Politics on the Hudson

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has gained the attention of the White House, but perhaps not in his own state, a Siena College poll today found.

A majority of New Yorkers had no opinion on Schneiderman or another statewide elected official, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, the poll found.

Schneiderman, who was recently tapped by President Obama to head a panel investigating the mortgage crisis, had 21 percent to 16 percent favorability rating, but 63 percent had no opinion of the first-term Democratic attorney general. Schneiderman’s approval rating is up slightly from May, when it was 17 percent.

Sixty percent of voters had no opinion of him in January 2011, when he took office.

In today’s poll, DiNapoli had a 24 percent to 18 percent favorability rating and was unknown to 58 percent of voters. DiNapoli was elected to a full term in 2010 after he was appointed to the position in early 2007—after the resignation of disgraced Comptroller Alan Hevesi. DiNapoli’s highest approval rating was in 2010, when it was 30 percent.

Eighty percent of voters had no opinion of DiNapoli in May 2007.

Voters may think New York is headed in the right direction, but they surely don’t think state government leaders deserve a raise.

A Siena College poll this morning found that voters are overwhelmingly opposed to raises for elected and appointed state officials.

Sixty-seven percent of New Yorkers said state lawmakers do not deserve a raise; 74 percent opposed giving Gov. Andrew Cuomo a raise; and 78 percent opposed salary increases for commissioners of state agencies.

The state officials haven’t had a pay raise since 1999. State legislators get a base pay of $79,500 a year, but most receive additional stipends for leadership positions.

“While 13 years is a long time to go without a pay hike, voters across the spectrum are strongly opposed to legislators voting a pay raise to themselves or to any other state officials,” said Siena College pollster Stephen Greenberg.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, last month said lawmakers deserve a raise, but the Republican-led Senate said it was not considering the idea.

Cuomo said recently he was not having discussions about pay raises; last year, he reached contract agreement with
public-employee unions to freeze salaries for several years.

Cuomo did say that salaries for state commissioners would one day have to be addressed, suggesting it is important to attract top talent to government. Commissioners earn between $101,000 and $136,000 a year. Cuomo’s pay is $179,000.

In one of his first acts as governor in January 2011, he cut his pay and the pay of his top aides by 5 percent.

The heads of the state Senate and Assembly receive an additional $41,500 a year. Ranking members on legislative committees receive at least $9,000.

Voters were more supportive of other ideas being floated at the Capitol, the Siena poll found.

Seventy-one percent of voters said they support Cuomo’s proposal to tie a school aid to teaching performance. Sixty-nine percent said they support Cuomo’s push to create a new, less generous pension tier for new state workers.

SNY012912 Crosstabs

It wouldn’t be February without an ad knocking the proposed state budget, and CSEA didn’t disappoint, releasing the first negative ad of the budget year.

The television ad from the state’s largest public-employees union takes aim at the overall budget and doesn’t specify what its main gripes are. CSEA has said previously that it opposes a new, less generous pension tier and has warned against government consolidation that could lead to job cuts.

But the union last year reached a labor agreement with Gov. Andrew Cuomo that includes layoff protections, and a new pension tier wouldn’t affect current workers—something Cuomo regularly points out.

And the ad says the budget would “erode the middle class,” but Cuomo and lawmakers included in the budget a tax cut to the middle class.

Last year, school aid and Medicaid spending were both cut; this year both are getting 4 percent increases in spending.

Last year, the Committee To Save NY, a Cuomo-backed group, far outspent the governor’s foes, dumping nearly $10 million into ads —a move that effectively countered adds from unions and school groups.

Here’s the script and ad:

“It’s time for frank talk about the proposed New York state executive budget. The truth is what you don’t know can hurt you.
There’s no transparency or accountability. It erodes decent jobs, harms our communities and diminishes services New Yorkers rely on. The consequences are no more middle-class, public safety compromised, our most vulnerable citizens at risk – everyone’s future security diminished.
Not good for people, not good for the economy. New Yorkers deserve real answers and budget that works for all.”

Here’s the ad running during Super Bowl XLVI of Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Bloomberg wears an Eli Manning jersey and Menino wears a Tom Brady jersey, and while they are on opposing sides of the big game, they are both supporting tougher guns laws in cities.

The ad is an outgrowth of the Bloomberg-created Mayors Against Illegal Guns campaign. (h/t to City & State.)

There’s a lottery scam going on in New York involving mail containing fraudulent checks that appear to have been issued by the state, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said.

“An offer of easy money is usually too good to be true and that is the case here,” DiNapoli said in a statement. “If you receive one of these fraudulent checks, please report it my office immediately.”

