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Nick Reisman
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Cuomo And Bloomberg Donate $72K To Somos (Updated)
Mar 22nd - 3:19 pm
Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Michael Bloomberg are garnering some good will with the state’s top minority lawmakers by donating $72,000 to the Somos El Futuro conference being held in Albany this weekend.
The money is coming out of their campaign coffers. Cuomo spokesman Josh Vlasto also confirmed the governor will be attending the conference this weekend.
The move comes after the United Federation of Teachers, the state United Teachers and various other labor groups yanked their sponsoring of the conference after the new, less generous pension tier passed last Thursday.
The move was announced in a rare joint statement from Bloomberg and Cuomo, allies of late when it comes to the pension meausure.
“In recent days, the United Federation of Teachers, New York State United Teachers and other unions withdrew their support for this weekend’s 25th annual Somos El Futuro conference in Albany because they are angry about the passage of pension reform. We think the unions’ actions are unfortunate, and don’t want the conference to suffer as a result. We both support the Somos El Futuro Conference and, as such, we will be donating $72,000 to Somos El Futuro and the scholarship to make up for the donations that the unions withdrew. Assemblyman Felix Ortiz, who is Chairman of the New York State Senate/Assembly Puerto Rican & Hispanic Task Force, was instrumental in arranging this contribution.”
It’s a smart move politically, especially for Cuomo, who has had a rocky relationship with the minority community on a number of fronts.
Update: Assemblyman Felix Ortiz just released this statement thanking Governor Cuomo.
“On behalf of the New York State Assembly/Senate Puerto Rican & Hispanic Task Force, I sincerely thank Governor Cuomo and Mayor Bloomberg for their generous donation in support of our 25th Anniversary Somo El Futuro Conference. This donation will allow us to continue our work to provide opportunities for our youth, which is of vital importance for the economic future and well-being of our state.”
“Once again, Governor Cuomo and Mayor Bloomberg have demonstrated their leadership in addressing the needs and issues of importance to the Hispanic community. Although we may not always see eye to eye, the Governor and the Mayor have shown that they are willing to step up and give a helping hand when politics gets in the way of doing the right thing.”
“In addition, the Governor has been a long time friend and supporter and we are honored to present him with the Visionary Leadership Award at the Gala as planned.”
Former Clinton Aide Launches Bid For Rangel Seat
Mar 22nd - 2:55 pm
Clyde Williams, a former aide to President Bill Clinton, is the latest Democrat to launch a primary campaign against longtime Harlem Rep. Charlie Rangel.
Williams, who also has ties to the Obama administration, announced his run in a video posted to YouTube this afternoon.
“Our journey to move uptown forward, begins today with the official announcement of my candidacy for the 13th Congressional seat,” Williams said. “Our community and this nation face important challenges — improving schools, expanding training for 21st century jobs and helping small businesses to thrive locally and in the global marketplace — and solving them will demand fresh ideas and new solutions. The decisions we make today will have a profound impact on the kind of community we have tomorrow.”
No mention of Rangel is made in the video.
Williams has actually been building the infrastructure for a campaign since October, meeting with Democratic leaders and raising cash for a possible primary against Rangel.
Also in the race via his petitioning drive is state Sen. Adriano Espailliat, who is banking on changing demographics of the district post-reapportionment will propel him to victory come June 26.
Libous: Budget Bills Next Week
Mar 22nd - 1:56 pm
From the Department Of Incremental Updates, Deputy Senate Majority Tom Libous today said budget bills were possible next week as lawmakers look to wrap up the spending plan late next week.
“Well, if you’re going to do a budget by next Friday, I mean, you would have to have bills in by Tuesday unless you got a message,” Libous said. “You know there are some common areas. Some stuff could be printed over the weekend if there’s agreement, some stuff Monday.”
The budget is due April 1.
The first bill to be printed traditionally as been the so-called TED bill, which stands for transportation and economic development.
