the april 14,2010 issue of the capitol

www.nycapitolnews.comVOL. 2, NO. 16 apriL 13, 2010

Warren Redlich lays claim to theTea Party mantle and GOP nomination.

Page 27

Jack Quinn has Senate Republicans optimisticabout November.

Page 8

Ann-Margaret Carrozza: absentlegislator, busy lawyer.

Page 2

Ed Cox and the

Republican Restoration*

*assuming he can get organized,

actually raise some money and win the civil war he

started

andrew schwartz

www.nycapitolnews.com2 APRIL 13, 2010 THE CAPITOL

BY CHRIS BRAGG

As a group of about 30 seniors trickled into an AARP meeting at a grade school in Bayside

on April 6, they passed by a sign saying: “Guest Speaker Is: Assemblywoman Ann-Margaret Carrozza.”

But Carrozza, their seven-term representative and the Assembly’s deputy majority whip, did not talk about Albany or her northeast Queens district. Instead of constituent newsletters, the retirees were handed glossy pamphlets with information about the “Law Offi ces of Ann-Margaret Carrozza.”

Over the next 40 minutes, Carrozza warned them of the perils of estate planning without an experienced attorney.

“You need to deal with someone who knows what they’re doing,” Carrozza told the crowd.

The AARP audience seemed impressed by Carrozza, whom many consider one of the leading elder law attorneys in the state. Following the lecture in the school’s auditorium, they swarmed around asking questions about their trusts and wills.

Carrozza has been giving lectures be-fore retiree groups—and speaking to potential clients afterward—for years. This is a common practice in the world of elder law, according to several practi-tioners interviewed. From early March to early April, Carrozza delivered lectures to at least four retiree groups, according to her law offi ce’s website. Several more are planned for the weeks ahead.

These meetings, though, have not been the only aspects of her work that have involved the senior community in her district and beyond. A longtime member of the Aging Committee, Carrozza has sponsored a slew of legislation that has benefi ted retiree interest groups. She has also, like a fair number of her colleagues, given hundreds of thousands of dollars of member item grants to retiree organizations and nursing homes.

But unlike many of her colleagues in the Legislature, Carrozza has later spoken before these retiree organizations as an attorney.

Throughout northeast Queens, the streets are lined with co-ops and single-family homes, and many of the residents are cash poor, but asset rich. They do not have a lawyer on retainer but are in need of estate planning. A legal practice like Carrozza’s can be of great utility to these residents.

“Elder law turns out to be something that allows your assets to supplement care,” Carrozza told the crowd of retirees in Bayside. “But the rules change like nobody’s business.”

Carrozza recently announced that she would not run for re-election, writing in a statement emailed to members of her home political club that she had “focused on the rights of seniors” as an Assembly

member and planned to “continue this advocacy as a full time elder law attorney.”

But already in the last two years, Carrozza has been an infrequent presence in Albany: she had the worst attendance record in the Assembly in 2009, showing up for just 36 percent of session days. So far in 2010, she had attended 45 percent of sessions through April 6, according to Assembly records.

Carrozza and her husband, a physician, own a $1.8 million mansion on the Gold Coast of Long Island—where she was found to be living last year, sparking an attorney general’s investigation into her residency—and also own 10 other properties, from Brooklyn to Huntington Beach, California, according to Carrozza’s most recent fi nancial disclosure fi led with the Legislative Ethics Commission.

Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause, said that although elected offi cials often address retiree organizations—and elder law attorneys often give speeches before these groups—the confl uence of the two in Carrozza’s case is problematic. Lerner said this shows why legislators should not be allowed to have outside jobs.

“I don’t think this is out-and-out illegal, but it does seem to be a very problematic use of her offi ce,” said Lerner. “The question is: Is she giving these speeches as an Assembly member or as a lawyer?”

Lerner also supported changes to the state’s ethics laws proposed by Gov. David Paterson earlier this year, which would have required legislators who are attorneys to disclose their clients. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has argued that such disclosures could violate clients’ privacy rights.

Carrozza did not return multiple calls

to her cell phone or a request for com-ment to her personal e-mail address. A receptionist at her Port Jefferson law of-fi ce said she was in Albany all day when contracted for comment on April 7, but Carrozza was not seen in the Assembly chamber that day and cast no votes.

Carrozza, meanwhile, has showered member items on retiree groups in her district, including $80,500 distributed between 16 retiree programs in her district last year. Among those that received money was the Clearview Assistance Program, a retiree group at a Whitestone co-op. Carrozza has often appeared before the group during her 14 years in offi ce, said Gary Babad, the organization’s director.

“She does it in her capacity as both an attorney and based on her experience as a legislator,” Babad explained.

Babad refers residents to Carrozza for legal work, he said. The group, meanwhile, gets a $5,000 yearly member item grant from her, which Babad said helped the group to refurbish its facilities.

“We’ve had a relationship with her for a long time,” Babad said. “She helps every year to get us funding from the Offi ce for the Aging.”

Carrozza has also gotten a $5,000 annual member item allocation for the North Flushing Senior Center. Carrozza has often appeared there as well, said the center’s executive director, Roberta Goldenberg, and is scheduled for an upcoming appearance for May 6.

“She gives us a very nice grant,” said Goldenberg.

Goldenberg later added, “a lot of the people here have retained her.”

Lawrence Gross, an elder law attorney in Elmhurst, Queens, said that recruiting clients at nursing homes is standard in

A receptionist at Assembly Member Ann-Margaret Carrozza’s Port Jefferson law offi ce said she was in Albany all day when contracted for comment on April 7, but she was not seen in the Assembly chamber that day and cast no votes.

For Carrozza, Assembly Offi ce At Nexus Of Wide-Ranging Elder Law Involvement

the elder law fi eld. But he said Carrozza’s giving of member items to retiree groups that she later spoke before as an attorney raises questions of legal ethics in his mind.

“If I was an Assembly person giving money to the different groups that I was speaking to, I think that would be a real problem,” Gross said.

Member items are not Carrozza’s only connection to retiree groups. One of Carrozza’s elder law clients the past several years has been the 500,000-member Alliance of Public Retiree Organizations of New York, a public retirees umbrella group, according to Edward Curran, the group’s former president and founder.

Carrozza also frequently speaks to the group’s members around the state and does the will and trust work for many of them, Curran said.

In addition, according to Tony Cantore, legislative director for the Retired Public Employees Association—one the Alliance of Public Retiree Organizations’ sub-groups—the Alliance last year asked Carrozza to introduce a bill to mandate that public employers not diminish health benefi ts for the public retirees.

“[The Alliance was] the main drivers of it,” Cantore said.

The bill that Carrozza introduced, A7060, never made it to the Assembly fl oor.

Carrozza also introduced a resolution last year honoring Curran’s work as president of the Alliance of Public Retiree Organizations of New York.

Curran said that Carrozza had always been a friend to his organization.

“She has been one of our go-to law-makers in the Assembly,” Curran said.

[email protected]

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BY SAL GENTILE

When Gov. David A. Paterson signed sweeping changes to the state’s Rockefeller drug

laws last year, it set off a rowdy debate between tough-on-crime conservatives who said the move would let felons run free and supporters who heralded a new, more enlightened criminal justice system.

Twelve months later, the argument may be moot, since budget cutbacks have forced the state to scale back key parts of the reform program.

Currently, the state relies heavily on treatment programs, or Alternative To Incarceration programs, to identify drug addicts who could be diverted from prison into rehab clinics, and then relies on those same treatment programs to help the addicts get clean.

But budget cuts this year slashed funding for ATIs, so hundreds of lawbreakers may end up back in the state’s prison system.

Treatment programs “play key roles in implementing the Rockefeller drug law reforms,” said Anita Marton of the Legal Action Center. “We don’t know what’ll happen if those cuts come into place.”

Paterson proposed the cuts earlier this year as part of his executive budget. Neither the Assembly nor the Senate

have pledged to restore the cuts in the resolutions they passed last month.

The numbers of low-level drug offenders that went to prison dropped dramatically from 2008 to 2009, according to Robert Gangi of the Correctional Association, largely because of the reforms to the law.

The treatment programs are crucial, said Susan Gottesfeld of the Osborne Association, a nonprofi t drug addiction treatment service center, because the court system often misses offenders who might otherwise be good candidates for diversion. Lawyers and district attorneys identify candidates for treatment usually by glancing at their rap sheets. But service providers have a more intimate knowledge of the system and perform extensive interviews with potential candidates for diversion.

That, Gottesfeld said, helps keep down prison costs and reduce recidivism.

“This could be a person who is suffering from addiction and who’s cycled in and out of the criminal justice system with never an opportunity for treatment,” Gottesfeld said of the people the courts often miss. “If we really match this person with what they need, then we’re not going to have to worry about them anymore. We’re not going to have to see them in court anymore. We’re not going to have to feed or house them in jail

or prison anymore.”Opponents of the Rockefeller

reforms, meanwhile, are crowing. Sen. Marty Golden of Brooklyn said the cuts would essentially render the changes meaningless.

“We predicted this and it is exactly what we thought would happen,” Golden said. “We’re cutting those programs and not giving any of these individuals any type of lifeline.”

Cuts to the alternative treatment programs that implement the Rockefeller

drug law reforms could also, in turn, hurt the recent push by several advocacy organizations to downsize the state’s penal system by closing several upstate prisons.

The rationale for those closings was based, in part, on the fact that less people were going to jail every year. If the programs are cut, more low-level drug offenders could be sent to jail. That, in turn, could make it harder to shutter prisons.

Assembly Member Jeffrion Aubry, who fought for the Rockefeller drug law reforms last year, said it was unlikely that the Legislature would be able to restore the cuts proposed by Paterson.

“We’re in such a bad fi nancial position as a state that we will not be able to do everything that we need to do,” Aubry said. As a result, he added, more parolees could cycle back into the prison system. Some could even end up homeless.

