“Being powerful is like being a lady,” mused the late Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. “If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.” In Albany, as in every political arena, bluster is often mistaken for true power. Of course, even the perception that one has influence can yield genuine authority, but more often that not, those with true power in government are not the grandstanders but those who work dutifully, quietly and shrewdly behind the scenes to achieve their… [More]

Prosecutors charged state Sen. Malcolm Smith in a conspiracy plot to bribe his way onto the Republican ballot for mayor on Tuesday and political hopefuls are already sizing up the field to replace him two days later. Port Authority government relations director Brian Simon, a former aide to Rep. Greg Meeks and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, is reportedly evaluating a run if Smith resigns, according to a source. Simon did not return a call for comment. And several sources believe that… [More]

  The state budget did not go into overtime, but there were a number of buzzer beaters this week. Top-seeded Gov. Andrew Cuomo outpaced 16th-seeded David Paterson’s legacy in the first round, but trailed eighth-seeded gun rights advocates at halftime due to sloppy turnovers. The ninth-seeded minimum wage hike ran away from the eighth-seeded small business employers, who sought to limit its scoring to under $9 an hour, and barely slipped by top-seeded Senate Republicans, who forced the wage’s restaurant workers to foul out. But 420th-seed Assemblyman… [More]

The State Senate and Assembly drafted thousands of pages of budget bills this weekend and began debating their points on Monday. A minimum wage increase, school aid for New York City, expanding a criminal database, and a restoration of cuts for disabled persons services were all discussed, but both houses quietly sought to cut a significant amount of funding from Gov. Andrew Cuomo‘s regional economic development programs. The Assembly proposed to eliminate $150 million in economic development grants in the bill they passed… [More]

By Gerald Benjamin   The brief dustup in the Judiciary Committee regarding the nomination of Jenny Rivera for the Court of Appeals is just the latest piece of evidence that Republicans, with their Independent Democrat coalition partners, are presiding in the Senate but not governing through it. The Committee is comprised of 12 Republicans, 9 Democrats and 2 Independent Democrats; unlike the Senate as a whole, it has a Republican majority. The committee chair, John Bonacic, and some GOP members… [More]

For the past two years Gov. Andrew Cuomo has done a fantastic job of threading the legislative needle. To date, his success is based on having a strong partnership with Sen. Dean Skelos, the Republican leader, and the political astuteness to make sure his base never felt left behind—a complete inverse of what we have seen down in Washington, D.C. The governor’s strong favorability numbers, sometimes topping 70 per-cent, are not just due to progressive legislative successes like the recent… [More]

Morgan Pehme on power-sharing and government unity.… [More]

From the State of the State in January to the announcement of the GOP-IDC Senate coalition in December, 2012 was a year to remember in New York politics.… [More]

State Sen.-elect George Latimer couldn’t make it to a press conference yesterday calling for publicly financed elections, but he’s a big supporter of giving candidates without personal wealth or big-dollar backers a boost – especially in the wake of the Supreme Court’s landmark Citizens United decision in 2010. “If you think about the reforms you need in government, it all begins with the role of money in government, because the voice of those who have resources is amplified in every public policy… [More]

Former Rep. Major Owens thinks Rep. Hakeem Jeffries will do just fine in Congress next year. “He’s a pretty smooth operator – he’ll go down the middle of the road and build coalitions,” said Owens, at his son Chris Owens’s Advocates for Justice fall awards ceremony in Manhattan. The former congressman also believes that President Obama and the Republican-controlled House will reach an agreement to pull the country back from the fiscal cliff, but he expressed dismay at dissension in… [More]