A lawyer for the national Alliance Defense Fund said today that his group plans to file a lawsuit next week against Gov. David Paterson over his directive to recognize same-sex marriages in New York.

“We’re definitely going to file an action against the governor,” said Brian Raum, senior legal counsel for the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, which opposes same-sex marriage, told Gannett News Service.

“What he has done is completely outside of his authority.”

Other groups, including the Coalition To Save Marriage In New York, are expected to join the lawsuit against Paterson, who this week revealed a directive he issued in mid-May to state agencies telling them to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states and nations.

Advocates say Paterson is well within his legal rights to make the move, and the state started offering health benefits last year to gay couples in state and local governments.

“What the governor did is in no way radical or stepping out ahead of the state,” said Susan Sommer, a lawyer with the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund. “What the governor is doing is simply following what is now very well established law.”

Paterson has used the same argument, saying that the state would be liable if he didn’t recognize same-sex marriage when it comes to state workers and state policies.

“What I’m trying to do is to accommodate the fact that if I didn’t take action, I would leave these state open to lawsuits. I would open the state treasury open to monetary damages,” Paterson said yesterday. “And I would be discriminating against individuals who come here from other jurisdictions.”

The governor’s communications director Risa Heller has not returned calls seeking comment on the pending lawsuit.

Vice President Dick Cheney was the featured speaker at the state Republican Committee’s dinner in Manhattan last night. At the start of his remarks, he noted that at least one New York politician has taken to calling him Darth Vader.

“I notice that Joe (Mondell0) did not mention that the junior senator from New York has begun calling me Darth Vader,” Cheney said to laughter. “I asked my wife recently if it didn’t bug her when people called me that.  She said, ‘No, it humanizes you.’”

A transcript of Cheney’s remarks follows the jump

Members of transportation authorities in the state don’t get paid, but they get free rides on the buses and bridges they oversee.

Transportation authorities in Buffalo, Albany, Syracuse and Rochester let their board members ride free on local buses any time they want.

Meanwhile, the state Bridge Authority, which oversees five bridges in the Hudson Valley, has for years let its members ride free with their E-Z Pass tags over its bridges – while all other drivers have to pay a $1 toll.

Yet on Thursday the Bridge Authority independently suspended the free E-Z Pass on the bridges for the 12 current and former members who were receiving the benefits.
Bridge Authority spokesman John Bellucci said the board expects to vote next month to end the E-Z Pass breaks permanently.

“We’re a public authority. The attorney general has an opinion that he says he believes it’s illegal. In deference to that, okay” they’ll stop, Bellucci said.

But he said the expense to the authority has been minimal: only about $40 a month.
The freebies have come to light this week as state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo put a halt to the free E-Z Pass tags given to board members of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York City and the state Thruway Authority.

Cuomo and other state officials have railed against the perks, saying that board members are uncompensated volunteers and should not get the benefits that paid employees of the authorities receive. Most transportation authorities also give their employees free bus passes.

“It is no longer acceptable for uncompensated board members to be paid quietly on the side,” Cuomo said Thursday in announcing that the MTA will strip E-Z Pass tags from former members and restrict use by current members.

“We will continue to root out this type of conduct in order to protect taxpayers of the state against any waste, fraud, and abuse.”

Cuomo’s aides said they will pursue other public authorities that provide free perks, yet hope many will relinquish the benefits on their own, as the Bridge Authority did.

Read more here 

Susan Tolchin, who is among the most visible figures in Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano’s administration, is to be honored by the YWCA of White Plains on Friday.

Tolchin, the county executive’s chief adviser and spokeswoman, will receive the group’s award for government and public service during the Salute to Women and Racial Justice awards luncheon at the Doral Arrowood.

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s long shot bid for the Democratic presidential nomination received a boost today when four top Michigan Democrats sent the heads of the national party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee a letter asking them to support seating the state’s lost delegation at full voting strength.

News of the letter was reported by Todd Spangler of the Detroit Free Press.

A staff recommendation to the Democratic National Committee is suggesting that the delegations from Michigan and Florida be seated with half their voting rights, but it is not binding.

The committee is scheduled to meet Saturday in Washington.

According to Spangler, the letter argued that New Hampshire first broke the calendar rule for primaries though that state suffered no consequences.

Yonkers City Councilman John Murtagh is planning to formally kickoff his bid for state Senate on Saturday with an 11 a.m. rally at his campaign headquarters in Yonkers.

Murtagh received the unanimous endorsement of the Westchester GOP this week to challenge state Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins, a Yonkers Democrat. He also has the support of former Sen. Nicholas Spano.

