Spin Cycle

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

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

Gov. David Paterson, who may rank as the most humorous governor in state history (second place, Hugh Carey), sounded serious Friday morning as he explained his thinking back in early March when an aide told him that Gov. Eliot Spitzer was in trouble — something to do with something called “The Emperors Club.”

Paterson, calling to WFAN radio 660-AM, said he first thought the club was some sort of private investment group, and did not realize the seriousness of the situation. He said he learned the “The Emperors Club” was a prostitution ring.

The new governor also said Spitzer’s delay in resigning was probably due to family rather than legal concerns. When these scandals happen, Paterson said, the family is often the last the know, and has to come to grips with the situation before the public official can do anything.

State Supreme Court Justice James Yates, who was due to become counsel to Gov. David Paterson, has informed the state's chief administrative judge, Ann Pfau, that he will be staying on the bench rather than take the executive branch appointment, it was confirmed by David Bookstaver, spokesman for the Office of Court Administration. He referred all other questions to the governor's office -- the main one being what happened -- and we're awaiting a return call from his press aides. The appointment of Yates, a widely respected jurist, was announced nearly a month ago.

UPDATE: We now have a statement from the governor's spokesman Errol Cockfield that offers little by way of explanation. Click on the 'continued' bar for the text.

UPDATE: Here's a statement from Yates, released by Cockfield: “I was honored that the Governor asked me to become his Counsel, and my first reaction was to agree to serve. However, after much thought and deliberation, I realize that my true calling is serving as a judge. As a result, I spoke with the Governor today to thank him for having considered me for this position, but to let him know that I must regretfully withdraw from consideration. I very much would have enjoyed the opportunity to serve the Governor and his administration, but serving as a judge is a position that I love, and that I find too hard to leave."

Dan Janison

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

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 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

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

The scoop on how cops in Malverne, L.I. get time-off credit for "special observance" days -- commemorating Gerald Ford, Shirley Chisholm, Haym Solomon and a wild roster of others -- becomes the latest poster child for the Island's local-government extravagances and irregularities. Read the piece by staff writer Andrew Strickler all the way through, here.

The latest twist in Newsday's lawyers'-on-the-pension-rolls coverage: One of them tried to withdraw, saying he doesn't want to collect -- and was denied. The piece, with links to related information, is here.

The citizens' alliance that in the end got Gov. David Paterson to squelch the controversial Broadwater LNG project did it through hard pushing -- prompting some critics to claim, of course, that they did so at the risk of local energy needs. Rick Brand tells it here.

Speaking of political fights over infrastructure, the LI Regional Planning Board endorsed the LIRR third-track project, as reported here.

The step back by Paterson into more of a closed-door process to finish the Albany budget prompted criticism, as Mr. Madore tells us here.

As posted on Friday, Gov. David Paterson revealed a party personnel change in a conference call on Friday with Democratic county leaders.

So far, downstater David Pollak quits as state co-chair and upstater June O’Neill stays as sole chair. Paterson reportedly told the party leaders that it was dysfunctional to split authority between two co-chairs, a concoction of Spitzer's, who had little use for the party apparatus.

Sources say candidates have been interviewed to replace Edna Ishayik as executive director.

Dan Janison

Dave Pollak, co-chair of the state Democratic Party, is resigning from that post but will "play a role" as director of "new voter outreach," it was just announced.

When a new governor takes over he picks his own party leadership. But the announcement from the party says June O'Neill, who's had successes upstate, will stay on as sole chair of the party and that Reginald Lafayette will stay in place as executive chair.

No new appointments were announced. The release from spokesman Jonathan Rosen is posted below; click the "continued" bar.

Dan Janison

Gov. Paterson says he remains "optimistic" that a new state budget will be adopted by the legislature by Friday.

"I don’t like to predict the future. I think I’ll stick with optimism," he said."They are, you know, proceeding…Technical stuff gets in the way. But you know we’re nearing completion." Asked about obstacles, Paterson said, "A major hurdle? Typing. I may have to go do it myself."

Paterson said the April 1 deadline for a new budget is comparable to that for a school term paper which cannot be ignored or explained away. "That’s why I tried to do it. So, we may be timely but I recognize that it’s not within the constitutional deadline. I did the best that I could and now we want to have hopefully a timely budget and an effective budget."

Paterson said he was unaware of any effort to incorporate congestion pricing in the same deal. His comments came after a closed-door meeting with Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno (R-Brunswick).

James T. Madore

Here is a story that turns familiar political categories on their heads a little: downstate social-services advocates demanding a budget CUT that upstate Republicans are resisting.

Children’s advocates who favor funding alternative programs with state money that they say is now wasted on a half-dozen juvenile residential facilities expressed anger today at word that new Gov. David Paterson had “sold them out,” as a source put it, in budget talks with the state Senate.

Such complaints come and go. But what’s unusual about this development is that the Spitzer-Paterson administration itself – as represented by the state’s Office of Children & Family Services – called for closing the underutilized residential facililties, as the office phrased it, “as part of an ongoing restructuring to significantly improve services to troubled children.”

Whatever the merits, however, upstate representatives want to retain the jobs that juvenile jails, prisons and other correction facilities put in their districts, whether the residents are downstaters or not.

Yes, sometimes even Republicans will endorse Kremlin-style socialism -- if it means local employment.

The intended closings had been announced by the office's commissioner, Gladys Carrion (above).

A few minutes ago, as word spread ...

Dan Janison

A shaky economy threatens to deepen political pain in the fiscal year that begins tomorrow. As a result, the size and shape of New York State’s massive health-care system carries especially huge stakes.

So Gov. David Paterson’s appointment of Jon R. Cohen — former chief medical officer and VP of the sprawling North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System — as his new $160,500 senior advisor, drew big interest in Nassau and beyond when announced late last week.

Some expected Cohen, 53, of Great Neck, to become health commissioner once Eliot Spitzer was elected, especially after the vascular surgeon served on his transition team. But Spitzer selected Richard Daines last year for that post — and kept on George Pataki appointee Dennis Whelan as his own deputy secretary for health care.

With these appointees still in place, it remains to be seen where Cohen — most recently a managing director at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP — will fit on Paterson’s team. “His biggest problem could be that he’ll be part of a puzzle that has no missing pieces,” a government insider said.

In 2002 Cohen advised....

Dan Janison

Former Assembly Speaker Mel Miller, among others, raved about the abilities of his former counsel James Yates (at left in photo below with attorney Josh Dratel) who’s stepping down as state Supreme Court justice to become Gov. David Paterson’s new counsel.

Yates, who’s been on the bench since the early 1990’s and has repeatedly been recommended for vacancies on the state’s highest court, replaces former Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s counsel David Nocenti in the post, as expected.

Miller cited the many working relationships Yates developed with lawmakers in both parties, starting with his role as counsel to the Assembly Codes Committee from 1979 to 1987 through his role as legislative counsel to the Assembly from 1989 to 1992.

Miller said Paterson “has appointed a brilliant counsel.”

“He’s pleasant, he’s smart, and he’s a good negotiator,” said Miller, now a consultant and lobbyist. “When it comes to the law there are few in his league statewide.”

Dan Janison

Posted by Dan Janison on March 27, 2008 6:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)