“Some will go through the shelter system, there’s probably no question

about that,” Aubry said.That would prove the naysayers right,

Golden said. “You’re releasing individuals without any after-care, any treatment, and you’re putting them on the street,” he said. “It’s an equation for disaster.”

[email protected]

“They play key roles in implementing the Rockefeller drug law reforms,” said Anita Marton of the Legal Action Center, referring to treatment programs. “We don’t know what’ll happen if those cuts come into place.”

One Year After Passage, Rockefeller Reforms Could Be Gutted By Budget Cuts

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“It would be hard to imagine the labor movement lining up behind somebody who has embraced the Tea Party.”

Some Republicans have also questioned whether Zeldin, a 31-year-old Iraq War veteran who mounted a failed challenge to Rep. Tim Bishop in 2008, is a strong enough contender to take on Foley, who has a long history as a popular town supervisor and county legislator known for cleaning up Brookhaven’s corruption.

“The question is whether or not the Republicans have the best candidate,” said John Zaher, a Republican consultant in Suffolk. “They are going with Lee Zeldin, who ran against Tim Bishop last time, rather than using somebody who’s

a sitting elected offi cial and wants a step-up. So I think that’s somewhat of a gamble.”

Complicating the race as well has been Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy’s defection to the GOP in his bid for governor, which many local Republicans believe will help them oust Foley. Foley said that he received a commitment from Levy not to campaign against him. Zeldin, meanwhile, has maintained his public support for Lazio, falling in line with the Senate Republicans whom he hopes to join.

“My support for Rick Lazio has never wavered,” Zeldin said.

In the next several months, the race will likely be defi ned by both candidates’ ability to raise money. Zeldin has out-raised Foley so far, but both have roughly the same amount of cash on hand. And Foley is relying on major benefactors, such as organized labor and Sen. Chuck Schumer, to help him pull ahead in the money race.

Foley’s opponents shrug off those advantages and insist his legislative record will be impossible to overcome in the current climate.

“The fact is, he is getting targeted,” Zeldin said. “But no one—not myself, no one in the Tea Party—no one is campaigning harder against his re-election than Brian Foley.”

[email protected]

BY SAL GENTILE

Brian Foley just cannot shake the Tea Party.

They picket his fundraisers, swarm his offi ce and hurl epithets at his town halls. They come dressed in tailcoats and tri-cornered hats, blast patriotic Lee Greenwood songs and chase Foley supporters to their cars.

The protestors call themselves “patriots” and claim to be defending principle, but Foley dismissed them as Astroturf mobs, doing the bidding of the Suffolk County Republican Party—whose chair, John Jay LaValle, Foley succeeded as Brookhaven town supervisor in 2005.

“This is being coordinated with, if not orchestrated by, the county Republican Party—whose chairman, by the way, has a personal animus against me, because I was his successor, and I had the temerity, in his eyes, to expose all the problems that existed prior to my tenure,” Foley said, slicing a piece of fl an in a Colombian bakery in Brentwood.

Foley insisted that the strategy would backfi re.

“I certainly don’t want to think that the mood of the public is to accept the intimidating tactics that this group has employed,” Foley said.

But, Republicans argue that the strategy has taken a toll. Up-and-coming Suffolk Democrats, like Babylon Town Supervisor Steve Bellone and Brookhaven Town Supervisor Mark Lesko, have distanced themselves from Foley, trumpeting their opposition to one of Foley’s most controversial votes, the MTA payroll tax. And Republicans have used the tax as a lethal attack in local elections, even though town offi cials had nothing to do with it (and most oppose it).

Rumors have even circulated that Foley will retire from the Senate and allow a more competitive local Democrat to run in his place. Both Foley and Democratic County Chairman Rich Schaffer have denied this.

Though the protests have helped energize conservatives and made Foley a target, they have also galvanized the left, including Latino activists and organized labor. Both are constituencies the Republicans have courted in recent years, especially in Suffolk. Foley’s predecessor and 2008 opponent, Caesar Trunzo, enjoyed the support of most major Long Island unions.

Foley’s likely opponent this year, Lee Zeldin, has, by contrast, infuriated the Long Island Federation of Labor by

holding a fundraiser with South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, a proud anti-union crusader. Organized labor’s defection from the GOP could dampen the impact of the energized Tea Party, not only in manpower, but in cash, given how diffi cult fundraising has been in the economic

downturn.“The Republican State Senate has been

supportive of the objectives of the labor movement,” said LIFL executive director Roger Clayman, adding that the Tea Party movement had changed that and would likely cost the Republicans union support.

Rumors have circulated that Foley will retire from the Senate and allow a more competitive local Democrat to run in his place. Both Foley and Democratic County Chairman Rich Schaffer have denied the rumors.

Dogged By Tea Party Activists, Foley Counts On Labor To Carry Him Through

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The publication for and about New York State Government www.nycapitolnews.com

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The United States Constitution calls treaties “the Supreme Law of the Land.” And yet, New York State continues to try and violate these sacred agreements that have been in place for more than 200 years.

While, it’s no secret that Albany is struggling with a budget deficit of historic proportion—it is a problem that comes from decades of overspending and resource mismanagement. It is a crisis that the state created.

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BY ANDREW J. HAWKINS

Two years ago, Barack Obama was at the top of the ticket, Democrats were in

the ascendancy, and State Sen. Bill Stachowski, fully expecting to be named chair of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, promised Western New Yorkers a wealth of resources if they would give him their vote. He was one of the few incumbents the Democrats needed to protect, and they focused much of their efforts on getting him through to another term.

With all of it, Stachowski still only eked out a narrow victory over a fi rst-time Republican candidate in a district dominated by Democratic voters. Then weeks later, State Sen. Carl Kruger used his membership in the Amigos to snag the Finance chairmanship out from under him.

This year, Stachowski is facing a growing sense of unease in his Buffalo district, with right-leaning groups blaming Democrats for the dysfunction in Albany and progressive voters livid at Stachowski over his gay marriage “no” vote.

And with Republicans salivating over the opportunity to take back the Senate, many predict that Stachowski will likely end up the linchpin in the Democrats’ efforts to retain their majority and steer clear of a 31-31 scenario.

“Unquestionably, it’s going to be one of the most competitive races in the

New York State Senate this year,” said Bob Davis, a political consultant who once served as chair of the Erie County Republican Party. “That could be the seat that brings it to a tie.”

Assembly Member Jack Quinn III, a Republican with high name recognition in Western New York thanks to his fa-ther, former Rep. Jack Quinn, launched a bid for Stachowski’s seat in mid-March. Quinn says that while he has known Sta-chowski since he was a child, the op-portunity to wrest control of the Senate away from the New York City-dominated Democratic conference was too enticing to pass up this year.

“The power structure being controlled from one part of the state obviously affects legislation and where the funds are going to go,” Quinn said.

Enrollment in the district, which includes most of the city of Buffalo, heavily favors Stachowski, with Democrats outnumbering Republicans by over 60,000 voters, though Stachowski only ended up ahead of cold case detective Dennis Delano in 2008 by 8,000 votes.

But before Stachowski can face Quinn in the general election, he will have at least three primary opponents in September: Erie County Legislator Tim Kennedy, personal injury lawyer Sean Cooney and Buffalo City Council staffer Michael Kuzma.

Stachowski’s allies see Kennedy as the most ominous threat because of his spir-ited fundraising and close ties with the

Democrats would be smart to clear the fi eld and give Bill a chance to focus on the general election,” Hoyt said. “Repub-licans have been licking their chops as a result of this anticipated primary.”

Conservative Party Chair Ralph Lorigo told the Buffalo News in early March that while Stachowski “came through” by vot-ing against marriage equality, the party’s endorsement is still very much up for grabs. (Lorigo did not return a call for comment.)

As of January, Stachowski had over $200,000 in his campaign account, while Kennedy has over $100,000. Quinn had a little over $8,000, but that was before he started his Senate run and was holding a safe Assembly seat.

Senate GOP sources have said the par-ty expects to spend upwards of $1.2 mil-lion on the effort.

Josh Cherwin, executive director of the Democratic Senate Campaign Com-mittee, laughed off the fi gure.

“That’s several hundred thousand more than they have cash-on-hand,” Cherwin said. “It’s fairly ridiculous for them to claim that.”

While he would not speculate on how much the DSCC will spend to protect Stachowski, Cherwin said he does anticipate a signifi cant investment.

“We’ll have more fi nancial resources to invest than ever before,” Cherwin said. “I hope they’re prepared for that.”

Stachowski himself did not respond to several calls requesting a comment, but even some Democrats acknowl-edge that with anger towards Albany at an all-time high, Stachowski could be facing the fiercest fight of his political career.

“The temperature is as high as I’ve ever seen it,” said Assembly Member Mark Schroeder, a Buffalo Democrat who has endorsed Stachowski. “Quite frankly, people are very pissed off at Albany. Unless an incumbent can defi ne themselves, they’re not going to be around in September or November.”

[email protected]

Full Deck Of Candidates Stacked Against Stachowski In Pivotal Senate Race

Assembly Member Jack Quinn is just one of several candidates running against State Sen. Bill Stachowski in what is expected to be one of the more expensive, contested and pivotal races of 2010.

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political triumvirate of Buffalo Mayor By-ron Brown, Rep. Brian Higgins and Steve Pigeon, former chair of the Erie Demo-cratic Party who now advises Senate Ma-jority Leader Pedro Espada.

“That’s toxic,” said one upstate Demo-cratic insider. “If I’m Bill Stachowski, I don’t run against Tim Kennedy—I run against Tim Kennedy’s godfather, Steve Pigeon.”

(Last summer, in the midst of the Senate coup, Stachowski rebuffed Tom Golisano and Pigeon’s offer to cross the aisle and support a Republican majority leader, just as Espada and ousted State Sen. Hiram Monserrate had done, saying the invitation did not appear to meet his standards of good government.)

