Spin Cycle

Count Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford), who was on hand at the Republican National Convention last year to cheer the introduction of Gov. Sarah Palin to the rest of the nation, among those who think her resignation as Alaska governor is geared toward a 2012 presidential run.

"I would think so," he said. "I don't have any claims to inside knowledge. I talked to her when she came to Long Island last month, and urged her to stay engaged on a national level and stay in the national arena. I never thought she'd be stepping down."

As for being active in national politics, he said, "I don't know how you'd do it from Alaska. It's another world geographically, politically and media-wise. . . .

"It would give her an opportunity to break loose from the chains of local politics and a very small population with a lot of ancient feuds, where you're bogged down by the Lilliputians there."

She can be on a national stage more often, he said, adding: "She's a lightning rod. That can be good for her. . . . We have a lot of boring people in the Republican party. . . . she certainly engages."

(Sarah Palin at Wasilla, Alaska, resignation announcement; AP Photo)

Maybe the real story is she was so charmed by her recent visit to St. James that she just wants to move Todd and the family here. Maybe not.

Either way she's due to move out of the Alaska governorship and who knows -- perhaps straight into the 2012 presidential race. Or not.

Who knows? Maybe Judge Scalia can roll into town -- and do one of his famous judicial fixes on behalf of the GOP replete with July 4 fireworks.

County Executive Steve Levy, Democrat -- an interesting prospect for statewide office if nothing else -- emerges this week with his announcement that he's going to court to get the Legislature off its collective bottom. How his effort might change the status quo remains to be seen. Who's to say it isn't worth a shot, given the arc of this story? Suozzi seems to be glomming all the local TV face time on this anyway.

First a judge told the feuding legislative sides to get lost, but then another judge ordered them to go into session at a designated time.

It's not like this is getting any more cohesive as we go into Independence Day weekend.

The other day we quoted Ronald Reagan, "How can a president not be an actor?" Now Newsday's Tom Brune cites Politico's noting this from the July/August Playboy interview with Alec Baldwin, in which he talks about running -- and even rambles into wondering aloud whether his Congressman, Tim Bishop, will stay on, and what happens after Bloomberg leaves office....and on like that.

PLAYBOY: Will you run for office?

BALDWIN: I’ll put it this way. The desire is there; that’s one component. The other component is opportunity. A law firm in a liberal Democratic bastion in Ohio state politics sent me a binder with a cover letter that read, “Mr. Baldwin, here’s who we represent, the kinds of cases we handle, our credentials in Ohio state politics. We want you to move to Ohio and run for governor. We will launch your career.”

PLAYBOY: Could you live in Ohio?

BALDWIN: I have sometimes thought I could move to New Jersey or Connecticut and run. I’d love to run against Joe Lieberman. I have no use for him. But it’s all fantasy. I’m a carry-me-out-in-a-box New Yorker. Here, anything can happen. Who thought Eliot Spitzer would go down the way he did? Senator Hillary Clinton left to serve as secretary of state. Two of the biggest forces gone. Maybe Andrew Cuomo will run for one of their old seats. How much longer will Chuck Schumer stay as senator? After 2013 Bloomberg will be gone. What happens then?

Do I run for Congress on Long Island? What’s Tim Bishop going to do? He represents my district. People get sick, die. They’re offered lucrative deals and want to cash in and make money for their retirement. People misstep. Unfortunately, an opportunity for me may mean bad things for someone else. I don’t wish that.

So here's an out-of-the-box political initiative: What if Baldwin ran as that inspirational character in Glen Garry Glen Ross? What would his first campaign staff meeting look like? Does he remind you of anyone now on the political scene? Check below:

This flier is hitting the mailboxes of NYC voters just as Mayor Michael Bloomberg is finessing the political system to retain control of the city’s public schools.

The claims, accurate as far as we can tell, are nonetheless reminiscent of former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s claims on crime reduction years ago.

Yes, education statistics are improving in NYC, but they’re also improving in other jurisdictions, which is not noted in the flier.

Giuliani claimed credit for dropping crime rates in the 1990s, ignoring more significant drops elsewhere — and ignoring the fact that crime stats were getting better before he took office.

Bill Murphy

With the upper house still in deadlock, Sen. Brian Foley (D-Blue Point) has been touting a bill aimed at preventing foreclosure for Suffolk armed-forces veterans.

LIBN's political blog has previously posted a good summary of the mechanics here.

Like other legislation, it is in limbo due to the 31-31 tie between the major parties.

