barrel if it doesn’t figure out a way around that. At the very least, Silver’s long-standing approach of out-lasting everyone else won’t work if they don’t.
Budget Update
Mar 30th - 12:01 pm
Lawmakers are still hoping that they can fulfill Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s wishes and get an early 2011-2012 budget by passing everything before the clock strikes midnight this evening.
Here’s what I know at the moment:
- The Senate is in session and is debating the public protection bill revenue bill (they already passed public protestction, which could take a while. The Democrats aren’t making things easy for the Republicans, asking lots of millionaire’s tax-related questions (but they’re not, they say, deliberating dragging their feet to deny the GOP an early budget headline).
You can watch the debate below.
- The Assembly Democrats broke from conference a short time ago, where they discussed the health care piece of the budget. According to one lawmaker, the health care bills are heading to print, although there’s nothing live for me to share with you.
- According to that same lawmaker, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver told his members he WON’T be keeping them in the chamber overnight – much to the camp-in participants’ chagrin, I’m sure. The Assembly will get as much done as possible prior to midnight, aiming to finish the entire budget. But if things are going long, he’ll let the members go home and then finish up tomorrow.
- School runs are out in a few hours, according to Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, who also told reporters: “Most of the bills are being printed we passed at least two and were working on the third, and I think we’ll finish the budget expeditiously.”
- The Capitol is starting to fill up. CapTon pinch-hitter Solomon Syed tells us he’s having a hard time maneuvering around with the camera in tow. The balconies are difficult to get into already, and it’s only noon. Skelos shut down the Senate lobby to everyone BUT lawmakers – and not lobbyists, in spite of a sign that indicated otherwise. He said the protestors have a right to do their thing, but not to disrupt the business of the Legislature.
Watch live streaming video from nysenate at livestream.com
LCA’s ‘Fistful Of Cuomos’ On Tap
Mar 30th - 8:49 am
Invitations to the Legislative Correspondents Association’s 111th annual show lampooning Albany politicians are being sent out this week, NYSNYS News’ Kyle Hughes tells CapTon.
This year’s show, entitled “A Fistful of Cuomos”, will be held on Saturday, May 7 and is returning to the Empire State Plaza Convention Center. The cocktail reception is at 7 p.m., the dinner and show start at 8 p.m.
Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos is scheduled to deliver a rebuttal. Gov. Andrew Cuomo, as is traditional, has been invited to attend and respond, too. We’ll be keeping you posted with updates on his participation.
Tickets at $300 a head. Tables of 8, 9, and 10 are available. For more information, please contact Jean Gutbrodt at 518.455.2388.
The show rehersal will be Friday, May 6. Please contact your favorite LCAer (assuming you’ve got one) for ticket information on that.
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