Kennedy, for his part, said he wel-comes the support of Brown, Higgins or even Golisano, the Buffalo billionaire who heads the Responsible New York PAC. Kennedy also pointed out that Pi-geon, who previously served as Golisano’s right-hand man before joining Espada’s staff, donated $250 to Stachowski’s cam-paign in December.

“I’m willing to challenge leadership, whether that be elected offi cials, whether that be party bosses,” Kennedy said. “I’m also willing to take support from who-ever it is that believes in my message of change and reform. Would I take support from Mayor Bryon Brown and Congress-man Brian Higgins and Steve Pigeon and Tom Golisano? Absolutely.”

Kennedy says his support for marriage equality and a variety of union-friendly issues, such as IDA reform, puts him to the left of Stachowski. However, both of them, as well as Quinn, will be making a play for the Conservative Party endorse-ment. All three have run on Row D in the past. And several observers said the par-ty’s support could make the difference in this hotly contested race.

Assembly Member Sam Hoyt, who supports Stachowski, said a Democratic primary for this particular seat would be ill-advised.

“Jack Quinn is a strong candidate. The

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BY SAL GENTILE

Last year, the Conserva-tive Party turned Dede Scoz-zafava’s name into a verb. Now the party is in danger of

getting “Scozzafava’ed” itself.Disillusioned Tea Party activists across

the state are gearing up to run third-party candidates against establishment Republicans. And in several of those races, Conservative leaders have sided with the GOP rather than the activists, setting up a battle that could diminish the party’s infl uence for years to come.

For close to 50 years, leaders of the Conservative Party have been the institutional arbiters of who is suffi ciently appealing to the GOP base and who is not. Conservative boosters often point out that no Republican has won a statewide race without their banner since 1974. And as recently as 2006, Conservative Party Chairman Mike Long all but forced the Republican Party to nominate his preferred candidate for governor.

Many Republicans and Conservatives thought that infl uence would only continue to grow after he helped turned Doug Hoffman into a national phenomenon last fall—and nearly into a congressman. Conservative leaders, led by Long, promised a statewide purge, and Republicans across the country scrambled to fortify their

conservative credentials.But now Long is facing pressure

from both sides. His authority has been challenged by state Republican Chairman Ed Cox, who believes the only way to defeat expected Democratic gubernatorial nominee Andrew Cuomo is to nominate someone who can appeal to independent voters and Democrats. Meanwhile, the state’s loosely organized

Tea Party groups are promising to revolt against any candidate who does not satisfy their ideological litmus tests. In congressional races on Long Island and local elections upstate—not to mention the race for governor—Tea Party leaders have expressed suspicion about the Conservative Party, which they see as little more than an extension of the GOP.

“The parties haven’t been doing their

job—that’s kind of why we exist. If they were doing their job and putting up con-servative candidates and winning elec-tions, we wouldn’t be here,” said Stephen Flanagan, who heads the Conservative So-ciety for Action, a 3,000-strong Tea Party group on Long Island. “A lot of Tea Party members, a lot of our members, are mem-bers of the Conservative Society because they’re dissatisfi ed with what’s happening in the Republican and Conservative par-ties. So there’s a lot of spin-off.”

Long faces an insurrection from within his ranks, as well. Many Conservative chairs have complained that the leaders of the party are simply handpicked loyalists who do Long’s bidding, and that they do not refl ect the opinions of the party’s rank and fi le. At last count, the Conservative Party’s statewide enrollment totaled less than 150,000. Several chairs have warned that the party will continue to shed supporters if its executive committee ignores the Tea Party movement.

“Most of them are handpicked by Mike Long and [executive director] Shaun Marie Levine, and they don’t represent the majority of conservatives in this state,” said Albany Conservative Chairman Richard Stack, referring to the party’s executive committee.

Stack, who supports Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy and calls former Rep. Rick Lazio “Lousy-o,” accused Long

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Tea Parties, Republican Pressure Threaten Conservative Dominance

Conservative Chair Mike Long is facing diffi cult decisions about the future of his party, many of which have been brought about by Republican Chairman Ed Cox’s support of Steve Levy over Rick Lazio.

>>continued on page 12

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and his deputies of being more interested in satisfying powerful benefactors, like former Gov. George Pataki, than attract-ing new members and building the infl u-ence of the party.

“For Mike Long and for Shaun Marie and some of these people, their survival means they continue to play and life goes on in their small world of Brooklyn,” Stack said. “If that’s what you’re built upon, just maintaining the status quo, then a guy like Lazio might be your best chance.”

discussion of moving the Conservative convention up to May in an effort to force the hand of the GOP. Long could try to swing the line to Lazio then or he could succumb to the internal revolt among county chairs backing Levy. The Conservative nominee in this scenario could very likely end up being the sole Republican candidate to walk out of—or even into—the convention.

There has even been some scattered chatter that Lazio could fail to make a viable Republican candidacy, but instead seek to just be the Conservative nominee, with the hopes of attracting more support on Row D on the strength of his name recognition and established support than Levy would be able to get on the Republican line. Though this gambit would potentially spell the end of the Conservative Party by risking its ballot status, it could also pay major dividends, leapfrogging the Conservatives over the Republicans on the ballot.

One of the few possibilities that seems to have evaporated is that Cuomo will run on the Conservative line, an idea which had gained some traction after Cuomo addressed a gathering of party leaders in early 2009.

For now, Long seems determined to stick with Lazio, but even some of his most ardent supporters worry about what will happen if he remains loyal through what some predict will be a bloody end.

“For [Lazio] to be the nominee, he defi nitely has to step up. Because ultimately, whoever wins the nomination has got to be prepared to beat Andrew Cuomo,” said John McLaughlin, a Republican pollster who has worked for Long. “That’s the challenge that Rick has to face right now.”

Long denied that he had forced the party to accept Lazio as its gubernatorial nominee and said there might still be time for Levy to convince the party that he is indeed a true conservative. Long admit-ted, though, that in races across the state, some of his preferred candidates have failed to satisfy Tea Party leaders, and that those differences could hurt the Conser-vative Party in November and challenge its status as a Republican kingmaker.

“If they run their own candidates, it’s really a possibility that it would hurt,” Long said of the Tea Party activists. “Some people have a favorite son, and if their favorite son doesn’t get it … Then naturally they all get angry at me.”

Long praised some members of the Tea Party groups for helping revitalize the conservative movement, but dismissed others as political newcomers suspicious of all political parties, no matter how conservative they might be.

“I can see that there’s a real movement out there. Does that mean that everyone in the Tea Party movement is going to agree with the Conservative Party? No,” Long said. “If their position is that they are opposed to party structures, I certainly don’t agree.”

[email protected]

Much of the Conservative Party’s infl u-ence going forward will rest on its perfor-mance in the gubernatorial election, which will determine its position—and potential-ly its existence—on the ballot. If the Re-publicans bow to pressure from Long and nominate Lazio over Levy, and Lazio ends up performing poorly in November, that could cast enough doubt on Long’s po-litical prowess to effectively end his long reign as a Republican powerbroker.

But there is a kaleidoscope of other possibilities.

Currently, the Conservative conven-

tion is scheduled for June, a few days after the GOP will meet and make the fi -nal decision on Levy versus Lazio. In one scenario, Levy could get the 51 percent of the delegates to allow him to run as a Re-publican and Lazio could force a primary nonetheless. In this case, the Conserva-tive line would be a major buttress to what would at that point be essentially an outsider candidacy from the former con-gressman. Or if Lazio loses and drops out at some point, the Conservatives could transfer the line to Levy.

Alternatively, there has been some

>>continued from page 10

The 1930s were a time of extraordinary growth and accomplishment for the Association of State Civil Service Employees as CSEA was known at that time. Among the dedicated and resourceful leaders of that era was Charles A. Brind.

Brind, an Albany native, was a 1918 graduate of Union College who went on to Albany Law School. He joined the New York State Education Department in 1923. Brind was known as “The Cherub” for his innocent looks, soothing voice and warm personality. But there was no mistaking his determination.

Under Brind’s leadership the Association achieved a landmark accomplishment with the passage of the Feld-Hamilton Act in 1937. It created a permanent and consistent state employees’ salary schedule at a time when public employees did not have the right to collective bargaining for contracts.

Brind also helped end the 72 hour work week for institutional workers; advanced a pioneering group insurance benefit; expanded access to hospital insurance; and presided over enormous, continuing growth in membership. Just before World War II, Brind served on the Fite Commission which recommended comprehensive Civil Service reforms for both state and local government. The changes ensured a greater application of merit and

fitness in the hiring of public employees than ever before. After leaving the Association leadership in the early 1940s, Brind continued to be a

significant figure in New York government, serving as

counsel to the NYS Board of Regents for the

next two decades.

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THE CAPITOL APRIL 13, 2010 15www.nycapitolnews.com

“Eddie! How are you! How’s life?”

Karl Rove strode into a fundraiser for the local Republican Party at the Westchester Marriott and wrapped his arms around Ed Cox, the state chairman.

The two reveled in the recent run of good fortune that had befallen the New York Republican Party. A few days earlier, Rep. Eric Massa had resigned in a fl ameout that remains amazing even by New York standards, and a few hours earlier, Andrew Cuomo had heeded a call voiced by Cox and others to recuse himself from an investigation of Gov. David Paterson.

“And you got Spitzer!” Rove said. “And Hevesi! And Paterson!”“Life just gets better and better,” Cox said.Indeed. Four years ago, they lost the governor’s mansion. Two years ago, they lost

the State Senate. They were shut out of all statewide offi ces, and the demographics and bench of candidates were not in their favor. They had earned their tickets to permanent exile. Instead, the Republican Party appears to be on the verge of a comeback.

