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Eliot Spitzer
Spitzer Debates Tax Policy With Sen. DeFrancisco
Feb 2nd - 9:55 am
Former Governor Eliot Spitzer was part of a 6 person panel debating tax policy last night in Syracuse University. He argued for increasing taxes on the rich with 2 other panelists. On the opposite side was Syracuse senator and state senate Finance Chair John DeFrancisco who made the argument that taxing the rich was not the best solution.
The two exchanged several zingers during the debate, and in the end most of the supporters chose to walk through a door showing their support for increasing taxes on the rich.
Afterwards, Spitzer suggested the issue of tax policy would be a defining one in the Presidential race. He went on to predict a close election in November.
“I think Mitt Romney is going to be the Republican nominee. He is smart. He is capable. He was a governor in Massachusetts. I will never say anything critical of his skills, his intellect, his capacity – I disagree with him. I disagree with him on many of the positions he has articulated and I think President Obama is closer to the mark. And I think we are going to have a competitive race from now until November.”
We also asked Spitzer about his take on Governor Cuomo’s pension reform plan. He said he hasn’t seen the specifics of Cuomo’s plan but that pension reform is needed and “folks who want to pretend it is not there are not being honest with the people.” He also says he hasn’t seen the redistricting lines but did call for an independent process.
NYSUT And Kerry Kennedy Target Bullying
Dec 2nd - 3:27 pm
The New York State United Teachers and Kerry Kennedy are scheduled to introduce a new lesson on bullying Monday that will be added to the existing human rights cirriculum for New York’s public schools known as Speak Truth to Power.
NYSUT President Dick Iannuzzi will join Kennedy and her mother, Ethel, as well as anti-bullying activist Jamie Nabozny at 10 a.m. at Beacon High School in midtown Manhattan to talk to students about bullying.
Nabozny, according to NYSUT’s press release, is the latest “defender” to be included in the STTP curriculum. Nabozny, with the help of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, won a landmark federal lawsuit (and eventually settled for close to $1 million) against school administrators in his home state of Wisconsin who failed to a spate of stop brutal anti-gay bullying at his school of which he was the target.
He now speaks in schools across the country about the destructive nature of school bullying, and his story is the subject of a documentary, Bullied, produced by The Southern Poverty Law Center.
Kennedy is president of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. She’s also the ex-wife of Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the mother of his three daughters.
After a bitter and very high-profile split following Cuomo’s failed 2002 gubernatorial bid, Kennedy and Cuomo appear to have settled into an amicable post-divorce relationship. She was not shy about publicly praising him, for example, following his successful push to legalize same-sex marriage this past summer.
She has kept her hand in New York politics, advocating on behalf of farmworkers – crusade that oddly allied her with former Senate Majority Leader Pedro Espada Jr., whom Cuomo targeted as AG. Kennedy has also not ruled out the possibility that she might run for office herself some day.
NYSUT gave its top honor to Kennedy last April following a bruising budget battle during which the union and the governor were at odds on his proposed deep education funding cuts (eventually approved by the Legislature). At the time, the union insisted its decision to give an award to Kennedy was not politically motivated, even though NYSUT was one of the few groups to actually air ads against Cuomo during the budget fight. The union was one of the few not to endorse Cuomo in 2010.
Iannuzzi was on CapTon earlier this week to discuss the possibility of a new legal challenge of what education advocates say is a long-standing inequity in the state’s foundation aid formula that disproportionately hurts low-income districts. I asked about his union’s uneasy relationship with the governor and what the outlook for 2012 might be.
“I like to believe every year is a brand new year,” Iannuzzi replied. “I have learned a lot about the governor, and I think the governor has learned a lot about me. I think we are going to have an excellent relationship going forward.”
Cuomo And More Power For AG, A Gray Area
Nov 22nd - 9:27 am
CapCon’s Jimmy Vielkind has a fascinating article in today’s TU about a dispute between AG Eric Schneiderman and Gov. Andrew Cuomo over expanding the AG’s power to probe public corruption.
