Spin Cycle

In the storm over the sexual and alcoholic escapades of Rep. Vito Fossella Jr., one or two telling episodes of the region’s past and present have escaped proper mention.

Remember Guy Velella? He was a Bronx state senator, married with four children, in 1987 when he publicly acknowledged fathering a child with an Albany girlfriend. Velella, also the county GOP chairman, won re-election eight times over the next 17 years. He lost the seat in 2004 only when he pleaded guilty to an unrelated criminal charge involving fixing of state contracts.

And, in 2006, Sen. Malcolm Smith (D-Queens) was hit with a paternity suit by the son of an ex-staffer -- and subsequently became minority leader, succeeding David Paterson, who ran for lieutenant governor. Smith was married and promised support if it was proven he was the dad, which he declared to be a private matter. With a net gain of two seats in November, Smith stands to become majority leader, one of the most powerful state positions.

Fossella, however, has dealt himself a lousier hand in what looks like a tougher game. His second family became known only after he managed to get himself stopped on the road with a blood-alcohol level said to be twice the legal limit. The woman with whom he acknowledged involvement, retired Air Force officer Laura Fay, collected him from a Virginia jail. Of most political consequence is that before any of this emerged, Democrats were targeting his seat.

Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford), Fossella’s fellow downstate Republican in Congress, spent time with him last week as the crisis built. Colleague King, clearly saddened, described Fossella as enduring “incredible heartache.”

Other friends, meanwhile, said Fossella clearly had a death wish -- at least politically.

Dan Janison

The annual spring dance of the crackdown bill has begun in Albany -- the kind of legislation that responds to the crisis or government fiasco of the season. As a result, for example, Sen. Dean Skelos and Assemb. Harvey Weisenberg, among others, are sponsoring fixes to the practice of off-payroll consultants hooking into the pension system of school boards, as covered in Newsday. Expect to hear more about this; here is some of the attention the snowballing issue is attracting elsehwere in the state.

Dan Janison

If Nassau Legis. David Mejias has interest in running for state Senate, he is going to have to wage a primary.

Jay Jacobs, Nassau Democratic chairman, said the party will be giving the nomination to Kristen McElroy, 38, a Garden City attorney and mother of three, making her first run to take on Republican State Senate veteran Kemp Hannon (left).

Mejias, moved into the Hannon’s district to qualify to run, was snubbed for the party’s nod after he angered Jacobs when he balked at backing a pay raise for county lawmakers.

Mejias, reached Friday, said that he will not challenge for the nomination, will support the party’s candidate and will “focus 100 percent on the Nassau Legislature.”

The party will also name Hofstra University ethics professor Roy Simon, 58, of West Hempstead to take on State Senate Deputy Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre).

The Democrats' convention is scheduled for May 29 at the Cradle of Aviation in Garden City.

Rick Brand

More than a century ago, Justice John Marshall Harlan became the U.S. Supreme Court’s “great dissenter.” Last week, in a much more modest forum, rookie Sen. Craig Johnson (D-Port Washington) did a lot of dissenting — though any claim to greatness will be subject to debate.

Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith chose Johnson last year for the 15-member local-efficiency commission to explore merging special tax districts and other government entities. In its 71-page report, endorsing “big changes” and issued last week, Johnson’s name appeared in footnotes as objecting or abstaining on no less than a dozen of the panel’s 33 recommendations. That’s more than any other member, including Nassau Comptroller Howard Weitzman, who objected to seven.

“I have to be frank,” Johnson says. “There are several flaws in commission’s final report that I think, as my dissents showed, cannot be overlooked.”

He said there was “almost no analysis of the cost savings of any of the initiatives,” and little recognition of differing government structures by region.

That said, Johnson also cited bills he has introduced to help change special-district arrangements for the better.

The report shows that Johnson, Weitzman and three elected upstaters opposed steps bulleted by the commission toward countywide management of fire protection services. Another member, Assemb. Sam Hoyt (D — Buffalo) told Newsday’s Liz Moore: “Frankly, I think there are too many elected officials who simply pander to the fire departments and the volunteer firefighters.”