Retaking the State Senate looks good. The Republican Assembly Campaign Committee has in its sights the nine seats necessary to sustain an executive veto. And this is all without Karl Rove and his expert margin-busting tactics. The Democratic Party has become an endless string of scandals, and though they still seem in good shape to win, their candidates for governor and attorney general are running in open races, and they have an unelected comptroller and junior senator to protect as well.

“This is a great year for us,” said Cox as he makes his way through a roomful of Republican V.I.P’s munching on crudités and sipping white wine. “That’s why I am here. I am not a normal chairman. I wanted others to do it. This is going to be the best year in 50 years for us. Even bad candidates will win this year. We need good candidates so that they will win in subsequent years, but not this year, we won’t.”

By David Freedlander

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Beginning his offi cial speech in the Hudson Valley banquet room, Cox kept the promises coming: New York was going to lead the charge to take the House back from Democratic control, winning between 8-10 seats. Republicans were going to win a Senate seat, which could tilt the balance in the Senate and deny Chuck Schumer his dream of becoming majority leader.

Within days, Cox would succeed in his long wooing of Steve Levy, breaking the party establishment into pro-Cox

and anti-Cox factions. There were still no candidates for the attorney general or other Senate race, and in several Congressional districts the candidates appeared to be headed towards long, divisive primaries.

The fi ssures of the Cox-led resurgent Republican Party were no more apparent than in that room. Down at stage right sat former Rep. Joe DioGuardi, who was

preparing to mount a quixotic run for the U.S. Senate with the help of local tea party and Conservative activ-ists even as Cox was making the last failed attempt to lure Dan Senor, a former Bush ad-ministration offi -cial, into the race. Down at stage left sat Assembly Member Greg Ball, who was running hard in a primary for the State Sen-

ate against a longtime incumbent even as party leaders urged him to stand down. Further back was Nan Hayworth,

a wealthy doctor who for a while had the fi eld to herself in her race to unseat Dem-ocratic Rep. John Hall and who had the backing of Washington Republicans, but who had been the victim of a mini-revolt among local activists who considered her too wrapped up in the political establish-ment.

Also in the audience was Rockland County Republican chair Vincent Reda, who called Cox a “breath of fresh air.”

“We now have a choice,” he said. “The party is gaining momentum.”

And there was Putnam County chair Tony Scannapieco, who has all but been calling for Cox’s removal.

“I don’t know what we are doing here,” he said. “We have a chance to take back a lot of seats and we are throwing it all away. I think we need somebody who knows about how these things are supposed to go.”

His graying blonde hair parted to the side in the style of the 1970’s prepster who was both a Nader Raider

and a man who married Richard Nixon’s daughter at the White House, Cox runs the New York State Republican Party out of a small offi ce above Bryant Square

Park on the 20th fl oor of the white-show law fi rm Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler. There is a stack of newspapers on the fl oor and coffee table is covered with books and copies of City Journal. There are pictures of Cox shaking hands with Ben Bernake, with Al Gore, with John McCain, for whom Cox served as state chairman during his 2008 presidential run, angering local Republicans who backed Rudy Giuliani.

There is a six-inch tear down the left sleeve of his Oxford shirt which he seems oblivious to, even after it is pointed out to him. He slouches into a leather chair. A golden statue of the Buddha, perched on the window ledge in a lotus position, looks calmly down at him.

“In our party there is a sense of orderliness,” he said. “It’s the way Republicans work. We like good order in things.”

Cox comes to job of state chairman at an odd time for the state Republican Party in particular and for state parties in general. He says he saw the wave building when he made his push for state chairman, during the weeks last fall when the party was reeling from the Tea Party mutiny which eventually delivered the North Country congressional seat, Republican for a century, into Democratic

“Even bad candidates will win this year,” Cox predicted. “We need good candidates so that they will win in subsequent years, but not this year, we won’t.”

ANDREW SCHWARTZRick Lazio was on the fast track to the GOP nomination. Ed Cox had other ideas.


“Little moments,” goes the slogan for Big Brothers and Big Sisters of America. “Big magic.”

Former Rep. Sue Kelly hopes she can spread a little of that kind of magic to Republican candidates across the state looking to take back House seats lost over the last couple of cycles to a Democratic wave.

“It’s an idea I had because here in New York State, politics has been a blood sport even within the party,” she said. “It wouldn’t be a bad idea if we stopped doing that and started to win seats.”

Kelly has spoken with state GOP offi cials about getting former Republican members of Congress to “sponsor” candidates in the districts that they once represented and help their mentees navigate the shoals of running for offi ce—in some cases for the fi rst time—including how to fundraise, how to reach out to other elected offi cials and how to work with the National Republican Congressional Committee in Washington.

“Running for federal offi ce is a different even if you have run for public offi ce before,” she says. “If you have done it before you know some of the rules, you can help the candidates stay out of reporting troubles, help them make wise decisions.”

Kelly hopes to help reverse the trend of Republican losses for Houses seats in recent years. When she was fi rst elected to the House in 1994, Kelly noted, there were 14 Republican members of Congress from New York. Now there are only two.

The mentoring program is still in its nascent stages. Kelly has been supporting wealthy ophthalmologist Nan Hayworth in her effort to win Kelly’s seat back from Democrat John Hall, but said the real launch of the mentoring program will wait until after the primaries are over.

She said that she has contacted several former colleagues about getting involved, but declined to specify who.

Former Staten Island Rep. Guy Molinari said he was among those who had gotten the call from Kelly. He is intrigued by her proposal, he said.

“No one knows better how to win than people who have been there before,” Molinaro said, echoing Kelly’s rationale.

But Molinari said that when he mentioned the program to National Republican Congressional Committee chair Pete Sessions, Sessions asked him to come on board at the NRCC in a more formal capacity. If he does, Molinari said he would be unable to participate in Kelly’s program.

Molinari has been an unpaid adviser however to Michael Grimm, one of the two Republicans looking to challenge Rep. Mike McMahon in what was once Molinari’s congressional district.

Kelly said that campaign fi nance laws restrict how much the state party can get involved in congressional campaigns.

GOP state chair Ed Cox said he is working with Kelly to determine how formal or informal to make the program.

“We are setting some pieces up on that,” Cox said. “We do need a mentoring program. We have really good policy think thanks here and we need to expose our candidates to their ideas and we need to also have them learn campaign techniques.” DF

Sue Kelly Enlisting Former Colleagues In Mentoring Program For Successors

hands. He traveled relentlessly around the state to meet with party offi cials, pushing aside concerns that he had never served the party in any offi cial capacity by distributing a 10-point “Agenda for the Future.”

He pledged to be a full-time chairman, pledged to score victories in local elec-tions in November 2009, pledged to re-build the party’s staff and infrastructure and to “re-establish New York’s credibil-ity with our Party’s national leadership through high level contacts with the na-tional committees and others in Washing-ton.”

He won, he says, in a vindication of all of this. But really, according to people who watched Henry Wojtaszek lose, Cox was elected chairman because he promised to raise money. That, they say, is the main job of a state chair, along with recruiting a slate of candidates up and down the ballot. And, of course, winning.

When Cox assumed the chairmanship, the coffers were all but empty. And they remain so, something that has allowed Cox’s critics to charge him with neglect. There are those who shrug their shoulders, say this is nothing new: according to several Republicans, Cox has a knack for failing to raise the money he promises, like the $5 million for gubernatorial candidate John Faso and millions more for the Senate Republicans they say he swore to in 2006.

Cox pledged to be a full-time chairman on a dollar-a-year salary, but he is seldom seen in the Albany headquarters. Party activists say they wonder what he is doing if not raising money. Soon after he took over, the Party tried to lure Republican operatives up to Albany to work—as interns. Most politely declined once they found out that the job was unpaid. Those are not the only unpaid jobs. Rumors have abounded in recent weeks that state party will have trouble meting payroll or keeping the lights on at state headquarters or even putting on the convention in June.

Cox said that the fundraising was progressing apace, and said that the fi lings with the state board of elections were unable to tell the whole story. He says the party dropped half a million on races at the last minute in Westchester and elsewhere—money raised and spent after Cox had been working only a couple of weeks—that helped Republicans score major upsets.

“We’ve got what we need. We know we can raise for these campaigns, and we are raising funds we need for operations, but to raise for campaigns you really need candidates,” he said, adding. “The fi lings are strange. The fi lings don’t necessarily represent what we’ve raised. There’s a whole range of things you raise money for. You can’t just point to one fi ling.”

Party offi cials say that the state party keeps several different accounts with state and federal reporting agencies, which make any single fi ling seem artifi cially low. Plus, they say, if they do

Cox’s job is intimately connected to the fundraising. Early on, Cox expressed an interest in candidates who could largely self-fund. An obscure former Bush administration offi cial named Emile Henry was suddenly being courted, though that quickly collapsed. But comptroller candidate Harry Wilson fi ts this bill, as do all Cox’s favorite Senate non-candidates—Mort Zuckerman, Diana Taylor, and Dan Senor.

And it also explains Steve Levy, who has $3.5 million more on hand than Rick Lazio.

Cox had spent months trying to lure Levy into the race, but Levy was dissuaded in part, by the presence of Erie

County Executive Chris Collins, who was also was making noises about running. Lazio had been trying to get Cox to do a full-throated endorsement of him,

not have much in reserve it is because they are spending what they have in order to win seats.

“We are not a savings bank,” said Tom Basile, the state party executive director. “We raise money so that money can be utilized to further our work.”

Cox says that candidates will need to do the bulk of their fundraising themselves, and his supporters say that raising money without a settled candidate or a party leader is diffi cult. But the party will need at least $2 million for the 2010 victory fund and for GOTV operations, according to the campaign veterans’ calculations, and there are not even enough Republican candidates running to fi ll out a slate: fi ve Democrats are already going at each other for attorney general, and the presumed Republican favorite, Staten Island District Attorney Dan Donovan, is still publicly wavering, worrying about raising money.