It pretty much boils down to this: Schneiderman, through intermediaries, reportedly tried to get Cuomo to use his executive power to issue a so-called “blanket referral” that would give the AG subpoena power in corruption cases.
That’s something Schneiderman does not currently have on his own, though he has teamed up with state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli (another Democrat with a tricky, and sometimes contentious, relationship with Cuomo) and can piggyback on his power in certain instances.
The Cuomo camp, which denies anyone connected to Schneiderman ever made such an ask, argues that even if the governor wanted to expand the power of the office he used to hold, he couldn’t do so because acting unilaterally through executive order would be illegal.
Cuomo’s former top aide, Steve Cohen, (to whom, incidentally, the Schneiderman appeal was reportedly made through the AG’s top aide, Neal Kwatra), argued the following in a Nov. 26, 2010 response to a NY Times OpEd calling for the governor to empower Schneiderman:
“(C)alling for Governor-elect Andrew M. Cuomo to immediately and unilaterally empower the attorney general to investigate the Legislature is, I believe, wrong on the law and misguided in approach.”
“…In truth, what New York needs is wholesale reform of its ethics laws, not a jerry-rigged solution. This state is more likely to get real reform if the governor-elect can build consensus with the Legislature, rather than attacking it on Day 1 with an illegal proposal. We should all know by now that steamrollers don’t work in Albany.”
“Also, the governor does not have the legal authority to broadly delegate prosecution of corruption in the Legislature to the attorney general. The governor does, however, have legal options if the Legislature fails to act by passing real reform. For example, under the Moreland Act the governor could appoint a commission to investigate corruption.”
(That “steamroller” reference is, of course, a swipe at former Gov. Eliot Spitzer).
The Spitzer-Paterson Ticket Reunites
Sep 6th - 5:18 pm
In what is surely a surreal 6-minute interview for anyone who remembers the heady days of the 2006 election, former Gov. David Paterson this afternoon interviewed ex-boss, former Gov. Eliot Spitzer.
Today is Paterson’s first day on the job at his new WOR 710 AM gig as the station’s drive-time host.
“I thought the most appropriate first guest would be the gentleman who got me my last job,” cracked Paterson, making not the first joke about Spitzer’s immolation in the wake of a prostitution scandal.
“The insight and entertainment from you is going to be great — and you can do both,” Spitzer told the new host.
Paterson was Sptizer’s lieutenant governor during his tumultuous year-and-a-half in office, and was chosen as the bottom-half of the ticket despite calls for him to select Buffalo’s Leecia Eve.
Since resigning, Spitzer got a column in Slate and briefly was a host himself of CNN’s “In The Arena” (nee Parker-Spitzer) until the 8 p.m. program was canceled.
In today’s interview, Spitzer-Paterson kibitzed about the special election in the NY-9 and President Obama’s jobs address set for Thursday.
A Brief History Of ‘Air Gov’
Aug 15th - 1:30 pm
The state-funded air fleet has provided reporters with a trove of stories over the years, not to mention a considerable amount of ammunition for critics of incumbent governors.
It’s a little surprising that the Cuomo administration so mishandled the FOIL requests for information/flight manifestos from the governor’s first legislative session, going overboard with the redacting and then slowly walking that back over the weekend.
First of all, this is a perennial ask for LCA reporters, so routine as to be mundane.
You would think the press shop would have had the information already prepared in anticipation of this day’s arrival, particularly since there’s nothing all that damning in there – only the rather nebulous question of whether Cuomo uses taxpayer-funded aircraft to commute to and from Westchester, which falls into an ethical gray area.
Second: Cuomo was AG when the Spitzer administration tried – and failed spectacularly – to use Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno’s use of the state fleet against him. In fact, Cuomo investigated Bruno and then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer in the scandal that came to be known as Troopergate and issued a report critical of the nebulous rules for use of state aircraft.
