Politics on the Hudson

Republican congressional candidate James Tedisco holds a 12 percentage point lead against Democratic candidate Scott Murphy in the 20th District race to succeed Kirsten Gillibrand, a Siena College poll today found.

The poll gives Tedisco, Assembly minority leader, a 46 percent to 34 percent lead over Murphy in a district that stretches from the Hudson Valley to the North Country. A special election is set for March 31 to succeed Gillibrand, who was appointed last month as U.S. senator replacing Hillary Rodham Clinton.

While 20 percent of voters in the heavily Republican district are still undecided, the poll found Tedisco was stronger on six specific issues, although his lead over Murphy on five issues – including the economy, the most important issue for voters in the poll – is in single digits.

Tedisco was viewed favorably by 47 percent of voters and unfavorably by 20 percent, with 34 percent not having an opinion. Murphy had a 29 percent to 10 percent favorable rating, with 60 percent of voters undecided.

“Jim Tedisco currently has a 12-point lead over Scott Murphy in a district that has a 15-point Republican enrollment edge,” said Steven Greenberg, spokesman for the Siena New York Poll. “And one of every five likely voters says that they have not yet made a choice in this special election.”

Murphy has gained 70 percent of support among Democrats, while Tedisco has garnered 63 percent of the support among Republicans, the poll found.

Murphy has a two-percentage-point lead in the northern part of the district, while Tedisco has an 11-point lead in the southern part of the district and is 20 points ahead in the Albany area, which is the largest part of the district.

The poll was conducted February 18-19 to 710 likely voters and had margin of error of 3.7 percentage points.

Former Westchester Deputy County Executive Larry Schwartz is getting promoted to be the governor’s top aide, according to a source close to the administration.

Schwartz is expected to replace William Cunningham, who had served as the post but has been rumored to be on the outs for weeks.

“That’s the reason he was brought in,” a source said of Schwartz, who was deputy county executive since 1998.

Paterson brought in Schwartz last month as first deputy secretary, which was viewed as a way to toughen up the administration.

The move is among changes Paterson is expected to announce to his political and governmental teams, including naming Peter Kauffman, a former spokesman for Hillary Rodman Clinton, as communications director.

There’s more on the moves here and here and here.

Updated: The full release is after the jump.

   With just over a month to go until the Legislature is supposed to pass a 2009-10 budget, mental-health, legal rights and prisoners’ rights advocates are asking legislators to reject a part of the governor’s budget that would postpone a law to prohibit solitary confinement for most seriously mentally ill prisoners.

   Gov. David Paterson proposes implementing the law in 2014, rather than 2011; reducing training; and excluding about 2,400 prison beds from the law’s requirements. The state, which faces a projected 2009-10 budget gap of $14 billion, would save $11 million in 2009-10 and $15 million in 2010-11 as a result.

   “This law is not about money,” Leah Gitter, who has a loved one in solitary confinement, said in a statement. “This is about compassion for people with disabilities who deserve the treatment they desperately need and to which they are entitled.”

   “While we have accepted cuts to mental health services in the community in view of the difficult financial times we are in, we cannot accept any further delays in ending the inhumane suffering of our most vulnerable prisoners with severe psychiatric disabilities,” Harvey Rosenthal, head of the state Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services, said in a statement. (more…)

   Members of United University Professions continued their drumbeat today against budget reductions at the State University of New York and for allowing the 64-campus system to keep all of the revenues generated by a tuition hike this spring. As the state faces a $14 billion budget gap, Gov. David Paterson wants to reduce state funding by almost the total amount of additional money the higher tuition brings in, and implement other cuts. The 35,000-member union wants the state to increase income taxes on wealthy New Yorkers to increase revenue.

   “The budget knife has gone deep into the bone and we just don’t have anything left,” UUP President Phillip Smith told union members who gathered at the Capitol Tuesday.

   Cuts to SUNY mean fewer faculty members and support staff, courses being canceled and turning away students, he said.

   SUNY’s budget was cut this fiscal year, which ends March 31, and is headed in that direction next year unless the Legislature changes the governor’s budget recommendation.

   ”The fact is you cannot get us out of this problem by cuts,” said Glenn McNiff, a political science and American government professor at SUNY New Paltz and a member of the union’s state executive board. Most of the school’s budget goes toward personnel, he said. (more…)

Lawmakers did meet one budget deadline today: They agreed that the budget deficit has grown by about $1 billion, bringing the total 2009-10 deficit to $14 billion.

The legislative leaders and the governor’s office met yesterday to discuss the state’s revenues for the upcoming fiscal year. They reached consensus today; they had until March 1 to reach agreement on the size of the budget gap.

The $14 billion gap has been generally agreed to by legislative leaders after the state Assembly estimated that the deficit would grow by $1 billion, moving it up from $13 billion.

“The parties agree that the weaker economic outlook reached in economic consensus should result in a decrease in General Fund receipts of $1 billion when compared with the amount projected in the Executive Budget,” a statement from the governor’s office states.

While the Working Families Party may not like the proposal by Sen. Jeff Klein, D-Bronx, to raise taxes on the wealthy and provide tax cuts to the middle class through a debit card, he did pick up the backing today of Columbia University Economics Professor Michael Woodford.