The candidate-recruitment part of

and when found out that the executive committee was interviewing Levy, he unloaded a profanity-laced tirade at Cox, according to several people privy to the conversation, and promised that if he won that nomination that he would work to remove Cox from his job as state chair.

Cox faced with a dilemma. If he backed Lazio, and Lazio lost by the gargantuan amount many suspect is in his future, rumblings about Cox would begin anyway. At least in this case, according to one Cox ally, the chairman has plausible deniability: even if Lazio wins the nomination to go on to a drubbing, Cox can tell fellow Republicans that they erred in not selecting Levy.

Most galling to the Lazio camp was that Cox not only pursued Levy for months, but stood on stage with him at the Albany campaign kickoff, only to exit awkwardly partway through, ducking questions. According to several Cox allies however, up until nearly the last minute Levy was refusing to switch parties unless Cox stood beside him.

“It was part of the package that brought him over to our party,” Cox said. “If you think about it, it’s a very hard thing to do. He was leaving a lot of political relationships and friendships that run very deep. From his point of view, it was important to have someone with him who knew this process and knew what the party is like. And he is going to need some help. He doesn’t know the landscape the way that Rick would know the landscape.”

Cox’s critics have suspected that he engineered the Levy switch in order to help swing the Republican line to his son, Chris, for the race against Rep. Tim Bishop. Traders in this theory note that Suffolk County chairman John Jay LaValle is one of both Levy’s and Chris Cox’s most ardent backers, and they fume that the entire state party apparatus is being subsumed in order to send Richard Nixon’s grandson to Washington.

“I think Ed tries to be too cute by half sometimes,” said one Republican operative. “This whole thing about getting Chris the Republican line. He’s young, he’s got time for this kind of thing. If Ed starts playing Machiavelli he is not going to be a good state leader. There is a lot of resentment out there because of this.”

Cox gets agitated when it is suggested that he orchestrated Levy switching parties in order to benefi t Chris.

“What do I do? After he has earned the right to do it, I’m going to tell him not to run? Look, he’s got his own political career. He’s got to make it or break it on his own. It’s not as if he hasn’t been involved in politics. He’s been more involved and out there for a longer period of time than any other candidate. He’s got great natural abilities, but the only way he is going to develop them is, win or lose, on his own.”

Republicans worry that Cox has been so focused on the governor’s race and on the Suffolk congressional seat to the


exclusion of what should be his primary focus: retaking the State Senate. More than losing the governor’s race, and more than losing a slew of congressional races, if Cox fails lead the back into the majority in the upper chamber in Albany, than his tenure will have been a failure, Republi-cans say. It is a point that Cox acknowl-edges. If the Democrats retain control of the Senate, they could redistrict out a dozen Republicans. The party will be done for in New York for a generation. And any Congressional pickups—includ-ing one by Chris Cox, could be drawn out as well.

“Republicans only win in New York state if there are disaffected Democrats,” said Ryan Moses, a former executive direc-tor of the state party. “Our house may not be in order but the opportunity is there for us to win this year. We shouldn’t squander it, and I feel like right now, we are a bit.”

But, despite what his detractors sug-gest, Cox is not disengaged. He travels the state a lot, and recently helped settle a dispute in Syracuse about how the local county parties should pick a candidate to take on State Sen. David Valesky. Cox easily rattles off the names of the other top targets—Darrel Aubertine, Brian Foley and William Stachowski—and can name how and why they are beatable. He does the same for the targeted con-gressional seats—Bishop, Carolyn Mc-Carthy, Mike McMahon, John Hall, Scott Murphy, Bill Owens, Dan Maffei.

He says now is the moment to make the move, and to slow the creeping Democratic advance on New York state politics. No more can the state make the kind of deals that determine whose turn it is to run, or permit the kind of mutual non-aggression pacts that the parties have been known to make with each other to protect incumbents.

“I’m here because I knew we’d have a good year long before other people thought we’d have a good year,” he said.

Many Republicans say they are confused by Cox’s leadership, though few were willing

to on the record. When what they thought of him as executive director, most swal-lowed and confessed that some of Cox’s moves struck them as well, “unortho-dox,” but that they were willing to give him some time.

State Sen. Tom Libous, the head of the Republican Senate Campaign Committee, has a typical take.

“People are saying they are in disarray. I don’t think that’s fair. Certainly what is doing with Levy is interesting move. Having said that, in a funny sort of way, this is good for us. It creates some attention”

For his, part Cox remains unapologetic. People close to him say they believe the heat he has been taking has been worth it if it leads to a Republican resurgence in the fall. Still, ask him about anything

about the future and the presence of the state G.O.P, and he frames it through the lens of Levy.

Three weeks after the Westchester fundraiser, on a soggy Monday, Cox arrived at Columbia Law School with his Princeton umbrella in tow for a speech to the school’s Republican club. There, Cox brought Levy up repeatedly, even though few of the students seemed aware of or interested in the drama that was burning up the email inboxes and blogs.

At Columbia, he tried explaining his theory of the 14-year political cycle—1952, 1966, 1980, 1994—that produces a Republican resurgence. The numerology discourse does not quite work—we are 16 years away from the Gingrich Revolution, after all.

The students instead wanted to talk in-stead about winning, and they were divid-ed over whether or not the Party should use conservative principle litmus tests to decide about backing candidates, or whether they should be more pragmati-cally strategic and back candidates who have better shots at winning.

Around the state, Republicans have been trying to connect with the Tea Party, but there are questions of whether Cox can handle this, properly direct grassroots energy into the Republican coalition. Then there is Conservative Party chair Mike Long, who remains a committed Lazio backer. He is mad at Cox for backing Levy, and mad at Cox for a few more things as well.

Mostly, though, Long—who has worked in tandem or at odds with a gen-eration of previous Republican chairs—is just mystifi ed.

“I think he’s got a big board in front of him and he plays a game of his political fantasy and he moves the players around the board. I wish I could explain it to you,” Long said. “I am baffl ed by his ma-neuvers. Totally baffl ed.”

If Cox’s Levy gamble falters, Long could benefi t, to the long term detriment of the Republican Party. Long seems fi rmly behind and if Lazio fails to get the nomination and continues to run on the Conservative line, the Conservatives could eke out more votes, bumping back the party that was home to Teddy Roos-evelt, Jack Kemp and Tom Dewey from its ballot line.

As the Columbia students debated dispensing with the Arlen Specters of the world, and even the Susan Collinses and the John McCains of the world or diversifying for the sake of winning, Cox declined to take a side. What mattered to him was that whoever the Party backed was a Republican, fi rst and foremost, no matter how they got there.

And he was optimistic about the road ahead.

“Yes, there will be a lot of back and forth,” he said to one questioner. “You can call that sniping. I think it’s healthy. There’s a real excitement in this upcoming election, and it’s on our side.”

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333331111111119191919191919

Join

for an On/Off the Record breakfast with

Lt. Gov Richard Ravitch

Discussing the financial present and future of

New York State

April 27, 8-9:30 a.m.

in Albany

Before April 23: $50/ticket, $450/per table of 10After April 23: $70/ticket, $650/per table of 10

for more information or to reserve tickets, please contact Stephanie Musso

at 518-833-1216 or [email protected]

Advance tickets also available for the May 11 On/Off the Record breakfast with State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli


BY SAL GENTILE

As the foreclosure crisis continues to ravage New York’s housing stock, advocates and

offi cials say the Paterson administration has been missing in action, hampered in part by a lack of leadership at the state’s key housing agencies.

In December, the state’s two top housing offi cials resigned in quick succession, just as Paterson was gearing up to unveil an ambitious affordable housing plan in his annual State of the State address. Rather than search for

new candidates, Paterson consolidated the two posts and named Acting Housing Commissioner Brian Lawlor, who replaced Deborah VanAmerongen, to lead both agencies.

But advocates remain unsure whether Paterson will ever make housing a priority again.

“There has been a lack of direction while they’ve been in an interim position, basically since Deborah left,” said Dina Levy of the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board. “There was a lack of an agenda.”

Levy said the state has been particularly absent from the ongoing discussion over how best to combat the predatory equity crisis, in which irresponsible investors buy up housing units in the hope of making money, only to shirk their obligations to tenants once the market tumbles.

She added that most advocates knew very little of the new commissioner, but said his appointment might be a positive sign.

“What I hope it means is that they’ll be more proactive about a housing agenda,” she said. “But I’m hesitant to say what that direction may be.”

Advocates and local housing offi cials have also expressed concern over the fate of a new urban renewal plan trumpeted by Paterson in his State of the State address earlier this year. The program was designed to help revitalize faltering industrial cities in upstate New York by rehabilitating abandoned homes and awarding grants for sustainable development.

But now that Paterson has quickly become a lame duck, there is widespread concern that that the plan may not last.

“The bigger concern for us is whether

or not there’s a clear commitment of the acting leadership to existing programming,” said Eric Walker of People United for Sustainable Housing, a Buffalo non-profi t that has received funding under the Paterson plan. “A year from now, is the head of the DHCR, whoever that person may be, going to be equally committed to making a sustainable neighborhood initiative a priority?”

Developers have also criticized the meager amount of money made available, which totals no more than $2 million even as administration offi cials expand the program statewide.

“The amount of money is a little

disconcerting,” said Kerry Quaglia of Home HeadQuarters, a non-profi t developer in Syracuse which is applying for one of the grants. “It pales in comparison to the nature of the problem.”

Michael Clarke, who heads the Buf-falo chapter of the Local Initiatives Support Council, said that without a long-term commitment and continuity in leadership, Paterson’s urban renewal would be unlikely to have much of an impact.

“There’s still some longer-term issues that the older industrial cities face in terms of population loss, economic decli-ne, job losses, brown fi elds, all these other issues,” Clarke said. “This isn’t a fi ve-year fi x in places like Buffalo and Rochester and Syracuse. We’re looking at framing now what these communities need to be looking like 15 and 20 years out.”