Johnson treads warily on local turf; Long Island Republicans would love to win back his seat in November. Most objections scattered through the reform report came from the panel’s 6 elected officials. One exception: Chairman Stan Lundine, the former lieutenant governor, joined Johnson, Weitzman and ex-Troy Mayor Mark Pattison objecting to a proposal in the report to make government and school-district employees pay at least 10 percent for individual health coverage, and 25 percent for dependents.

For the full report, click here. Note: Harlan's famous dissent was in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), in which the majority of the court upheld racial segregation as constitutional under the concept of "separate but equal." More here.

Dan Janison

Examining the real issues behind last week's announcement on highway patrol coverage, Rick Brand looks at the actions of the county executives and the Paterson administration in putting to rest a contentious $12 million per year issue.

Now it all becomes an episode of "Can You Top This"...

As Peddie and Laikin of Newsday have revealed, the Malverne schools produced a pension deal that even an expert or two found stunning. Read the details, and the defenses, here. Links to the rest of their accounts are available next to it.

Gov. David A. Paterson struck a blow for free speech last week, signing into law a bill protecting writers from foreign libel judgments.

The measure, sponsored by State Sen. Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre), at left, and Assemb. Rory Lancman (D-Queens), bars state courts from enforcing the libel ruling of a foreign court unless that country has the same speech protections as the United States or better. The bill also expands a writer’s ability to have a court declare the foreign libel judgment invalid in New York.

The legislation stems from the case of author Rachel Ehrenfeld of Manhattan, who lost a libel suit brought in a British court by Saudi banker Khalid bin Mahfouz. In her book, “Funding Evil,” she alleged that he financed terrorist Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida.

Paterson said, “New Yorkers must be able to speak out on issues of public concern without living in fear that they will be sued outside the United States under legal standards inconsistent with our First Amendment.”

Skelos agreed, adding, “the truth is a critically-important component of the war on terror.”

James T. Madore

In the ever-dizzying process of delegate assignment, the state Democrats in Saratoga today added 85 to the 156 total that was decided proportionally at the polls on Feb. 5.

The state will have 281 overall, and those acted on today include 4 unpledged at-large -- AG Andrew Cuomo, Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, C. Virginia Fields and Carmen Arroyo, all currently Clinton supporters who are "free to vote their conscience" at the Denver convention in August, which will of course depend on circumstances then. (Obama's camp today announced that 3 Obama supporters from Illinois had, likewise, been chosen today as "add on" superdelegates from that state).

There are also pledged pary leaders and elected officials -- 30 of them -- and pledged at-large delegates, totalling 51. In all, the delegation is decided with consideration to national rules that include affirmative action by race, gender, age, veteran status, etc.

In working this out, Suffolk's Barry McCoy has been tracking the numbers and pointing out that geographically, Long Island gets short-changed -- with heavy representation from New York City.In terms of Clinton-Obama, it's all supposed to come out as closely as possible to proportional to the state's primary vote.

Dan Janison

Judge for yourself whether this new Democratic verbal tack makes any sense.

The rationale for keeping the state Senate in the control of the Republicans next fall is the patently American goal of checks and balances. In NYS, the offices of the governor, the comptroller, the attorney general and the state Assembly are all Democratic territory these days. So the GOP majority is supposedly a check on that concentration of party power.

But at today's spring business meeting of the state Democratic committee, chairwoman June O'Neill and Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith (D-Queens) countered from the podium that the Senate has been uninterruptedly in Republican hands for more than 40 years, and so with so many challenges ahead the people should "try" a Democratic Senate "for two years," with the implicit message that they go back if they don't like it. O'Neill even led a quick chant of "Give us Two!"

Smith said afterward that GOP control has really lasted more like 70 years -- since the last, tumultuous Democratic tenure was very brief in the mid-1960's.