DiNapoli said his office referred the matter to federal law enforcement.

DiNapoli said the scammers send potential victims a letter telling them that they are a winner of a lottery or sweepstakes drawing.

The person receiving the check is directed to pay an amount to the scammer in order to secure his or her “full winnings.”

Before the depositing bank has learned that the check is fake, the victim has already transferred the funds and the money can’t be retrieved, DiNapoli said in a news release.

He said recent letters have included companies calling themselves “Guaranty Trust Inc.” with a New York City mailing address, or “Golden Gateway Financial, Division of Unclaimed Funds,” with a Las Vegas and London address.

DiNapoli said that more than a dozen checks from “Guaranty Trust Inc.” have been recovered by the Comptroller’s Office with amounts of either $3,980.05 or $4,885.20. The checks are supposed to cover the taxes owed on the potential victim’s alleged winnings.

DiNapoli said that anyone who has received such a letter could contact the Comptroller’s toll-free fraud hotline at 1-888-672-4555; file a complaint online at investigations@osc.state.ny.us; or mail a complaint to: Office of the State Comptroller Investigations Unit, 110 State Street, 14th floor, Albany, NY 12236.

A report today from database guru Bill Mahoney of NYPIRG shows that 127 donors gave state-level candidates and political parties $50,000 or more over the past year.

The rarefied group contributed $16.8 million between January 2011 and January 2012. To put that in context, the small group of donors accounted for more than one third of all the money raised by campaigns in New York over that period.

What’s also worth noting is that many of donors contributed to political parties’ housekeeping accounts—which are supposed to be only for “party-building activities” and not specifically for the candidates themselves. There’s no campaign-contribution limit to those accounts.

Doing so allowed corporations and LLCs to skirt the $5,000 contribution limit.

Of the donors who gave $50,000 or more, Gov. Andrew Cuomo received the most: nearly $3 million. Seventy nine of the 127 donors gave to Cuomo.

Here’s the report:

NYPIRG Largest Donors of Past Year

Democratic Assembly candidate Shelley Mayer is hosting a pre-Super Bowl fundraiser Sunday with Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

It may be a rare opportunity to get both DiNapoli’s Super Bowl prediction and his prediction on the rate of return for the state’s pension fund.

The tickets range from $40 to $1,000 for the 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. event at Rory Dolan’s in Yonkers.

Mayer, the former chief counsel to Senate Democrats, is now essentially running unopposed for the open Assembly seat vacated Dec. 31 by now Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano. The GOP candidate on the ballot is not actively campaigning. The election is March 20.

DiNapoli is a former Assemblyman from Long Island.

Updated: Here’s DiNapoli’s quote.

“I’m proud to endorse Shelley Mayer for State Assembly. I know her, I respect her ability, and I know that she’ll work closely with my former colleague Mike Spano to really deliver for the people of Yonkers.”

New York has slowly recovered from the national recession, regaining 46 percent of its jobs, but the comeback has been unequal through the state, a report today found.

The “Economic Trends In New York State” report by Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said the state’s economy remains fragile.

The report found that Rochester, New York City and the Glens Falls areas were the only regions to outpace the state average in job growth since the recession officially ended in late 2009.

The Rochester metropolitan area, as other employment reports have shown, had by far the strongest recovery—regaining 98 percent of the jobs lost in the recession. Second was Glens Falls with 55 percent of the jobs, followed by New York City at 52 percent.

The report found a weak recovery in the lower Hudson Valley, which regained just 14 percent of the jobs lost during the recession.

“The economic recovery has been uneven across the state,” the report said. “While total employment has increased since December 2009 in most metropolitan areas, the share of jobs recovered has exceeded the statewide average in only three.”

DiNapoli said that New York as a whole has outpaced the nation in job growth over the past two years. But in recent months, New York hasn’t kept pace with the national average.

New York’s unemployment rate peaked at 8.9 percent in January 2010, the report said, and is now 8 percent. But it has dropped little since December 2010, when it was 8.2 percent. The national unemployment rate was 8.5 percent last December.

DiNapoli said fiscal policies implemented under Gov. Andrew Cuomo could help the economy, but he also warned that the state’s recovery could be thwarted by national and international pressures.

“The European sovereign debt crisis could affect the banking and tourism sectors, which are important to the state’s economy,” the report said. “A spike in oil prices would consume a greater share of consumers’ disposable income, leaving less available for spending that ultimately creates jobs.”