A new governor will also likely come with a new housing agenda, especially for upstate New York. And the expectation of turnover, not to mention the state’s

As Paterson Names New Housing Chief, Doubts About Agenda Remain

“What I hope it means is that they’ll be more

proactive about a housing agenda,” Dina Levy, of UHAB, said of the

appointment of a new state housing commissioner. “But

I’m hesitant to say what that direction may be.”

SC

OTT

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The publication for and aboutNew York State Government

budget woes, could have a chilling effect on the development process.

Assembly Member Sam Hoyt, of Buffalo, said he would continue to lobby Andrew Cuomo, the expected Democratic nominee for governor, to keep the sustainable neighborhoods program in his platform, despite the fact that it originated in the Paterson administration.

“Just because it’s someone else’s idea doesn’t make it a bad idea,” Hoyt said. “As the former secretary of HUD, this is precisely the type of project that Andrew Cuomo supported in that capacity and, I think, will embrace as governor.”

But Clarke expressed skepticism that the project would survive the change in administrations. The problem of how to revitalize upstate New York is a knotty one, he said, and often gets no more than lip service from politicians.

“You have a lot of people who don’t want to touch it,” Clarke said. “It’s like a third rail.”

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Hit By Private, Public Sector Unions, Construction Trades Brace for Freeze

BY CHRIS BRAGG

In November, the New York City Building and Construction Trades Council struck a deal

with the Bloomberg administration that included work rule changes for the union that would keep the city’s capital construction in the black. The deal was necessary, the union says, because of two fi scal realities: the downward spiral of the construction industry and New York City’s fi nancial plight.

The deal, hashed out over the course of ten months, saved an estimated 1,800 construction jobs—which would have otherwise been cut because of declining city revenues—through concession saving the city an estimated $330 million over four years.

“We felt we did something that was very responsible, and stepped up to the plate,” said Gary LaBarbera, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York.

Edward Malloy, president of the New York State Building and Construction Trades—the parent organization to the New York City affi liate headed by LaBarbera—said he would have been willing to similarly strike a deal with Gov. David Paterson’s administration to save jobs for his members, whose unemployment rate is hovering at 50 percent in some places.

“But there’s been nobody on the other side of the table to talk to,” Malloy said.

Instead, on April 1, Paterson froze payments to all state-funded construction projects and banned the awarding of new contracts until a budget is hashed out.

Even though his union has been willing to make concessions, Malloy said, the state’s public sector unions have been unwilling to give up their automatic 4 percent pay increases and share the pain of a $9.2 billion budget defi cit. The freeze has halted some 500

construction projects across the state.

“It’s an example of the private sector unions getting punished because of the public sector unions,” Malloy said. “It seems like they don’t have to give up anything because they have such good lobbying.”

Steve Stallmer, vice president of government and public affairs at Associated General Contractors of New York State, said he believes Paterson is trying to use the construction freeze to put

political pressure on recalcitrant legislators to pass Paterson’s budget.

The threat of losing jobs as the freeze drags on could harm legislators’ re-election chances as November approaches.

“He chose this issue to drive a wedge between himself and the Legislature,” Stallmer said.

Unions and constructions contractors are taking different tacks in fi ghting the construction freeze. Malloy said his union and its affi liates have begun a lobbying campaign with lawmakers to end the freeze—the very result Paterson was looking for, according to Stallmer.

A number of contractors associations around the state, meanwhile, are preparing class action lawsuits against the state seeking economic damages incurred due to the freeze on behalf of their members. Mark Herbst, head of the Long Island Contractors’ Association, one of the associations fi ling suit, the freeze long-term consequences on the industry, given that it is starting at the very beginning of the construction season.

“If this goes on, I think that this could be the death knell of this industry,” Herbst said.

The state’s construction unions are also battling with their private sector counterparts. In mid-December, the New York City Council scuttled the massive

Kingsbridge Armory development in the Bronx because of dispute over living wage requirements for the project, whose developer was going to receive millions in public subsidies. Private sector unions such as 32 BJ and the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union are also pushing IDA reform bills that would have similar requirements and which could slow construction further across the state.

The collapse of the Kingsbridge deal cost the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York 1,000 construction jobs.

LaBarbera said he hoped that his fellow members of the labor movement begin to reexamine their approach, given that he believes certain projects—such as Kingsbridge—are not fi nancially viable once the city puts too many mandates on their developers.

“The question that we all need to look at in the City Council and in organized labor is, ‘How can we really create employment and improve facilities for the public?’” he said.

As the state construction freeze continues, immediate prospects for the industry look bleak. The state’s infrastructure is crumbling, but the DOT capital budget was slashed signifi cantly last year and the new DOT stopgap capital plan is likely to be underfunded. The MTA capi-tal budget is in peril. The economic stimulus package has not provided much of a jolt, Malloy said. Private construction funding has dried up due to the credit crunch.

Down periods have always been parts of the industry. But Malloy said that given the length and severity of this decline, he was worried for some of his members.

“The construction industry has always had a lot of swings, and the older guys have had a chance save up for it,” Malloy said. “It’s some of the younger ones that are really struggling.”

[email protected]


More Access

More NewsThe New York Affordable Reliable ElectricityAlliance (New York AREA) is a diverse group

of business, labor, environmental, and commu-nity leaders working together for clean,

low-cost and reliable electricity solutions thatfoster prosperity and jobs for the Empire State.

S P E C I A L S P O N S O R E D S E C T I O N

Reinvesting toJumpstartNewYork’sEconomyBy Lou Coletti

An icon of NewYork’s skyline, the legendary Empire StateBuilding is in the midst of a major multi-year retrofit of themachinery and equipment that keeps it one of the finest andmost recognizable attractions in the Big Apple.

The project will replace and upgrade heating and ventilation,ductwork, electric and windows in the massive 103 story,2,768,000 square-foot office tower and tourist destination.

The result will not only be jobs, but significant energy and costsavings for the building managers and reductions in regionalgreenhouse gas emissions. According to Mayor Bloomberg’sPlaNYC, “nearly 80 percent of our citywide emissions resultfrom the energy that we use in buildings.”

In December Congress amended the Mechanical InsulationInstallation Act (HR 4296) to address this and include taxdeductions to encourage property owners to install energyefficient technologies. This incentive makes reinvesting in ourcities’ properties more affordable, while creating jobs forskilled tradesmen.

Some estimates say retrofitting mechanical infrastructure canproduce up to a 100 percent return on investment in less thansix months. The Empire State Building project will save $4.4million annually and reduce energy use 38 percent and carbonemissions by 105,000 metric tons over 15 years.

Getting to work on the thousands of eligible, older properties inNewYork will create countless savings in economic, energyand environmental terms and, we hope, the jobs our state iscounting on. NewYork State also needs to maintain a clean,affordable power supply, so we do not further drive up theregion’s excessive electricity costs and give businesses a reasonnot to invest here and now.

Speaking for the Building Trade Employers large and small,our industry needs more than just a single piece of legislationto hang our hat on and to return the real estate sector to goodhealth.

As we have continually proven in past economic cycles, thisvital leg of the NewYork economic stool will produce the jobsand tax revenue our state economy needs if leaders ofgovernment at all levels focus on implementing solutions thatwill get NewYork working once again.

Louis J. Coletti is President & CEO of the Building TradesEmployers' Association (BTEA) representing 28 union trade contrac-tor associations and over 1,700 construction managers, subcontrac-tors and specialty contractors. Its contractors employ 25,000 projectmanagers and support staff as well as the 100,000 skilled membersof the building trades union in New York City.

W W W . A R E A - A L L I A N C E . O R G


If the teachers union remains skeptical of the federal government’s criteria and their allies in the Legislature remain unconvinced, many observers predict the state will likely lose out on the second round of Race to the Top funding as well.

BY ANDREW J. HAWKINS

New York may have fl unked the fi rst round, but with $3.4 billion left in the federal Race to the Top

competition, state education offi cials and lawmakers are already gearing up for a much more contentious second round.

And the deadlock over budget negotiations is not helping, as legislators look for time to engage the extensive debate over how to make the controversial changes necessary to score better in the second round. If the teachers union remains skeptical of the federal government’s criteria, especially with regards to charter schools and tying teacher evaluations to student test scores, and their allies in the Assembly and State Senate remain unconvinced, many observers predict the state will likely come up short again.

Some states may have balked at applying for Round Two, but not New York, said Merryl Tisch, chancellor of the state Board of Regents.

“Round Two is going to be even more competitive because so many states we thought would be funded in Round One didn’t get it,” Tisch said. “But we will study this aggressively and carefully, and we plan to put forward a very competitive application.”

Tisch said that with the economy still on life support, Race to the Top money could go a long way toward offsetting

some of the harmful cuts to the state’s education budget.

“This is an opportunity that elected offi cials simply cannot walk away from,” she said.

The Obama administration’s decision to pick just two states—Delaware and Tennessee—in the fi rst round is seen as a sign that New York can still compete in Round Two, when at least 10 states are expected to receive a cut of the prize money.

But the reforms have proven to be a heavy lift. On Jan. 18, with just hours left before the Round One deadline, the

Legislature failed to lift the cap on charter schools and repeal the prohibition

on the use of student data in teacher evaluations, two criteria heavily favored by the Obama administration. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver blamed New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein for refusing to accept any limitations on their ability to grant charters, while the mayor pointed the fi nger at Silver and Senate Democratic Leader John Sampson for failing to even bring the bills up for a vote.

Assembly Member Sam Hoyt, a Buffalo Democrat who introduced a bill that would lift the charter cap, said this time he hopes his colleagues understand the urgency of passing the required reforms.

“There needs to be a very serious campaign mounted to educate elected offi cials, from the leaders down to the

rank and fi le, about what really needs to be done in terms of truly qualifying,” Hoyt said.