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver had actually hoped at one point that the budget could get closed down by March 22. Obviously that isn’t the case today, but lawmakers did act quickly last Thursday in giving the OK to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s major legislative goals this year including the Tier Six pension overhaul and the expansion of the state’s DNA database.
A marathon of joint legislative budget conference committees is underway this afternoon following the quick Assembly and Senate sessions.
One of the largest stumbling block so far has been how to spend $200 million in competitive grant funding, part of an overall 4 percent boost in state aid.
“We feel strongly in the Senate that a portion of that competitive grant money should go into schools, in my case rural schools, or those schools that have delat with GAP elimination aid,” Libous said. “That’s obviously a debate.”
Bloomberg Mails Cuomo On Budget
Mar 22nd - 1:01 pm
Fresh off the legislative victory that was the new, cost-saving retirement measure known as Tier Six, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is mailing Gov. Andrew Cuomo on the budget, due April 1.
Bloomberg, who opens by praising Cuomo for the Tier Six success, says more work is needed on school transportation, education aid and an equitable assumption of Medicaid costs.
The letter largely takes Cuomo’s view on a variety of measures, including health-care costs and juvenile-justice reform.
The mayor’s take on school aid distribution, perhaps the biggest sticking point in the governor’s $132.5 billion spending plan, is especially interesting:
I ask that you continue to work with the Legislature to ensure that any restorations of school aid, including money redirected from competitive grant programs, are distributed through the main funding formulas in current law. While the implementation of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity settlement has been delayed because of the State’s fiscal crisis, as new funds become available, they should be directed to those districts most in need. The Gap Elimination Adjustment (GEA) vehicle employed in your past two Executive budgets uses careful calculations of wealth and taxes to direct funding toward those districts with the greatest needs.
The Assembly’s one-house budget proposes this kind of equitable redistribution of $178 million through Foundation Aid, including an additional $74 million in school aid to the City. The Senate’s one-house budget, however, represents a departure from the State’s commitment to fair education funding by altering the GEA. The State’s commitment to our children should not be distorted by the politics of geography.
Bloomberg supported Cuomo’s pension overhaul by marshaling a coalition of local government leaders who said their budgets were at a breaking point unless a cost-saving retirement measure could be passed this year.
State Lines Not Set In Stone Yet
Mar 22nd - 12:22 pm
State redistricting isn’t completely done just yet.
The liberal Daily Kos blog this morning posted a short item pointing out that the federal court asserted in a filing that it was still very much involved in approving the state Assembly and Senate lines.
Essentially, Senate Democrats are pushing the notion that the court can still draft legislative lines itself, just as a magistrate did with the House districts. Lawyers for the conference continue to point not just
to the Department of Justice’s process, but also their still-pending legal challenge over growing the Senate from 62 to 63.
So here is what’s left to do:
1. Plaintiffs in the case can amend their filings by March 27.
2. Defendants (aka the Senate Democrats) can reply by April 2.
3. Nathaniel Persily, who is working with Federal Magistrate Roann Mann, will look at the court could do and start work on the lines by April 9.
Of course, there’s a couple of dominoes and ifs that need to fall before anything changes.
Plus, everyone in the political world is more or less proceeding as the state lines drawn now under the assumption that nothing will change.
April will likely be the last-ditch stand for Senate Democrats, who had hoped Gov. Andrew Cuomo would veto the Republican-drawn Senate districts.
Twisting the dagger into the Senate Democrats’ hide on Fred Dicker’s radio show this morning was former Cuomo aide Steve Cohen.
“Those same people who are ignoring it, they were in the majority,” Cohen said.
Reilich Says Alesi’s Fate To Be Determined By Local GOP Leaders
Mar 22nd - 11:03 am
Monroe County Republican Chairman Bill Reilich said the decision as to whether Sen. Jim Alesi will ultimately receive the GOP line come November is up to the local officials in the district.
Reilich, an assemblyman from Greece, said in an interview in this office this morning that there was no guarantee that Alesi, one of the four Republicans to vote yes for same-sex marriage in June last year, would be the GOP nominee this fall.
