In mid-December City & State hosted a weekend retreat at the Baruch College School of Public Affairs for the 2013 class of new state senators and Assembly members with the goal of teaching the incoming freshmen how to be effective legislators in Albany. About half the 32 newly elected legislators came to the orientation, which was co-sponsored by Baruch, Time Warner and Con Edison, for a series of panel discussions and conversations with former and current members of the two… [More]

A Political Advice Column By Jeff Smith… [More]

A political advice column by Jeff Smith, a New York politics professor and former Missouri congressman. … [More]

Have you been caught sending inappropriate texts? Indicted for diverting member items to a phony nonprofit? Exposed spending half your time with a secret second family? Everyone knows whom to call when your house is haunted, but whom do you reach out to when you’re scared for your political life? In this issue’s cover story, City & State’s new reporter Aaron Short talks to the state’s top political fixers to get the best advice on how to handle a crisis… [More]

Infamous former lobbyist Jack Abramoff claims to be a changed man. After making millions of dollars manipulating the system, Abramoff, who was once chairman of the College Republican National Committee and close friends with ex–House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, is now working with liberal lions like Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig and good-government groups to reform the practices that made him immensely wealthy and influential—and ended up sending him to prison for 43 months. As the author of the book Capitol… [More]