(One recommendation in that report: A so-called “bright line” rule that permits use of the aircraft only when the purpose of the trip is exclusively governmental. New guidelines issued by the Public Integrity Commission in 2007 stated there must be a “bona fide” state purpose for the trip that is also the “primary” reason for the travel being undertaken).
Third: The Cuomo family has considerable experience fending off criticism about the use of state aircraft.
Charitable Donations Empty Spitzer Campaign Account
Jul 15th - 3:16 pm
The campaign filing of disgraced former Gov. Eliot Spitzer shows a $0 balance after much of his once-mighty financial largesse was given away to charity.
The filing shows that Spitzer donated $50,000 to Harvard College, $25,000 to Harvard Law School and $25,000 to the Horace Mann School in the Bronx, all alma maters of the Democrat.
Other charitable donations include $32,928 to GenerationOn and $25,000 to the Skadden Fellowship
Foundation.
Spitzer’s primetime show on CNN was recently cancelled, but he continues to write a column for Slate. He resigned in 2008 in the midst of a prostitution scandal.
Spitzer’s Sign Off
Jul 7th - 6:48 am
Eliot Spitzer ended his final “In the Arena” last night with the folllowing quote from Theodore Roosevelt – a favorite of fellow former NY executives – from which the ex-governor said he took the title of his ill-fated show:
“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done the better.”
“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena. Whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes up short again and again. Because there is no effort without error and shortcoming. Who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails by daring greatly.”
“So, that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
“Thanks for watching. Good night from New York.”
CNN wasted no time in pushing Spitzer from the air. Hours after announcing the cancellation of his show, he was already reading his last teleprompter lines, although his show will remain in the time slot through Aug. 5.
Spitzer’s ‘In The Arena’ Axed
Jul 6th - 1:47 pm
The NYT reports that former Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s CNN show, “In the Arena,” has been axed by the network and will be replaced by Anderson Cooper’s “AC360.”
According to an internal memo from the executive in charge of CNN/U.S., Ken Jautz, the channel is “in discussions with (Spitzer) about an alternative role.” But Spitzer’s own statement, obtained by NY1 and CapTon, seems to cast doubt on that, as it’s decidedly past tense.
“We engaged serious people in conversations about national and global issues in a way that was informative and challenging,” Spitzer said.
“I believe that we provided diverse and valuable perspectives during the show’s tenure. I thoroughly enjoyed my time at CNN.”
The former governor’s show, which debuted as “Parker Spitzer,” went through a revamp after the February departure of his onetime co-host, Kathleen Parker. But that did nothing to improve its ratings.
Spitzer has repeatedly expressed a longing to return to politics, and his name has been floated as a potential candidate in the 2013 NYC mayor’s race.
Public opinion polls have consistently indicated that New Yorkers aren’t yet ready to see Spitzer return to the public (ahem) arena, yet that hasn’t stopped the former governor from refusing to give, in his own words, a “Shermanesque” rejection of the idea that he might run for another executive post.
At least now he has time to campaign….Paging Dick Grasso!
Spitzer’s Advice To Weiner
Jun 17th - 8:55 am
The road to redemption requires a period of reflection, according to the former-governor-turned-TV-host, who knows a thing or two about coming back from a sex scandal.
“It’s not going to be an easy time; I can tell him that,” Eliot Spitzer said last night during an “In the Arena” segment with Mediaite.com founder Dan Abrams.
“…You sit, you reflect, you figure out what you did wrong Why you did it wrong. What you can contribute back to society. You then go out and you try to do things you think will contribute. You begin to lead a life and try to put it back together, and you spend time with your family. I hope that’s what he does.”
Creature Of Habit
Jun 1st - 2:28 pm
The Eliot Spitzer diet: Eat the same thing over and over again until your wife tells you it’s time to switch up the menu.
Actually, the former governor-turned-CNN host, who is a pretty skinny guy, might be on to something there. An oft-repeated weight-loss tip is to establish a pattern of eating and not deviate from that (theory: this helps count calories and leave little room for error and/or cheating).
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