Delaware and Tennessee fared well in the

competition because in both states all school districts and teachers unions signed on to the application in support. Some New York legislators expressed doubt that they could perform a similar feat in the little time that remains. They believe much of that effort will fall on Gov. David Paterson and state education offi cials.

“I don’t know what we can do in the next month-and-a-half to get everyone to buy in,” said Assembly Member Michael Benjamin, a Bronx Democrat. “I guess that’s up to the governor and Tisch to do.”

Meanwhile, Paterson’s desire to slash $1.4 billion in state education aid to help offset the state’s almost $10 billion budget gap will likely complicate efforts to bring everyone to the table, especially the teachers union.

Serious hurdles remain in the Legislature to the reform agenda laid out by the White House. Both Silver, who has strong ties to New York State United Teachers and the United Federation of Teachers, and State Sen. Bill Perkins, a vocal critic of charter schools, are seen by reform advocates as formidable opponents who could derail a repeat attempt by the Legislature to pass Race to the Top-friendly legislation.

The United Federation of Teachers is already sending the message that the charter cap is not what ultimately scuttled the state’s chances of winning the money, opening the door to what will likely be another heated debate over lifting the cap.

Reform advocates disagree, saying the charter cap and the “data fi rewall,” which prevents schools from using student data in evaluating teachers, must be changed in order to qualify in Round Two. Without either, New York likely would have placed fourth in the Round One competition, rather than 15th, they say.

The “data fi rewall” law expires in

June, but education reform advocates say the Legislature could go a long way towards showing they are serious about winning by lifting the ban before the expiration date.

As for charter schools, NYSUT and UFT say they would not be opposed to lifting the cap, but reform advocates suspect the union will request many of the same “poison pills” that stalled the previous effort to raise the cap. For example, both unions want lawmakers to impose a more rigorous standard for the approval of charters that share building space with public schools.

State education offi cials are revising the Round Two application to both eliminate frivolous requests, such as new desk chairs for school administrators, and scale back the total amount the state is requesting. If New York wins in the second round, though, lawmakers will be prohibited from using the money to plug the budget hole. And even though Paterson included $700 million from Race to the Top in his 2010-2011 budget proposal, a Division of the Budget spokesperson noted that the inclusion was a “dry appropriation,” meaning the state would be barred from spending the money without fi rst receiving it from the federal government.

As offi cials work on the next round’s application, there is pushback among education reformers who note that the maximum $700 million over two years at stake is tiny compared to the $50 billion the state spends annually on K-12 education. They say that lawmakers should keep in mind that the competition is probably less about the money, and more about a pat on the back from the Obama administration.

“State education commissioners see this as a prestigious award,” said B. Jason Brooks, research director at the Foundation for Education Reform and Accountability. “They want to be out in front, being recognized by the federal government.”

[email protected]

Out Of Breath, But Still Racing For Race To The Top Round Two

JER

RY M

ILLE

R


BY ANDRE TARTAR

A bill currently be-fore the Assembly En-ergy Committee would

change the economics of the re-newable-energy industry by turn-ing previously unprofi table proj-ects into cash cows.

Known informally as the New York Renewable Resourc-es Act, the bill would be among the biggest experiments in the country in changing the economics of renewable-en-ergy investment.

Sponsored by Assembly Mem-ber Andrew Hevesi, it would man-date that most public utilities buy some of their electricity from re-newable sources and pay produc-ers of renewable energy higher rates, known as “feed-in tariffs.”

These tariffs would ensure a long-term profi t for those willing to invest in renewable-energy genera-tion.

Currently, many solar, wind, and hydro projects cannot compete ec-onomically with traditional energy sources. If the plan were adopted, utilities would pay fees to produc-ers based on the amount of subsi-dy each type of renewable energy needed in order to turn a profi t.

“Similar [legislation] passed in Germany resulted in a doubling of the renewable-energy-generat-ing capacity in only four years,” Hevesi said, adding that the country is poised to produce 20 percent of its energy from renew-able sources by 2020.

The major drawback is that the bill would raise energy rates

for consumers. But Hevesi’s legisla-tive director, Ash-ley Pillsbury, said the rates would

grow only “slightly higher” under the plan. Proponents of the bill say a short-term increase in rates would pale in comparison to the long-term creation of renewable-energy jobs.

Business groups, however, are adamantly opposed to the bill.

“Given the current economy, given that businesses are con-tinuing to struggle, this bill would mandate that utilities buy power from sources at seven to eight times the going wholesale rate,” said Ken Polasky, senior director of government affairs at the Busi-ness Council of New York.

The bill would set up an annual review by the Public Service Com-mission to look at cutting the tar-iffs on the green technologies as

these investments became more economically competitive. Once green energy became as economi-cally viable as traditional sourc-es—or “grid neutral”—the tariff would ultimately be ended.

But a bill that increases costs to consumers is a tough sell during a recession. The bill is under consid-eration in the energy committee—but its chair, Assembly Member Kevin Cahill, so far has not put the plan on the committee’s agenda.

Steve Bambrick, Cahill’s legis-lative director, said one reason for hesitation is that an increase in energy rates in the United States would be more widely noticed than the increases in Europe.

“It follows the European model, and European countries are used to having much higher energy prices,” Bambrick said, while adding that Cahill had not ruled out going for-ward with the legislation.

Hevesi, meanwhile, said he con-tinues to believe the examples of success in Germany and other Eu-ropean counties would outweigh any short-term costs.

“New York has the opportunity to be a national leader in the gen-eration of renewable electricity,” Hevesi said. “This legislation can be the fi rst step toward reaching those goals.”

Renewable Energy Bill Would MakeUncompetitive Technologies Turn Profi ts

City Hall: Your stop for New York City political news.

www.cityhallnews.com

New York AREA’s membership includes someof the state’s most vital business, labor and

community organizations including the NewYork State AFL-CIO, Business Council of New

York State, Partnership for New York City, NewYork Building Congress, National Federation of

Independent Business and many more.

W W W . A R E A - A L L I A N C E . O R G

CoolingTowersWillDamage AirQuality,EnvironmentBy Dr. Patrick Moore

As an environmentalist deeply focused on the issues ofsustainability and public health, I am troubled by a recentproposed regulation issued by the NewYork State Department ofEnvironmental Conservation (DEC).

While the officials at DEC may be sincere in their efforts, theaffects of this proposal would actually trigger negativeenvironmental consequences which would severely impact thestate, especially Westchester County and much of the lowerHudson Valley.

Westchester, Orange and Rockland Counties have already beendesignated by the U.S. EPA as nonattainment areas for fineparticle matter; placing the air quality of the region in violationof federal standards. Enactment of the DEC’s proposal at a locallevel would affect the long-term operations of numerous powerplants along the Hudson River including Indian Point.

Building two cooling towers the size ofYankee Stadium atIndian Point will require blasting and moving 2.1 million cubicyards of rock and soil. This will take several years, cost over $1billion and require both reactors to be shut down for 40 weeks ormore. The cooling towers would emit 100 tons of particulatematter annually, including salt, into the region’s air.

The regulation could also force plants like Indian Point to shuttheir doors, requiring a minimum of four large fossil-fuelburning power plants be constructed to make up for the lostpower. Safeguarding public health and meeting federal airstandards would be further compromised.

NewYork’s nuclear power fleet is a primary catalyst behind thestate’s achieving the lowest per-capita carbon emissions in theU.S. And Indian Point’s proposal to install “wedgewire” screensto their water intake system would be implemented in areasonable time frame and without the negative environmentalimpacts wrought by the cooling tower construction andoperation.

The best environmental policies focus on economically viable,sustainable solutions which safeguard the best interests of thecommunity. To achieve the right balance, the NewYork StateDEC should support a common-sense approach that ensures allthese important goals are met.

Dr. Patrick Moore is the co-founder and former leader of the environ-mental advocacy organization Greenpeace and is Chair and ChiefScientist of Greenspirit Strategies, based in Vancouver, BritishColumbia. He is an advisor to the New York Affordable ReliableElectricity Alliance (New York AREA).

S P E C I A L S P O N S O R E D S E C T I O N


BY SELENA ROSS

Now that health carereform has passed, Washington is preparing to overhaul the nation’s

immigration laws. But in New York, advocates say the

two issues are intertwined. They argue that the fi nal health reform bill passed in March will hurt the state’s half million illegal immigrants. The bill’s provisions, which advocates claim will increase the diffi culties illegal immigrants face in getting insurance, could ultimately burden the state with a large, permanent group of uninsurable, undocumented patients and no reliable funding to treat them.

“Undocumented immigrants are excluded from Medicaid, excluded from tax credits, and excluded from buying insurance in exchanges,” said Jennifer Rejeske of the New York Immigration Coalition. “The majority of uninsured folks are going to be undocumented immigrants. We’ll just be fi ghting to make sure that the safety net stays strong.”

The version of the health care bill that initially passed in the House last November contained several stipulations against immigrants, including a continuation of the current practice of barring legal immigrants from receiving Medicaid for fi ve years after their arrival. That made its way into the fi nal version, as did a separate provision: Undocumented immigrants will be banned from buying cheap insurance in the new, mandated “insurance exchanges” planned for several regions around the state.

In the exchanges, existing insurance companies will compete under government regulations for the business of a pre-approved, regional pool of consumers who are not covered by their employers or by Medicaid. The exchanges will likely gradually replace today’s unregulated marketplace where undocumented immigrants can buy insurance.

“The fi nal bill does not help us, and, in fact, creates something that we’re very concerned about,” said Denise Soffel, director of the Senate Health Committee, adding that undocumented immigrants already make up a large part of New York’s charity care patients. “It specifi cally excludes undocumented immigrants from participating.”

In New York, 52 percent of immigrants are citizens and 33 percent are legal residents, but 15 percent are undocumented, according to the New York Immigration Coalition. Most undocumented immigrants cannot afford to buy insurance on today’s open market,

but they are cared for by public hospitals that are funded largely by federal grants to Disproportionate Share Hospital payments, or DSH.