“There’s no guarantees,” Reilich said. “Anytime you go into an election you hope for the best, but quite honestly there are no guarantees.”
Reilich was careful not take a stand either way on whether Alesi should receive the endorsement. But the Republican lawmaker’s problems do not stem only from his yes vote cast on same-sex marriage. Alesi filed an ill-fated lawsuit against a couple whose under-construction home he had entered and subsequently injured himself in. The suit, filed the day the statute of limitations was due to expire, was ultimately dropped after widespread criticism.
“I’ve heard some of the leaders of communities express some concerns,” Reilich said. “The bottom line is I respect the community process. This will be a decision from the ground up it won’t be from the top down.”
Asked if anyone had stepped forward to him to run, Reilich said “a number of candidates” have expressed interest in the seat.
Assembly Sean Hanna has expressed interest in the seat, as reported by Gannett this week. I ran into Hanna in the hallway yesterday here at the Capitol and he downplayed the interest.
“That’s been out there for a while,” Hanna said.
Alesi has already lost the support of the Monroe County Conservative Party. His yes vote for same-sex marriage immediately made him something of a star, appearing at LGBT rallies and was the only Republican senator to appear at Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s news conference.
Steve Cohen, the former Cuomo aide who was instrumental in marshaling the marriage bill through the Legislature last year, told Fred Dicker in a Talk-1300 interview that Alesi’s troubles were more due to the local considerations. Asked by Dicker about Alesi’s case, Cohen initially responded by talking about another GOP yes vote, Sen. Roy McDonald, who is also facing political trouble in his district.
Bringing the interview back to Alesi, Cohen responded, “”The example I chose was Roy McDonald and not Jim Alesi. The local politics in that case are the local politics.”
Bloomberg And Enviros: Something Stinks About Sulfur Delay
Mar 21st - 3:42 pm
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and a coalition of environmental groups on the same page when opposing a move by the Republican-led Senate that would delay the implementation of a regulation that would require lower-grade sulfur in home heating oil.
Both Bloomberg and the groups, which include NYPIRG and the American Lung Association, have issued memos of opposition to the language that was included in the Seante’s one-house budget bill.
For the mayor, an elected official who never much cared for public smoking, the issue is a matter of public health, especially for the city.
“The particulate matter contained within home heating oils with higher sulfur levels have been linked to increased respiratory symptoms, such as irritation of the airways, coughing, or difficulty breathing; decreased lung function; aggravated asthma; development of chronic bronchitis; irregular heartbeat; heart attacks; and premature death in people with heart or lung disease,” Bloomberg’s office wrote in its memo. “The shift toward the use of lower sulfur home heating oil will lead to hundreds of lives saved and hospitalizations for respiratory and cardiovascular conditions prevented each year.”
The advocacy groups, meanwhile, point to the cost savings of low-grade sulfur in home heating oil.
“Additionally, use of lower sulfur heating oil will save consumers money through increased heating efficiency, longer boiler life, and the ability to take advantage of government energy efficiency programs,” they wrote. “The purchasing cost of ultra low sulfur heating oil is also comparable with that of traditional oil; often the price has been lower than that of traditional heating oil.”
Proponents of delaying the requirement say there isn’t enough lower sulfur in stock. The bill memos in opposition are after the jump. More >
Silver Into The Whole Brevity Thing Today (Video Added)
Mar 21st - 3:29 pm
As per usual, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was very talkative this afternoon following the closed-door the Democratic conference.
Reporters who waited for Silver to emerge tried to pry some specifics out of him, but he was his usual steel trap.
“Nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to,” Silver said twice.
Asked if there was any agreement on Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s proposal to expand his post-budget authority by moving money from line item to line item, Silver wouldn’t predict if that would be changed, unlike Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos this morning.
“There is no update,” Silver said.
He added, “I think we’ll resolve this budget hopefully by next week and we’ll have the appropriate balance on all issues.”
