ALBANY—In one stroke, Andrew Cuomo announced a program that should help health care consumers, bring investment and jobs to upstate New York and bring evil insurance companies to heel.
Cuomo was at Syracuse University's Maxwell School this morning to announce the creation of FAIR Health, a not-for-profit company that will become the clearinghouse Read More
ALBANY—It was 1988 or 1989, "or something like that," and David Paterson was in the legislative gym trying to make an electric exercise bike work. He was having trouble.
"This legislator comes over. He's tall. Clearly from the assembly because I don't know him. And he in that very neighborly, quaint way, said, ‘Hey, can Read More
ALBANY—Since they were both in the same room yesterday, I took Assemblyman Mark Schroeder's suggestion and asked State Senators Antoine Thompson and Bill Stachowski—all three men are Democrats from Buffalo—whether they agreed with Schroeder that Senator Pedro Espada Jr. is a "thug" and should resign as his chamber's majority leader.
"No, I Read More
ALBANY—Democratic Assemblyman Mark Schroeder never planned to call State Senator Pedro Espada Jr. a thug, but now he's calling on him--and Democratic Conference Leader John Sampson, who "rushed to his defense"--to come to his Buffalo district and apologize.
On Friday, Schroeder called publicly for Espada to resign his leadership position.
"Usually, you Read More
ALBANY—State Senator David Valesky is being singled out once again.
Union 32BJ is on the air with various versions of a radio ad targeting individual senators—including Valesky—for not signing on to a bill to tighten up restrictions on industrial development authorities, a union official confirmed. The version below, which relates a fictional conversation Read More
He will name State Senator David Valesky of Syracuse as vice president pro tempore (the post comes with a $34,000 stipend) on a visit to the district today, a high ranking Senate source Read More
ALBANY—It's been 24 hours since Malcolm Smith announced his leadership line-up for the Democratic State Senate majority, but there's still a lot of confusion about what it all means.
Legislative rules are no guide.
I looked through McKinney's Consolidated Laws of New York State and found no specific enumeration of duties for either the Read More
ALBANY—Malcolm Smith just talked about how the Democrats will structure the leadership roles in the State Senate. Here's a breakdown of the names being floated and what their responsibilities are supposed to be.
President Pro Tempore - Senator Smith said that he will hold this position, and that it will be a chamber leadership Read More
ALBANY—If there was anything to take away from Malcolm Smith's truncated press conference, it was that even the actual members of the Democratic conference don't know who will end up in charge of what.
The reports last week were that Malcolm Smith had agreed to a deal with the dissident Gang of Three, but Read More
ALBANY—Malcolm Smith just named State Senator Bill Stachowski as deputy majority leader, then walked out of his own press conference without taking questions from reporters, leaving Stachowski to get grilled.
The press conference had been convened to announce several new committee chairs. Stachowski, who was previously in line to take over the finance Read More
HORNELL—A source close to the gang of three offered some details on the deal just reached to support State Senator Malcolm Smith for majority leader, with some interesting implications. According to the source:
-- Senator Pedro Espada will be vice chair of the rules committee and also serve as majority leader. Smith will be Read More
BUFFALO—Western New York may be testing the strength of Barack Obama's considerable coattails.
Democrat Alice Kryzan lost the 26th congressional district to Republican Chris Lee. According to the Buffalo News, with 70 percent of precincts reporting the tally is 55-40 (and five points going to Jon Powers on the Working Families Party line, an issue Read More
That's the tally oin the State Senate, with Republicans holding a one-seat lead, a razor-thin hold on the chamber that the party has controlled for almost all of the last 70 years.
In past election cycles, the overall contest has come down to a few competitive districts. This year, a Read MoreThe appearances stand in contrast to a Read More