We ran into the former Brookhaven supervisor in a Capitol hallway Wednesday where he expressed the sentiment that if you're going to have leadership fights, they ought to come at the beginning of sessions, not on the verge of the traditional busy season when so much of the year's legislation goes through the houses.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg seems to have done it again. He warned Albany of widespread pillaging, looting, disease and locusts if he didn't get his way, only to have the sun rise as always the following day.

In this account, summer school continues as before.

Chancellor Joel Klein, lawyer and former Bertelsmann chief executive, no doubt with help from mayoral toadies in the vestigial borough presidents' offices, continues his reign despite premature reports of his bureaucratic demise.

Perhaps the mayor's chronic, ever-perishable warnings of calamity have had the supernatural effect of warding off the evil eye.

Or maybe some other hidden forces are at work. Over many decades, it seems that the "answer" to the problem of the city schools ranged back and forth between trends of centralization and decentralization.

Never mind that the state Legislature's failure to renew Bloomberg's control might have been bumbling, accidental or ill-advised.

Now that we're at this point, the question arises: Is it possible --with vast increases in money poured into improving the school system -- we have reached a new phase in the long-term cycle, back toward where "decentralization," whatever it means, looks like an answer once again?

(Pendulum diagram from math.duke.edu)

Long Beach City Councilman Leonard Remo, a two-term Democratic incumbent (in photo), is still shaking his head at his party’s decision not to back him for a third run in this fall’s election, even as party leader Michael Zapson insists he would’ve supported Remo “100 percent.”

“Lenny’s choice not to run was his,” said Zapson, who became chairman less than a year ago. “I think if Lenny ran, I and the entire organization would have supported him.”

“If Mike supported me for the council," Remo said, referring to Zapson, "then how in heavens am I not the candidate?”

In the lead-up to last month’s nominating convention, Remo says, he received signals that he wouldn’t get the endorsement, and marshalled supporters and pledged to run a primary, if necessary, to get himself on the ballot.

The Republican-majority council will have three seats up for grabs, including that of Democrat Denise Tangney, who’s said she won't run this time for personal reasons, and incumbent John McLaughlin, a Republican who’s seeking re-election.

The Democratic convention itself saw some moments of flip-flopping as Remo said he was bowing out, then committeemen nominated Remo, then Remo thought it over, and, finally....

Laura Rivera

Continue reading "Long Beach: Conflicting accounts on nomination" »

And so, U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney becomes the second Democratic primary candidate in the race to replace appointed U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, the first being Jonathan Tasini, who announced last month. Her advantage may be her having been in the Congress for a long time. And who knows -- her disadvantage may be having been in the Congress for a long time. Jon Cooper of Huntington still looks like he's moving toward a run, but not until later in the year. This primary would occur in September 2010 with a lot of other statewide events on the card.

A Times piece seems to cast Maloney's effort as a lonely one given her purported defiance of the Democratic party powers such as Sen. Charles Schumer, Gillibrand's key booster. As the News reports, the Gillibrand camp seems to respond with obvious postures.

(Photo from wsj blogs)

Don’t expect any announcements about his political future for the next six months, Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi says.

“I don’t think you’re going to hear anybody announce that they’re running for office in 2010 from the Democratic side until things shake out over the next six months... including me,” Suozzi said in an interview Tuesday on the NYC cable channel NY1.

“The next six months you’re not going see anybody say specifically what they’re doing, I don’t think, because you need to see what’s going to happen. What’s going to happen with this debacle (in Albany)?” he said.

But Suozzi, who ran for governor in 2006, made it clear that politics is very much on his mind.

“I never thought Rudy Giuliani would run for governor,” Suozzi said at another point. “After being the mayor of New York City, running for governor is a very different job. It’s a very different environment. It’s not Manhattan. It’s not in downstate area. You’ve got to deal with the legislature the way that it is. I could be wrong, but I don’t think he’s going to run.”

Would Suozzi run for governor if Gov. David Paterson does not run for a full term next year?

“I’m not ruling anything out at this time,” Suozzi replied.

Would you challenge Paterson in a Democratic primary for governor?

“I’m not ruling anything out at this point,” Suozzi repeated. “I support David Paterson and will do everything I can to help him....I’m not ruling out anything.”

Bill Murphy

Much posturing of no immediate consequence continued today in Albany.

Summary of the day from Democratic leader John Sampson (D-Brooklyn): "Thirty one to thirty one is a tie. We need to get to the table."

Is there a hostage negotiator in the house?

You know why you have gridlock in Albany? It’s the unions, says former U.S. Sen. Al D’Amato, a highly paid lobbyist who almost never finds himself on the workers’ side of an issue.

Here’s D’Amato on NY1’s “Road to City Hall” on Tuesday night, talking about the Senate stalemate:

“I have to tell you something. I don’t know whether anyone in government today can make the kind of reforms (needed), given the fact that you have a number of power groups, and I’m going to be very specific.

