Politics on the Hudson

Rochester Mayor Robert Duffy’s trips to Albany take on a lot larger meaning these days since he was tapped as Andrew Cuomo’s running mate last month.

Duffy was in town today to lobby on his effort to get mayoral control of Rochester city schools, which passed the Assembly last week and is now in the Senate’s hands.

But Duffy was asked repeatedly by reporters about where he and Cuomo stand on the current state budget fight. And Duffy said repeatedly that he’s not going to get into the middle of it.

“I’ve talked to the attorney general about this and one of the things we don’t want to do is inject ourselves into a process, because I’m running for office. I’m not in that office,” Duffy said. “If I was in that office I would answer very clearly. But there’s one governor, there’s one Legislature.”

But Duffy said the state needs to cut back on its spending and said that a Cuomo-Duffy administration would seek a property-tax cap, lower spending and consolidate services.

Duffy stopped in to visit Gov. David Paterson and then went up the Senate chambers to meet with Senate President Malcolm Smith, D-Queens, who is carrying the mayoral control legislation in the Senate.

He was joined by several members of his staff, Rochester Business Alliance president Sandy Parker and and Rochester school board member Allen Williams.

Here’s some video of Duffy talking about the budget situation outside Paterson’s office.

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