"We've had people make us believe we were separate states," said Smith. "The 62 Senators all have good ideas...it's one New York." Both Smith and O'Neill tied the Democratic rationale to dissatisfaction with the status quo.

Dan Janison

Nassau and Suffolk Democratic committee members are announcing a regional caucus arrangement that -- at least according to those involved -- shunts aside past border skirmishes between the county organizations. According to weighted vote calculations based on the 2006 election results for governor, they say, the two Long Island counties now combine for a 15 percent share statewide. That's formidable when you consider it takes 25 percent to, say, put a primary candidate on a statewide ballot.

"Long Island for too long has been taken for granted, regarded as just a suburb that hangs off of New York," said Nassau chairman Jay Jacobs. "We are very determined to use that voting power to make sure attention is brought to Long Island issues."

Richard Schaffer, Suffolk chairman, said, "This is a great opporunity to make sure our statewide elected officials know just how critical Long Island has been to Democratic statewide victories."

New York City, by comparison, has declined in its percentage of the weighted vote from 47 to 34 percent, and Brooklyn and Queens combined are said to total about 17 percent. Schaffer, in his brief joint appearance with Jacobs before the executive committee of the state party here today in Saratoga, even invited Queens and Brooklyn to join, for geographic solidarity's sake.

Dan Janison

Some lawmakers, including seven GOP Assembly members from Long Island, have been calling for a slice in New York's tax on gasoline to give strapped motorists a break as prices soar.

But a skeptical State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli seemed to reach for the brake when asked about such proposals last night at the Saratoga Hilton -- where he had just delivered welcoming remarks for a reception of the spring business meeting of the state Democratic committee.

"The problem is, can you replace the state revenues?" DiNapoli told Newsday. "If it were to trigger mid-year budget cuts, it would not seem like the smartest thing to do." Generally, it is a matter on which the federal government should begin to focus, said DiNapoli, who was a Democratic Assemblyman from Nassau last year before replacing the disgraced Alan Hevesi in the comptroller's post.

The ultimate benefit of a tax break on fuel has been debated of late on a national level, with presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and John McCain differing with Barack Obama in their backing for such a break.

Dan Janison

Maybe it's what you'd expect to hear from the fan base about the Rev. Wright uproar, but state Sen. Bill Perkins from Harlem (left in recent photo) insisted last night as colleagues gathered for the statewide Democratic meeting in Saratoga: "It looks like we're moving past that issue. He'll do what it takes to continue in the fight."

"It's getting toward the finish line," he said. "The mathematics suggest he's unbeatable," Perkins said -- unless "the new math" from the Clinton camp regarding delegates somehow comes to be believed. Indiana? "I think he'll win -- we'll have gotten past this latest episode" and the economy and foreign policy will take center stage, Perkins predicted.

Clinton supporters in the reception room at the Saratoga Hilton -- and of course there were many -- weren't buying it, of course. One well-placed Clinton operative, who declined to comment, merely smiled, without even acknowledging it had been a good week for their candidate.

Dan Janison

That state advisory commission on property tax relief led by Nassau Executive Tom Suozzi may be interested in capping the levy -- but such a proposal would encounter heavy resistance from those representing New York state teachers, according to yesterday's Times item here.

Read the comment from NYSUT. How any interest group, from labor or business, can presume to suggest a pre-emptive veto of any proposal is worthy of discussion.

Turns out on checking this that Basil Paterson, who represents New York City teachers in their contract talks, quit the panel last month, once his son David Paterson became governor, to stem any appearance of conflict.

For reasons that have become obvious, Kristine Hammann ran into serious and unexpected political troubles trying to serve in the role of Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s inspector general. She quit as Gov. David Paterson took office. Now Paterson has replaced her with Joseph Fisch, who has been a state Supreme Court justice in the criminal term in the Bronx since 2003.

Befrore that Fisch, 75, who's had a long legal career, was a justice on the state Court of Claims and serves on the Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics. Capitol Confidential here recaps the political background.