Even Wall Street, long the engine of the state’s economy, is struggling. The securities industry lost $3 billion in the third quarter of 2011, and most large firms reported weak earnings for in fourth quarter, the report said.

DiNapoli warned that Wall Street has lost 4,300 jobs since April, and he predicted smaller Wall Street bonuses in 2011—which often produces a lift to the state’s coffers.

The report noted the decision by Cuomo and the state Legislature in December to lower income taxes on the middle class while keeping them higher on millionaires, but less than in 2011.

The percentage of jobs regained in New York since 2009 ranked 16th in the nation. The state regained 154,300 of the 333,400 jobs that were lost in the recession, or 46 percent.

Nys Econ Trends15-2012

(more…)

Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli is using the power of the state’s $147 billion pension fund to pressure nuclear energy companies to conduct safety reviews and report their findings to shareholders.

Late last year, DiNapoli filed shareholder resolutions with the seven companies in which the pension fund owns stock asking them to appoint a committee of independent directors to conduct the review. Below is the resolution sent to Entergy, which owns Indian Point in Westchester County.

DiNapoli’s calls comes after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission yesterday said that Indian Point and other nuclear plants must conduct a study to update their ability to withstand an earthquake.

“Recent events and independent studies such as yesterday’s release by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have indicated there are more risks than had previously been believed about the safety of nuclear power plants,” DiNapoli said in a statement.

“It is my belief that this is an area of significant risk for energy companies in the Fund’s portfolio. To that end, the Fund has filed resolutions with seven of these companies calling on them to conduct a review of safety issues and report their findings to shareholders. We must be proactive and ask these companies to mitigate risk and not wait until disaster has struck to undertake these critical steps.”

Here’s the list of the companies that the state pension fund owns stock:

-Entergy, (Owner of the Indian Point nuclear power plant in Buchanan, NY as well as the Fitzpatrick nuclear power plant in Scriba, NY): 790,288 shares worth $55,810,000

-NextEra Energy Inc.: 1,481,356 shares worth $88,762,000

-Dominion Resources Inc.: 2,149,977 shares worth $106,552,000

-Westar Energy Inc.: 510,200 shares worth $14,673,000

-FirstEnergy Corp.: 1,441,783 shares worth $60,929,000

-Progress Energy: 1,059,243 shares worth $57,273,000

-Xcel Energy: 1,680,774 shares worth $45,347,000

NYS CRF Nuclear Power Safety Res 2012

Monroe County Executive Maggie Brooks said today that she won’t run against Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in November.

Brooks, first elected in 2003, has long been considered a top potential statewide candidate for Republicans, and speculation was building late last year that she could take on Gillibrand, who in November will be seeking a full six-year term.

But Brooks told Gannett’s Albany Bureau today that a Senate run is not in her plans.

“I don’t think I ever talked about that. Others around me talked about that, and there was some media speculation, but I have never said that I was considering that in any way,” Brooks said in a telephone interview.

Brooks said a Senate race against Gillibrand might cost as much as $20 million, and she said it would be difficult to raise that kind of money without having a strong fundraising base in New York City.

“Just the nature of those Senate races, if you don’t have the ability to fund raise in New York City and downstate, it’s very, very difficult to raise the money for a campaign like that,” she said.

Yesterday, Marc Cenedella, CEO of the Ladders.com, said he won’t run against Gillibrand. Nassau County Comptroller George Maragos is the only announced candidate planning to challenge Gillibrand, who was first appointed to the seat in 2009 and then was elected to fill the remainder of Hillary Clinton’s term.

Brooks was never believed to be seriously considering a run against Gillibrand, whom state Republicans have made their top target this year. She brushed off the initial speculation in October, first outlined in a City and State column, and easily won re-election in November to a record third term as county executive.

Brooks is believed to a top congressional contender if Monroe County is drawn into one U.S. House seat in the forthcoming redistricting process. Right now, the county is sliced into four congressional districts.

If Monroe County is put into one seat, the speculation is that Brooks may wage an epic battle against longtime Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-Fairport, Monroe County, who was first elected in 1986.

Brooks said she would consider a congressional run, but has yet to see the district lines.

“I would never walk away from an opportunity to look at a district that was Monroe County specific, but there’s a lot of factors that go into that,” Brooks said. “There’s fundraising ability, the timing. Everything has to kind of coalesce to make that practical for me or anyone else.”

But Brooks stressed, “I love my job. I have another three years after this to be the county executive, and that’s a pretty good job. But I don’t ever say no to opportunities. If that arises, I would probably take a look at it, but we don’t know, and right now there is no opportunity.”