“Senator Klein’s proposal provides a two-pronged approach to reducing the harm to New York’s economy from the current economic crisis,” Woodford said in statement from Klein’s office.

“On the one hand, it provides additional sorely-needed revenue to the State, reducing the extent to which essential programs will have to be cut—cuts that at this time would only increase economic distress. And at the same time, it stimulates spending through a novel debit card system, reducing the impact of the recession on local merchants.”

Gov. David Paterson attributed his falling poll numbers to the state’s budget problems and the ads being run by special-interest groups, and also said he should have handled the U.S. Senate selection process better.

“I’ve tried to be honest,” he told reporters this afternoon. “I think we have made some mistakes here.”

He said the ads being run by health-care groups aren’t telling the full story about his proposed budget cuts, saying, “People don’t spend a lot of money making commercials unless they are getting results. And they are getting the results.”

In retrospect, though, he said he should have made the selection of a U.S. senator more quickly.

“I wouldn’t have changed the senator that I picked. I think I got the right senator,” he said. “I think that there was a point in that process where it started to become a bit of a circus and I probably just should have ended it.”

Paterson said he expects to make additional staff changes as he heads into his one-year anniversary in office next month and that his poll numbers will rebound once the state gets through its budget deficit and he can show the state that he handled it responsibly.

With troubling times ahead and a need to control labor costs, Nassau County workers may take a pay cut, Long Island’s Newsday is reporting.

County Executive Thomas Suozzi and unions say they could reach an agreement by the end of the week. It’s a move that would avert layoffs.

Westchester County workers won’t likely have to deal with those challenges. Deputy County Executive Susan Tolchin, in a conversation last week about County Executive Andrew Spano’s campaign, said Westchester is well-positioned to weather this economic storm. She has said the county will reduce its work force through attrition, not layoffs.

What do you think — Is Westchester doing the right thing? How could the county reduce its labor costs?Should county workers take a pay cut? Should they contribute to their health insurance plans? 

(Intelligent, well thought out ideas only please).

Gov. David Paterson’s approval rating among New Yorkers continues to fall, with a Siena College poll this morning showing the Democratic governor with only a 28 percent job-approval rating—down 23 percentage points from just a month ago.

The latest numbers from Siena comes after similar polls in recent weeks show Paterson’s favorability rating and job-approval rating on the decline after he proposed major cuts to education and health care to close the state’s budget gap and was heavily criticized for the selection of a new U.S. senator in January.

The Siena poll found that Paterson is viewed favorably by 40 percent of voters and unfavorably by 47 percent, the lowest level in a Siena poll, down from last month’s 54 percent favorable rating. In November, his favorability rating was at 64 percent, a high for Siena.

Only 19 percent of voters are prepared to elect Paterson as governor in 2010, when he plans to seek election, the poll reported. Fifty-seven percent prefer “someone else.”

“David Paterson has reached a low water mark with voters since becoming governor,” said Steven Greenberg, spokesman for the Siena New York Poll.

“Between the Senate appointment process, which is still the focus of negative reports one month later, and the attacks being waged across the media by those opposed to his budget proposals, the governor is tumbling in the polls from record highs three months ago to new record lows.”

In a hypothetical 2010 Democratic primary for governor, Paterson trails Attorney General Andrew Cuomo 53 percent to 27 percent, similar to the findings of a Quinnipiac Poll last week. Last month, Siena had Paterson leading Cuomo 35 percent to 33 percent, and in November he led 53 percent to 25 percent.

The poll was conducted Feb. 16-18 by telephone calls to 622 New York State registered voters.  It has a margin of error of 3.9 percentage points.

   A few economists who participated in the Legislature’s and Division of Budget’s economic forecasting conference today said they don’t think New York should raise taxes and fees or reduce spending to get the state into a better financial position.  Jonathan Haughton, a senior economist with Suffolk University’s Beacon Hill Institute in Boston, said a higher income tax on wealthy New Yorkers could cost the state about 22,000 private-sector jobs. He also criticized a proposed tax on non-diet sodas, known as the “obesity tax.”

   Sen. Liz Krueger, D-Manhattan, said the state isn’t in private business and has to respond to people who need help.

   Gov. David Paterson’s proposed budget implements or raises a host of fees, including the soda tax. A group of Senate Democrats have proposed a higher income tax on the rich to help get New York out of its $14 billion in debt, and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, has indicated his support for the measure. The federal stimulus package money will help alleviate some of the state’s financial problems.

   As part of the budget-development process, the Senate, Assembly and governor’s office have to come to a consensus on economic and revenue forecasts. The forecasting conference took place earlier than usual this year in hopes of completing the 2009-10 budget before the deadline of March 31, when the current fiscal year ends, said Laura Anglin, Paterson’s budget director.

   All sides agree that the Wall Street collapse and reduction in bonuses have hurt state government.  The Assembly Majority budget report said the extent to which the Wall Street landscape will be permanently changed is unclear, which contributes to the ambiguity surrounding the state’s economic outlook.