Dan Janison

The reported focus by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo' office has been on former state police Col. Daniel Wiese, whose kept close relations with back-to-back governors Pataki and Spitzer and now has a $180,000-a-year Power Authority job.

Now Fred Dicker writes of a private security contract through the authority that he suggests lies at the heart of suspected political surveillance of legislators. Plausible enough, in theory, but there are no specifics -- so far.

When Wiese was up for the Power Authority post in 2003, Assemb. Richard Brodsky obtained this gushing praise from then Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, as the Times writes here. The same nugget brings up the mystery of exactly what Sen. Dale Volker was talking about at that hearing last week.

Dan Janison

The upcoming retirement of Judith Kaye, after 15 years as top judge on the state’s highest court, has sparked intense speculation over a successor. And a back-chamber battle for the prized appointment may be brewing.

When David Paterson became governor last month, Jonathan Lippman, at right, had widely been considered the favorite. He’s served since 1996 as the chief administrative judge running the massive court system — the longest tenure to date in the post. A Kaye appointee, he’s credited with many initiatives, including the introduction of specialty courts and rule reforms.

But state sources say Theodore T. Jones, Jr., at left, is emerging as a leading contender to succeed Kaye in leading the 7-member Court of Appeals. Jones joined the court in February of last year, an Eliot Spitzer nominee. Before that he served for many years as a state Supreme Court justice in Brooklyn.

If tapped, Jones would be the court’s first African-American chief judge.

Some suggest another name in play may be Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick, an appointee of Gov. Mario Cuomo, who’s served on the court since January 1994. She’d be its first Latina chief judge.

Kaye reaches the mandatory retirement age of 70 this year. A Cuomo nominee, she became the court’s first female judge in 1983. Today, four of the judges are women, two chosen by Republican Gov. George Pataki.

Court watchers note that Paterson’s counsel is James Yates, who’s served as a state Supreme Court justice — and has himself been on lists of envied eligibles for the high court.

Dan Janison

The partisan war for control of the state Senate is prompting maneuvers on several battlefields. Here is the latest news from two of them.

Local sources tell Rick Brand that Brookhaven Supervisor Brian Foley would be the state Democrats’ top choice to challenge veteran Sen. Cesar Trunzo. He has $200,000 in campaign cash on hand, but before you bet on his jumping in, be warned that Foley is considered quite cautious. There’s family history too: His father, John Foley, lost a bid to unseat Trunzo back in 1982, by 7,666 votes. Still, Senate Democrats were said to be testing Foley’s name in polls. And Foley has had a conversation about it with Bob Master, the Communication Workers of America regional legislative director who also is state co-chair of the Working Families Party, which partners with Democrats in Senate races, Brand reports.

Speaking of the WFP, the party plans starting tomorrow to target Trunzo and Sen. Kemp Hannon (R-Garden City) in an “issues” campaign, slamming the Senate GOP on paid family-leave. Which Democrat will face Hannon, though, also remains hazy. As Celeste Hadrick reported Friday on this blog, Legis. David Mejias (D-Farmingdale) agreed to rejoin the Democratic legislative caucus after talking privately with Nassau Democratic Chairman Jay Jacobs, with whom he’d been feuding. But sources say the Democratic organization has not reinstated its support for a Mejias race against Hannon -- whose seat seems to have been a topic of perennial discussion from the opposing party for time immemorial.

Dan Janison

Here's the top of a story filed this afternoon by Sandra Peddie and Eden Laikin:

New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli has revoked four lawyers’ memberships in the state pension system and canceled service credits for a fifth after determining they were not public employees, a spokeswoman said.

The lawyers are all partners in Girvin & Ferlazzo, a prominent Albany law firm. Auditors found that all five had been reported as full-time employees of the Hamilton-Fulton-Montgomery BOCES, located west of Albany, when the five actually had worked a total of just 196 days in the 2006-2007 school year. One lawyer, auditors said, worked only four hours.
The five were paid a total of $234,000 for the year, auditors said.