“You have the health care workers union. Now it’s great to have a union, but when you coerce people into doing things because you’ll run millions of dollars worth of ads against them. You have the teacher unions that does the same thing. You have the civil service employees union...”

This from a corporate lobbyist who when he was a U.S. Senator and chairman of the Senate Banking Committee invited lobbyists to play poker in his office. “It was great way to while the time away — to have fun and talk politics,” D’Amato told The New York Times.

Does anyone remember the Albany leader years back — no names please — who had extraordinary good luck in his high-stakes poker games with lobbyists?

Amazing that all those wily lobbyists couldn’t come up with a good hand against him.

Bill Murphy

Suspicions between Team Democrat and Team Republican have obviously grown so thick by now that it took only seconds for a surreal drama to develop over what a veteran senator called his casual stroll through the chamber of New York's upper legislative house.

The episode should make the highlight films of these taxpayer-sponsored 2009 Summer Stealth & Treachery Games. They are still under way Wednesday - after pols blew past the deadline for approving local legislation, such as renewal of New York City's school governance system.

Fallout for NYC's Board of Ed is reported here. "Sadly," Bloomberg says, "the lawyers take over." (Isn't now ex-chancellor Klein a lawyer?) Then, there's the court angle, with further rulings and judicial entanglements expected as reported here. Interestingly, Tom Robbins notes how the political agenda stifled by the coup just happens to coincide with what some very power folks in Albany were trying to fend off.

As he'd swear in an affidavit later in the day, Sen. Frank Padavan (R- Bellerose) merely walked through the Senate chamber Tuesday en route to the members' lounge.

Padavan (in photo) was going to get a cola, a coffee or some other "caffeinated beverage," he said later. He'd have taken a route outside the chamber, but a public event arranged by Democrats had news media personnel jamming the lobby.

The route became an issue because it occurred at the outset of a daily bizarre exercise - in which the Democratic half of the Senate meets with the pretense of being in control of the house, back-to-back with the Republicans, who do the same.

Seizing on a technicality, Democrats - victimized by some quick work on the floor by the GOP 22 days earlier - quickly counted Padavan as "present."

Since he didn't stick around to vote "no" on bills, Padavan was counted as a "yes" on those bills, giving Democrats - on paper - a 32-vote majority for the business at hand.

Could this serve as the equivalent of pine tar too far up the bat? Could it have the effect - intentional or not - of moving this deadlock to a legal resolution?

Padavan was asked if he found the Senate Democrats' move absurd.

"Childish, fraudulent, mean-spirited chicanery - there are a lot of adjectives you could use and all of them would be accurate," he replied later.

Because of the current tensions, the uninvolved were abuzz. Barbara Bartoletti of the League of Women Voters was in the gallery when Padavan appeared on the floor. There followed a sense of, "Oh my God, they flipped Padavan!" she said.

Alarmed Republicans at first apparently reacted with suspicion. Conspiracy theories quickly abounded: Padavan is somehow acting on behalf of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who stood to lose control of his school system at midnight; That this would create a way for the courts to break the stalemate; That some stealth deal was at work.

But later, Gov. David A. Paterson said he took Padavan at his word that ....

Continue reading "Senate split: The Padavan episode and its fallout" »

Despite the gridlock that has gripped Albany, and trickled down to localities, parts of government are still working.

These two Nassau County workers were busy at midday Tuesday with a summer planting outside the Theodore Roosevelt Building in Mineola as County Executive Thomas Suozzi was holding a news conference inside about the need for Albany to enact a cigarette tax for Nassau.

That was also about the time state Sen. Frank Padavan (R-Bellerose) was developing a thirst that would take him through the rear of the Senate Chamber in Albany while Democrats were in control, triggering a claim he was officially present and there was a quorum.

Hours later, as that nonsense calmed down, the two gardeners were still working away across the front lawn of the TR Building, oblivious to the work not being done elsewhere.

Perhaps the officials of Suffolk or the town boards of East Hampton or Southampton or Shelter Island can work creatively to advertise the new information that S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford's admitted getaways included their fine resort spots.

After all, this is a guy who ran to Rio and had his staff lie for him. How chic does that make the East End?

"I was frightened and I was scared, and I knew the consequences," he said. "This was a whole lot more than a simple affair. This was a love story. A forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day." That love story would lead to Sanford's personal unraveling.

Tourist dollars from philanderers can hedge our local communities against the recession.

How about an ad campaign: "Even pols confess.... Long Island is for lovers!"