And Silver denied he was delaying the budget over putting member items — AKA legislative pork — into the final draft.
“The Assembly is not holding up the budget,” he said. “The Assembly is not holding up the budget.”
The $132.5 billion spending plan as proposed by Cuomo is due April 1, but lawmakers and Cuomo are eager for an early budget.
CSNY Turns Focus To Cuomo Jobs Plan
Mar 21st - 3:04 pm
Now that Tier Six is a reality, the Gov. Andrew Cuomo-aligned Committee to Save New York is out with a radio ad this afternoon focusing on creating a new infrastructure program for the state.
The group, a coalition of wealthy business interests that back Cuomo’s fiscal agenda, blasted out a 60-second radio spot on the New York Works program that promotes Cuomo’s plan for investment in roads, bridges and tunnels.
The spot comes after CSNY blanketed airwaves in favor of Cuomo’s new, less generous retirement tier for future public workers. New York Works is also a proposal that has garnered favorable reviews from private-sector construction unions, just as Cuomo’s relationship with public labor organizations is at an all-time low.
And CSNY also urges voters to push lawmakers on passing Cuomo’s $132.5 billion budget to “rebuild our economy and create jobs now.”
The ad can be heard here.
Here’s the script:
How do we rebuild New York’s economy? It starts by rebuilding New York. Governor Cuomo’s budget includes a new jobs package, called New York Works. Backed by the New York State Building and Construction Trades Council, Cuomo’s plan puts New Yorkers on the job – repairing our infrastructure, revitalizing our economy, and protecting communities across our state. It means thousands of jobs, making our roads and bridges safer…modernizing our water system…improving our parks and historic sites. It’s the leadership we need…with tax credits for businesses that create jobs…more opportunities for women and minority-owned businesses…leveraging private sector funding to put New Yorkers back to work. To rebuild our economy and create jobs now, tell your legislator to pass the Governor’s budget. Paid for by the Committee to Save New York.
Skelos Spins Storobin Stalemate
Mar 21st - 1:33 pm
Senate Republicans are taking something of a victory lap today given the special election photo finish in Brooklyn in which Republican David Storobin leads Democrat Lew Fidler by just over 100 votes. Both sides have declared victory in the race to replace former Sen. Carl Kruger.
Even if Storobin is successful, he’ll have to run again in a redrawn district that he doesn’t even technically live in come November.
But Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos says the GOP running a competitive race in a corner of New York City shows his conference’s message is playing well across the state.
He was pretty eager to discuss last night’s results.
“I was hoping somebody would ask,” Skelos exclaimed referring to a question about the race after a series of budget questions (we hacks really want to talk broccoli news).
“Mr. Storobin is a great candidate,” Skelos told reporters in a gaggle outside the Senate chamber. “I think we’re going to be successful but really what it’s about is our message is resonating in a district that’s five to one Democrat that Republicans are making government function. That we’re looking to cut taxes, cut spending and private sector job creation and that’s resonating in Democrat communities and Republican communities throughout the state.”
But even if Republicans pull off a victory, one is not a trend and Republicans, who have a built-in advantage post redistricting, still have to keep their two or potentially three seat majority in a presidential election year. Republicans have taken out a multitude of insurance policies, most notably the creation of a 63rd Senate seat in a GOP-friendly area of the Capital Region.
“I think we’re going to grow the Senate not just hold the Senate,” he said. “Whether it’s been the different ethnic communities in Brookyln … we’re reaching into other communities to grow the Senate.”
Though Republicans point to the heavy Democratic enrollment in the district, the GOP has had some success in the area. It was an easy win for John McCain in 2008, plus it was the site of the David Weprin debacle of 2010.
Skelos also said there was no possibility of a minimum wage increase being taken up in the chamber.
“My position is the minimum wage is not the right thing to do and it’s not going to be in the budget,” he said, noting that the main backer, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, doesn’t want it in the spending plan either.
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