“We determined that these lawyers were inappropriately classified as employees,” said DiNapoli’s spokeswoman, Emily DeSantis.

For the rest, click here.

Anthony Shorris notified staff that he's leaving the sprawling bi-state Port Authority after a little more than a year as executive director, signalling some changes of direction for Gov. David Paterson. Shorris had been an adviser to the Eliot Spitzer campaign for governor two years ago.

"We have made our critical infrastructure assets far safer using the finest analytic tools in the country," he states.

The full text of the letter is below.

Dan Janison

A name now making the rounds -- very unofficially -- as a potential replacement for Anthony Shorris as Port Authority executive director is Christopher O. Ward, managing director of the General Contractors Association of New York and a former New York City environmental protection commissioner.

Ward also has been on the board of directors of the New York Independent System Operator and was Chief Executive Officer of American Stevedoring, Inc. before joining the general contractors group in 2006. (There was some falling-out between the company and the city over Brooklyn pier operations, which might now be water under the dock).

Ward, known as collegial and deeply versed in port issues, has been at the Port Authority before -- as chief of external affairs and director of port development, from which he pushed to create the monorail line between Jamaica and JFK Airport in Queens. He'd also been vice-president at the city's Economic Development Corp.

Dan Janison

Anthony Shorris is out as executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, a position that has been traditionally controlled by the governor on this side of the Hudson, sources told Newsday this afternoon. More details as we get them.

UPDATE: Shorris, widely praised as intelligent and capable, was put the post by Gov. Eliot Spitzer in January 2007. The PA is key to the Ground Zero reconstruction project. Insider word is that Paterson wants his "own team," the standard rationale. There have been interviews for a replacement, but no names yet announced tonight.

Shorris previously served as the agency's first deputy exec director between 1991 and 1995. He's also been deputy chancellor in the NYC school system.

Dan Janison
and James T. Madore

The Public Integrity Commission confirmed this afternoon that it received a request to review an ethical protocol drawn up to ensure there are no conflicts of interest between the jobs of Gov. David A. Paterson and his father, Basil, a prominent lawyer who represents unions of state employees.

Commission spokesman Walter Ayres said the request from Basil Paterson’s law firm, the Long Island-based Meyer, Suozzi, English and Klein, was received on Monday. Ayres said he didn’t know how long the review would take but said the results wouldn’t be made public.

The move comes after the governor's office indicated to Newsday last month that it would not seek an opinion from the commission on the proper line between Paterson's role and his father's. Instead, the governor's office said it would work directly with Meyer Suozzi to put in place protocols to avoid conflicts such as the elder Paterson’s sharing in Meyer Suozzi's proceeds from lobbying state government.

James T. Madore

When state Sen. Craig Johnson (D-Port Washington) sought to push a pay-equity bill to the floor the other day, it set Republicans leaving the chamber so they wouldn't have to vote on a motion to petition, meaning they wouldn't have a potentially controversial vote recorded in the negative. The Times Union, which evidently had been told to turn off video in violation of the usual policy, did manage to record and show the empty GOP chairs. Parallel intramural fights to subvert are done by the Republicans in the Assembly, where the party is in the minority.

And you thought they were having a good time up there in Albany.

Here's the TU video:

Dan Janison

Much was made of the idea that Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver's conference bumped off the plan known as "congestion pricing."

But it was never made clear how many of his 42 votes the house's Republican minority leader had for the plan, or for that matter, the Senate's GOP majority leader, whose 8 Long Island members didn't exactly form a cheerleading squad for Mayor Michael Bloomberg's proposal.

One Assembly member from Long Island said late last week: "I was very much on the fence. There are many pros and cons to this that we really need to continue take a real good look at... On one side issue, yes, the environment and global warming has to be adddressed -- for the enitre nation. On the other hand, on Long Island, if we want encourage to people taking the railroad, we should lower the fare."

But the stalled drive to charge motorists access to Manhattan below 60th St. was not so much an environmental initiative, but a project of the real estate elite which, if it really wanted to reduce congestion, would have agreed to curb the city's over-development craze, argues Paul Moses on Ron Howell's Brooklyn-based blog.