The headquarters is located at 1915 Central Park Ave., in Yonkers.

Gov. David Paterson just finished talking to reporters in Manhattan and said his directive to state agencies to allow for same-sex marriage rights in New York is legal and upholds the state’s tradition of honoring marriages from other states.

“We as a state would be liable if we didn’t take this action,” Paterson said.

Paterson said he thinks gay marriage is “beautiful. I think it’s fine” but he said his decision is based on law, not his personal opinion.

He cited a Feb. 1 ruling by an appellate court in a case involving a Monroe County couple, one of whom sued Monroe Community College after the school refused to provide health insurance for her partner, whom she married in Canada where same-sex marriages are legal.

He said that case affirms the state’s responsibility to accept marriage licenses from same-sex couples who get married in other states and countries. Only Massachusetts, and soon California, have same-sex marriage laws.

If he didn’t allow for same-sex married couples to receive the same benefits as heterosexual couples, Paterson said “I would leave these state open to lawsuits. I would open the state to monetary damages. And I would be discriminating against individuals who come here from other jurisdictions.”

Some state legislators fired back at Paterson for the directive to state agencies, suggesting it’s an end around the Legislature, which has yet to adopt a same-sex marriage law. The Assembly passed the measure last year, but has not been taken up in the Republican-controlled Senate.

Paterson responded that the Legislature has every right to pass a same-sex marriage bill, just like he has the right to follow the law and allow for equal benefits to gay couples.

In one of his toughest cracks at the Legislature, he ended his press conference with if the Legislature isn’t happy, “maybe they should go in and work on something.”

   The Catholic Conference, which represents New York’s Catholic bishops on policy matters, said Gov. David Paterson’s “unilateral decision to recognize same-sex ‘marriage’” is “unwelcome.”   This is what Richard Barnes, executive director of the conference, said in a statement this morning:

   “The administrative action by Gov. Paterson compelling all state agencies to recognize same-sex ‘marriages’ performed in other states is an unwelcome bypassing of the state Legislature. Unfortunately, this unilateral move without legislative input is not in keeping with Mr. Paterson’s promises upon taking office of a collaborative and bipartisan governing style.”

   The definition of marriage pre-dates recorded history, according to Barnes. It should not be up to a single politician, court or Legislature to “redefine the very building block of our society in a way that alters its entire meaning and purpose,” he said.

    “What our biblical ancestors knew instinctively holds true today: Marriage between a man and a woman is the best way to assure the stable rearing of children and the flourishing of society. It should not be treated as simply one more lifestyle choice, equal to any other, because it is not,” Barnes said.

Sources in Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s office said that the Metropolitian Transportation Authority has agreed to no longer let authority members use E-Z Pass tags unless the use is specific for authority business.

This week, Cuomo dropped the hammer on the MTA and the Thruway Authority after it was revealed that authority members were getting free E-Z Pass tags.

The Thruway Authority relented yesterday and said its seven current and former members will no longer use the tags. But MTA vowed yesterday to challenge Cuomo in court.

Yet apparently the MTA has thought otherwise, and Cuomo has planned a 2:30 p.m. presser in New York City to announce the new developments.

Updated 2: Here’s some of Cuomo’s statement:

“The MTA is right to change course and alter its policies relating to current and former board members getting free E-ZPasses for life. No longer will board members get a free ride while everyday New Yorkers pay their own way. The MTA, like all government agencies, must follow the law like everyone else. ”

Updated: Here’s state Sen. Eric Adams, D-Brooklyn, and Sen. Andrew Lanza, R-Staten Island, calling on the MTA to give up its E-Z Pass benefits.

The best line from Adams: “I volunteer as a member of the Boy Scouts. I shouldn’t get free cookies for life. It makes no sense.”

Hillary Clinton’s campaign just announced the endorsement of  pop star Ricky Martin, who is perhaps best known for the late-1990s hit “Livin’ La Vida Loca.”

“These elections will have historic repercussions both in the United States and the world. Senator Clinton has always been consistent in her commitment with the needs of the Latino community,” Martin says in a press release from the Clinton campaign.

“Whether fighting for better education, universal health care and social well-being, as First Lady and Senator from New York—representing millions of Latinos—she has always fought for what is most important for our families,” said Martin, who is a 5-time Grammy winner.

The campaign is trumpeting the endorsement just days before the Puerto Rico primary. Martin is from Puerto Rico.

Other entertainment figures backing Clinton include Madonna, Elizabeth Taylor, Eva Longoria, Jack Nicholson, America Ferrera, Barbra Streisand, Elton John, Michael Douglas and Quincy Jones.