The battle for control of the state Senate should not be seen as a test of Democrat versus Republican, or an attempt to impose a vision for governing. Instead, it should be viewed as a fight to see who gets the most cookies, in effect, says Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi.

“If you try to say this about a particular issue, as though it’s based upon ideology or what you believe. It’s not. It’s about a power struggle to get control of the goodies, the spoils of victory,” Suozzi said Tuesday night on the “Road to City Hall” show on NY1, the all-news cable channel serving much of New York City.

“This is about who’s going to get the member items. Who’s going to get the chairmanship . . . who’s going to get control of the staffing," Suozzi said. "The bottom line is: You want to fight about that, go ahead and fight about that.”

“They should agree that we’re going to sit down and vote on this emergency stuff, and then we’ll fight it out for the rest of the summer about the leadership, about the change and how we’re going to run the place,” he said.

Suozzi had this to say of Gov. David Paterson:

“He’s got very low poll numbers. Now, he’s acquitted himself pretty darn well over the past couple of weeks trying to get people come together — given the authority that he has.

“It’s a question of whether or not you’re going to see his poll numbers go up. If his poll numbers don’t go up, he’s not going to have the influence he needs to break the logjam.”

(PS: That Albany phone number on the bottom of the screen is for the New York State Senate (518) 455-2800. Suozzi and others on the program urged people to call their state senator and complain about the gridlock.)

The governor, David Paterson, says he won't sign into "law" these bills, enacted Tuesday in Democratic "session" with a majority dependent on a single non-voting Republican who says he passed through the ornate chamber in search of coffee in an adjacent lounge.

If Paterson does not veto them, however, the state Constitution says they become law after 10 days -- as if he signed them.

If Paterson vetoes them, however, isn't he granting an official recognition -- if only by way of saying "no" -- to bills that he says do not exist?

Or put it this way: Isn't there a danger that if he does not veto them, somebody's going to claim convincingly that they do exist?

(Maybe this is, in a perverse way, a bit like asking if an almighty deity can create a rock so heavy that he himself cannot lift it.

In a post-modern sense, does denial of existence constitute an objective reality? Perhaps more esoterically, were there any lobbyists who were NOT on the golf course Tuesday in the belief that the sessions are a sham?)

Technically, the Senate-"approved" bills are sent back to the Assembly, from which they originated.

The question is whether the Democratic-run Assembly will now send them to the governor. If they choose not to do so, why not?

Another question: Does this mean that senior Sen. Frank Padavan's seemingly common, harmless and legal caffeine addiction -- shared by many of us -- poses a threat to the state?

And will Democrats retaliate against his sworn renunciation of any votes by trying to authorize a casino for Union Turnpike, in the district of a senator long committed to fighting gambling addiction?

The Stealth & Treachery Olympics progresses now into a new event. With wily parliamentarian Martin Connor, the former senator, on the floor, the Democrats claim that they have 32 votes because Republican Frank Padavan wandered through the chamber -- he says en route to "a caffeinated beverage."

So they are declaring measures passed. Gov. Paterson has disavowed the legitimacy of the session, but what will he do if and when this reaches his desk?

Tune in as the drama turns. All of it still leaves Bloomberg's school control hanging....

From Mr. Madore:

ALBANY – A Republican senator’s walk through the back of the Senate chamber today as 31 Democrats were convening a regular session was used by them to establish a quorum and begin passing bills.

In about 40 minutes, the 31 Democrats unanimously approved 46 bills already adopted by the Assembly. Many extend local governments’ authority to levy sales taxes and float bonds.

Among the bills passed were ones permitting Nassau to use bonds for termination payments in lieu of laying off county workers, increasing Suffolk’s hotel-motel tax and a fee on cell phones to pay for 911 emergency services in that county.

However, Paterson said he would not sign the bills into law. He has called another special session for 7 p.m. Tuesdayt.

An aide to Democratic leader Malcolm Smith said Democrats plan to continue passing bills at least until 10 p.m. Tuesday.
The Republican-dominated coalition that upended the Senate on June 8 maintained a quorum had not been established.

Frank Padavan (R-Queens) said it was “a fraud” that his brief appearance constituted a quorum. He said he passed through the chamber because the Senate lobby was blocked by reporters waiting for a public leaders’ meeting. He said he had exited the chamber as Democrats were standing to say the Pledge of Allegiance.

Republican leader Dean Skelos of Rockville Centre said, “This is intolerable, it’s a sham.”

Senate Journal Clerk Thomas Testo confirmed that he counted Padavan as present in the chamber. Under Senate rules, members do not have to be in the chamber to be counted as voting “yes” on non-controversial bills, which today’s measures are considered to be.

(britannica.com photo)