UPDATE: There is also this take in the Voice, which talks about how the GOP Senate came to duck a vote.

Dan Janison

For Long Island, one key question when it comes to this year's state Senate races is whether its communities as a whole will lose clout should the house change from GOP to Democratic.

Right now there are eight Republicans and one Democrat in the Senate delegation from Nassau and Suffolk combined. If you look at the way Democrat John Rennhack breaks out the most recent school-aid numbers here, the partisan argument could be one of current favoritism.

But there are also two houses, and the Assembly is overwhelmingly Democratic. So when it comes to regional competition for funds, there are a lot of sharp edges.

Dan Janison

Richard Kessel, the former Long Island Power Authority chairman who continues to mull over several career paths, this weekend took on a new role: fatherhood.

On Sunday, Kessel, 58, and his wife, Diane, gave birth to their first child, a seven-pound, seven-ounce son, named Eli Bernard Kessel.

Bernard was the name of Kessel’s father, who passed away in 2006.

But what of Eli?

Was it just a coincidence that the boy was born and named the same month LIPA planned to announce a Kessel-inspired $1 billion energy conservation program called ELI (for Efficiency Long Island)?

Actually, says Kessel, "He’s a Superbowl baby." His son was named for Eli Manning, the Giants quarterback who led the New York team to victory at a Superbowl game Kessel and his wife attended this past February. During one critical march up the field, Kessel announced to friends including National Grid USA executive chairman Robert Catell, that if Manning scored, they’d name the child Eli.

The rest is history.

For those with a sinking suspicion the child was named for the LIPA program, Kessel says, "Sorry."

Kessel says he’s not sure what to make of fatherhood yet. "I’ll tell you when I bring [Eli] home and see how the cats react to him," he says.

He’s says also a little concerned the boy may be thrown by his father’s age. "I’m half expecting him to say, ‘Hey grandpa, where’s daddy?"

Mark Harrington

When he took over the governorship after being elected in a record landslide, Eliot Spitzer brought with him a mostly insular cadre of advisers, mostly lawyers, from the state attorney general's office, under the aegis of the law-man and reformer.

Lt. Gov. David Paterson, elected on the same ballot, was different -- steeped in legislative comptromises, neighborhood assistance grants, and the city's and Democratic Party's leading African-American power circles.

Now, in the month after Paterson was suddenly thrust into the top spot, his different sensibility and life experience is reflected in his cabinet picks. And in a notable Capitol micro-trend, an unusual proportion of them have election experience of their own.

The experience ranges. Jim Yates, counsel, was elected to the state Supreme Court in the late 1990's, but is mostly considered a top jurist. On the other end, Carl Andrews, inter-governmental affairs director and a former state Senator, has been involved in U.S. Senate and other campaigns, has run for Congress, and served as a political lieutenant to the since-convicted former Brooklyn Democratic boss Clarence Norman Jr.

Dr. Jon R. Cohen, special adviser, a Democrat from Nassau, comes from the medical world but ran as a health-care candidate for lieutenant governor in 2006 until Spitzer picked Paterson for the slot. And Bill Cunningham, now the governor's senior adviser, ran for Suffolk County executive five years ago.

This reminded one wag at the Capitol of the old, facetious slogan often cited by Gov. Mario Cuomo: "Integrity is no substitute for experience."

Dan Janison

This story about Gov. Paterson's delcaration of a mere $150 in charitable contributions on his latest tax filing could serve as a classroom hypothetical for a discussion of defensive political spinning.

Though the Paterson p.r. crew seems to be silent on the matter, maybe he and the missus weren't being remiss at all but rather gave during the year but bothered only to deduct for the old clothing? In other words, just because he declared only $150 doesn't mean he didn't contriubute more. Of course this would be a risky position to take if it isn't true. And how about the taxpayer funds he's sent along to community groups over the years as a legislator? Maybe that doesn't count since they weren't his bucks.