Another provision of the federal health reform bill will gradually phase out these payments. That change, in theory, will be easy because of how many more people will have been granted insurance by then.

But major cuts to safety net hospitals could leave them unable to care for the hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants in the state. New York City’s Health and Hospitals Corporation currently spends $850 million per year on charity care for uninsured patients, much of it on undocumented immigrants, although the HHC does not collect immigration information and has no exact estimates.

The fi nal version of the bill left the size of cuts to DSH payments hazy and at the discretion of the Health and Human Services Department. It is possible that

the department will only scale back the payments slightly in New York because of the large

undocumented population here. Rep. Nydia Velázquez, chair of the Hispanic caucus, said in early April that she is working closely with HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on how to cope with what she said was a fl awed bill for immigrants.

“Health and public policy should not be decided by status,” said Velázquez, adding that she spoke to the president only three or four days before the bill passed about its fi nal provisions for immigrants.

But, with the process of DSH cutbacks set to unfold years from now in a different political climate, advocates say the state could face an annual battle over safety net funding, with an uninsured population that does not shrink.

The bill does include one potential partial solution to the problem by mandating new funding for primary care facilities, often community clinics, where people see doctors for preventive care and therefore tend to avoid trips to the emergency room. Undocumented immigrants are welcome at these clinics, where children and pregnant women can be treated through CHIP and Medicaid, and others can pay a cash fee.

“That’s where a lot of the members of our community who fall through the cracks tend to go,” said Theo Oshiro, director of health advocacy at Make the Road New York, an immigrant advocacy group. “What people see on the ground is that [doctors] will see the kids and then cover the families.”

[email protected]

Health Care Reform Provisions May Be Prescription For Immigrants’ Problems

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POLITICS • POLICY • PERSONALITIES


The Way to Reach Elected Officials

Look who’s readingThe Capitol...


The Capitol: You wrote a blog post that got some attention titled “Top Ten Reasons the Media Won’t Cover My Campaign.” Did it work?Warren Redlich: The idea of the top 10 list had been percolating for a while because one of the perceptions that I think is out there is always, ‘Who is this Warren Redlich guy?’ Carl Paladino’s qualifi ed because he’s going to spend $10 million of his own money. Steve Levy’s qualifi ed because, well, I’m not really sure why he’s qualifi ed, but he’s qualifi ed. Rick Lazio is qualifi ed because he’s a Wall Street lobbyist. I’m kind of making fun of the fact that, to some extent, there’s this perception that I’m not qualifi ed to be governor, when the reality is, there really aren’t a whole lot of people who are.

TC: You have proposed capping public employee pay and slashing retiree benefi ts. Why is that better than what everyone else is proposing?WR: The current set of proposals—Paladi-no’s proposals, or Ravitch’s proposals, or Paterson’s proposals, or Rick Lazio’s non-proposals, or Levy’s proposals—those pro-posals basically amount to, ‘We’re going to close parks and lay off teachers.’ That’s what they’re doing. And my proposals do not involve closing parks and they do not involve laying off teachers. They’re actu-ally politically viable.

TC: How much would government shrink under Governor Redlich?WR: I would say we’d go down about $10

billion in spending in the fi rst year.

TC: But you would not cut education spending, as you have said?WR: No, not right off the bat. I’m not saying it’s off the table, but it’s not the fi rst place I would cut.

TC: How is that possible?WR: There’s plenty of other cuts you can make fi rst. And you’re effectively cutting education spending by capping pay. But it’s not a direct ‘I’m going to cut this from this.’ I do think there are other things we can do in the long-term. The way we do capital spending in schools is ridiculous

TC: What do you do beside serve as a Guilderland Town Board member?WR: I run my own law fi rm, which I’ve been running since 2003. What we do mostly is we handle speeding tickets for people. And then we do some other criminal defense. A fair number of marijuana cases. That’s particularly becoming relevant the way that the law has changed. In terms of volume of cases, it’s like 600 or 700 speeding tickets per year, 10 DWI cases, another 10 criminal cases. But I really am a traffi c lawyer.

TC: So you probably are not a speeder yourself, then.WR: I can’t say I never speed. I’m sure there’s been a time in my life when I went over the speed limit.

TC: Have you always been a Republican?WR: I was a Democrat back in the late 1990s. I am congenitally a Democrat, through my parents. Sometime in the late ’90s, I ran for town board in a Democratic caucus and lost. I was with the Democratic Party a short number of years and then I switched to Republican, mainly because of local stuff. The people I knew locally and I got along with were Republican. I think I’ve been conservative for a lot longer, but I just didn’t connect the dots.

TC: So you switched, like Levy and Paladino?WR: I don’t really believe there’s a huge difference between the Democratic and Republican parties. Did Barack Obama get us out of Iraq? No. Did Barack Obama end the war in Afghanistan? No. Who started the bailout, Obama or Bush? It was Bush. So to me, the two major parties at the federal level and even at the state level, they’re the same.

TC: You ran against Rep. Mike McNulty in 2004 and 2006, and then you won a seat on the town board. How did you make that progression?WR: One of my friends asked me to run with him, and foolishly, I said yes. I didn’t expect to win. The whole idea was that I wouldn’t get enough votes, and then I would throw my votes to the other side and he would get in. It’s ridiculous. I get paid $22,000 a year, and [I attend] 20 meetings a year. You break it down, it’s like $1,000 a meeting.

TC: What prompted you to run for governor?WR: Some of the Libertarians in New York State asked me to run. I was thinking about running for attorney general. I had a specifi c thing that I wanted to do related to foreclosures. So I was talking to the Libertarians about running as their attorney general candidate. And they said, ‘Well, hey, Warren, do you want to run for governor?’ And I hadn’t thought about it.

TC: So you will most likely be the Libertarian candidate for governor?WR: My impression is that the Libertarian Party will endorse me. I am still seeking the Republican line. I’m going to these Tea Parties not for the Libertarian Party, but for the Republican Party. My hope is, through the Tea Party, to establish myself as a real, credible Tea Party candidate, and that Tea Party activists will help get

signatures, because the real challenge is getting on the ballot.

TC: Do you think you can be the Tea Party candidate?WR: I’ve got feelers out for groups in different parts of New York State. But I think right now there’s really two potential Tea Party candidates. There’s Carl Paladino, and there’s me. The Buffalo Tea Party people are coalescing around Carl Paladino. A lot of people out there like him. So he’s sort of stepped up as the Tea Party candidate. At the same time, I’m a Tea Party candidate. I think we’re the only two.

TC: Do you think you beat him?WR: If I can get on the ballot in a Repub-lican primary. I don’t think Carl’s perfect, but he might be the guy. If they settle on him, then I don’t have much of a chance in the Republican primary, because he and I would cut in on each other’s votes. So it either has to be me or Carl.

TC: Could you work together, maybe as running mates?WR: I defi nitely think it’s possible, but it’s too early to say that yet.

TC: Have you raised any money?WR: Not very much. It’s in the ballpark of $10,000. Not a lot of money.

TC: So how do you fund a campaign, then?WR: There’s this perception that you have to spend a lot of money and I think that’s wrong. I think that Rick Lazio has shown that spending a lot of money doesn’t win you an election. Rick Lazio spent $45 million against Hillary, and he got clobbered. So it’s not just about money. It’s about motivating people. I don’t think that Scott Brown raised a lot of money early. You’ve got to get on the ballot fi rst. It’s hard to be taken seriously as a candidate until you’re on the ballot. But once you get on the ballot, people help you raise money. There’s got to be a smart way to raise money, and Ron Paul was a great example.

TC: Speaking of Ron Paul, you supported him for president in 2008. Do you think you will pick up any of his supporters in New York?WR: Sooner or later, we’ll have Ron Paul support.

—[email protected]

The Fourth Man“Warren Redlich for Governor?”

That is how Warren Redlich, a long shot candidate for the Republican and Libertarian gubernatorial nominations, greets

visitors to his campaign website. He knows people dismiss him as a gadfl y, but he insists he has a shot to win.A traffi c lawyer from Guilderland who supported Ron Paul for president in

2008, Redlich is hoping to build support among New York’s growing Tea Party movement and mount an insurrection within the Republican primary. He also says he has the Libertarian nomination locked up and would consider running as a Tea Party candidate even if he does not land the GOP line.

The race, Redlich says, is really between him and Buffalo developer Carl Paladino, who has about 1,000 times as much money to spend on his campaign as Redlich. But if he can get more media coverage and get on the ballot, Redlich says he can beat Paladino.

Or, maybe, they could work together. Redlich took some time from his law practice to discuss that possibility, as well as his ideas for cutting as much as $10 billion in spending from the state budget. He also revealed a dark secret from his political past.

What follows is an edited transcript.

BARRY SLOAN PHOTOS

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NEW YORK STATE TRIAL LAWYERS ASSOCIATION

Protecting New Yorkers Since 1953

A message from the New York State Trial Lawyers Association Richard S. Binko, President132 Nassau Street New York, NY 10038 Tel: 212-349-5890 www.nystla.org

Each year auto insurers raise their rates claiming that “costs” are skyrocketing. But when consumer advocates ask insurers to open up their books to show why increases are necessary, the insurers hem and haw. It’s not surprising since they have billions in profits to protect.

It’s time to let the sun shine in.

The Auto Insurance Sunshine Bill requires all insurers to disclose their financial information to regulators. No more hiding rate increases behind closed books, selective statistics, and shrouds of secrecy.

Policymakers and car owners need information they can rely on to make informed policy decisions and consumer choices. Before Albany signs off on rate increases and legislation restricting consumers’ rights, the industry must provide reliable and transparent data.

© 2010 NYSTLA

A little sunshine never hurt anyone.It might even lower our auto insurance rates.

the april 14,2010 issue of the capitol

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