Paterson: Don’t Judge His Speech With a Scorecard
Gov. David Paterson took to the radio airwaves this morning—six interviews before 9 a.m.—to talk about the tough State of the State address that he gave before a joint session of the state Legislature yesterday.
But while he called for sweeping ethics and fiscal reforms, Paterson admitted that his proposals are ambitious and could be a hard sell in the Legislature. So he asked the public to judge him on his ideas and not on what may ultimately get approved.
“Sometimes one of the problems in government in State of the State addresses is there’s a scorecard, we measure the person by how much they pass as opposed to what is actually right,” he said this morning on WCBS-AM (880). “I would say that some of the proposals I would admit are ambitious, that they are. But it’s good that we are having this kind of debate over them because they haven’t been put on the floor before.”
He added that, “So I don’t think it’s the issue of what percentage of your proposals you pass, it’s that: Are you fighting for the things that will make life better for New Yorkers, and I think we are doing that?”
Later, on WGY-AM (810) Paterson reiterated those concerns.
“We have this ridiculous system where a governor gives a State of the State address and you then measure how much the governor passes and that’s sort of like the report card on the governor,” he said.
“I think that’s so wrong because governors have hesitated putting necessary legislation on the floor and fighting for it and instead chose what they thought the Legislature would pass and this is the reason we’re in the deficit we’re in now.”
On WWRL-AM (1600), Paterson said lawmakers “disgraced themselves” for not enacting tough ethics standards after scandals have rocked the Capitol.
“You’ve got a situation where the legislators will not turn on each other or discipline each other and we’ve disgraced ourselves,” he said.
And he continued to signal out special interests, saying they only worry about their clients and “patted the legislators they control on the shoulder to go out and make nasty remarks about me after I made the speech.”
He said the public has had enough.
“The public is rebelling right now because the public feels duped by elected officials,” he said.
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