Also, it's not like the accidental governor has shied away from talking about personal mattters before, but hey. The man's an adult, and these are his choices.

Dan Janison

Not that the balance of power in any political house would come near being at stake, given the enormous majority the Democrats hold in the state Assembly. But Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy, who likes to take his feuds seriously, is backing Waldo Cabrera, who's been an unpaid surrogate for him at meetings, to oust incumbent Assemb. Phil Ramos. Rick Brand has the details here.

Dan Janison

Just as Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer failed to lift excessive second-floor "security" restrictions at the Capitol despite a promise to do otherwise, the GOP state Senate seems to have lost the support suddenly sprouted for citizens' liberties just a few months ago when Majority Leader Joseph Bruno saw his own being violated.

One subplot: During a debate on a labor bill last evening, the continual tension between Long Island's sole Democratic senator, Craig Johnson, and Deputy Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre) and company apparently came to the fore again.

Coincidentally, with Skelos accusing Democrats of taping proceedings for political purposes, a Times Union reporter was ordered by the ever-officious sergeant-at-arms staff to shut off her recorder despite policy allowing such photography. Her narrative is posted here. Hey -- Remember Bill O'Reilly going nuts on the Obama guy for blocking his cameraman's shot?

Dan Janison

Two state boards created to resolve disputes involving labor unions have been hindered by vacancies that have prevented valid votes from taking place -- and therefore backlogged their caseloads. Before departing, Spitzer nominated for the Public Employment Relations Board Rosemary Queenan, but her past professional ties could conflict with participating in a pending case involving the state troopers' PBA.

The Times union describes the situation here. There also has been coverage in the Chief-Leader (subscription only).

Given new Gov. David Paterson's more extensive direct and indirect union ties than his predecessor, unsexy but important PERB doings might draw more attention than usual from the news media in general, at least for a little while.

Dan Janison

Some say — maybe with the best intentions — that major-league Long Island attorney William J. Cunningham III will become Albany’s “No” man, in a capital city full of “Yes” men.

Insiders expect that as Gov. Paterson’s senior adviser, Cunningham will seek to keep the top man out of trouble by bluntly warning him of bad ideas when he hears them. With his precise duties in the $170,000 post still vague, those familiar are using labels like “sounding board,” “minister with many portfolios” and “confidant.” He won’t be in direct charge of any agencies.

He's had strong links to such famous Democratic family names as Paterson, Clinton, Suozzi --and Ickes (as in Harold, photo above).

Cunningham, of Bay Shore, is a longtime friend of Basil Paterson, the governor’s father. The two worked together until 2002 at the Long Island law firm of Meyer, Suozzi, English and Klein, where Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi’s father, Joseph Suozzi, is a prominent partner and where Basil Paterson represents major unions on contract issues.

That's the firm officials said on Friday will ask the state's ethics commission for a ruling on its voluntary procedures presumed to keep the elder lawyer out of conflicts with his suddenly-powerful son in Albany, leaving a number of questions open.

“I’ve known the governor for about 15 years,” Cunningham said Thursday. “I got to know David through his dad. I’d say one of the things David and I have as a common bond is we both love his parents Basil and Portia... Our paths would cross frequently enough that on Inauguration Day he took me aside and asked to speak with me. I met with him the following week...”

Cunningham, 56, knows the look of a political crisis. After serving as campaign treasurer in Hillary Clinton’s first Senate run, for example, he was thrust into the limelight in a controversy over two men he’d been representing who were granted criminal pardons by the exiting President Bill Clinton. They’d been referred by his Clinton adviser and law associate Harold Ickes, (himself the namesake son of a prominent FDR secretary) who is these days the Hillary Clinton point man on superdelegates in the bruising national Democratic primary.

Nassau and Suffolk Democrats know Cunningham for other reasons. After his first election in 2001, Thomas Suozzi plucked Cunningham — a former assistant U.S. attorney — from the Meyer, Suozzi firm and made him his chief deputy....

Dan Janison