Politics on the Hudson

Technically, the state budget was completed at 11:09 a.m. Sunday, missing the midnight Saturday deadline.

But lawmakers sprinted out of the Capitol saying they felt they met the spirit of the deadline (it is Palm Sunday) and enacted a spending plan that allowed them to declare many (more…)

Here was one moment of levity Saturday during the state Senate’s grilling of Alexander “Pete’’ Grannis, Gov. Spitzer’s nominee to head the Dept. of Environmental Conservation:

 Sen. Suzi Oppenheimer, D-Mamaroneck, Westchester County, complained of deer overpopulation and asked if the agency could do something to “prevent the deer from mating.’’

 After the giggles and murmurs subsided, Grannis replied: “Senator, while we regulate the hunting season, the mating season is probably beyond our control.’’

 That prompted another roar of laughter.

Rachel Leon, executive director of Common Cause, was shooting the breeze with reporters at the press room on the 3rd floor of the Capitol when she was hit with this query:

From the good-government groups’ perspective, what’s worse: lawmakers missing the April 1 budget deadline or making the deadline by using a “message of necessity’’—a legal tool to waive the customary 3-day waiting period between printing a bill and voting on it, a maneuver that allows little study of the bill before it’s passed?

“Messages of necessity,’’ she said, after hedging for a moment. A few days late is worth the extra scrutiny.

After several holdups over the last month, the Senate Environmental Committee voted to advance the nomination of Alexander “Pete’’ Grannis to become the new head of the Dept. of Environmental Conservation.

Senators grilled Grannis, a longtime Democratic assemblyman from Manhattan, for about an hour Tuesday—after going 90 minutes a week ago—before voting to move his nomination to the Senate Finance Committee. It’s not certain when that committee or the full Senate will vote on Grannis. However, some activists said he’s cleared the major hurdle.

Three senators voted against Grannis: Betty Little, R-Queensbury, Warren County, Joe Griffo, R-Rome, Oneida County, and Cathy Young, R-Olean, Cattaraugus County. There are 14 members on the committee.

Tom Kirwan, always among the most outspoken state Assembly members, says the governor should “shut down this place’’ if lawmakers can’t pass a budget by April 1, the start of the new fiscal year.

Kirwan, R-Newburgh, Orange County, said if Gov. Spitzer wants to change Albany, he should not follow the path of past governors, who enacted a series of “emergency spending’’ bills to keep government operating on an interim basis while the budget stagnated.

“If it is not on time, the governor should shut the government down and make the Legislature stay in Albany around the clock until we do what we are getting paid to do,’’ Kirwan said in a news release.

The Senate Environmental Conservation Committee has scheduled a second round of questions for Alexander “Pete’’ Grannis, Gov. Spitzer’s nominee to become environmental commissioner, for 11 a.m. Tuesday.

You’ll recall the GOP-led Senate started the process last week, only to postpone about halfway through.

 Gov. Eliot Spitzer wants to reconsider a state mandate that judges retire at the end of the year they turn 70 years old.

 “I’m serious about it,’’ Spitzer told the New York Law Journal (subscription required) after the swearing-in ceremony of New York’s Chief Judge Judith Kaye. “I think it’s an issue we should put on the table.’’

 Spitzer nominated Kaye for another 14-year term. However, she must step down at the end of 2008 because of the mandatory retirement law. (State Supreme Court justices can get extensions to stay beyond 70 in certain circumstances.) A state Bar Association task force would like to push the retirement age to 76.

 Conservative Party chairman Michael Long had his pen out again Thursday, inking another letter to the governor. This time, he wasn’t offering support but urging Eliot Spitzer to not to close some corporate tax loopholes.

“You call this portion of your budget proposals `closing loopholes’ on business, when in fact, it is increasing taxes on business in New York,’’ Long wrote. Later he added, “New York needs to encourage businesses to stay and expand, which is a  promise you made to the voters of New York when you were campaigning.’‘  

Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, a day after saying he was fighting a one-on-five battle for the state budget, showed some feistiness in a radio interview this morning.

He said Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith were “totally intimidated’’ by Gov. Eliot Spitzer. Bruno said the governor not only acted as their ventiloquist but also as a bully toward him during Tuesday’s negotiating session.

“He gives me a lecture … That is not debate. That is not discussion. That is a bully,’’ Bruno, R-Brunswick, told the New York Post’s Fred Dicker, who host a morning show on WROW-AM, an Albany station.

Then, Bruno accused Dicker of drinking Spitzer’s Kool-Aid and the media in general of believing “this guy walks on water.’’

Dicker pointed out that even fiscal watchdogs such as the Conservative Party and the Citizens Budget Commission are siding with the Democratic governor rather than the Republican Senate. And he put Bruno on the spot when he asked about a $2 billion property-tax rebate the Republicans want—but don’t want to count in the ledger. Asked where the money would come from, Bruno’s response was: “The money comes from the available resources in the state.’‘

 The state Senate teased environmentalists and Alexander “Pete’’ Grannis, the guy Gov. Eliot Spitzer wants to head the Dept. of Environmental Conservation, by opening hearings Wednesday on the nomination—then abruptly suspending the proceeding after just 90 minutes.

 Senate Environmental Committee Chairman Carl Marcellino, R-Long Island, said too many senators had to attend budget subcommittee meetings in the afternoon. But that didn’t wash with the crowd that packed the Grannis hearing because, as they pointed out, those committees aren’t doing any work while leaders argue.

The adjournment was clearly a tactic by Republicans to win some leverage or cause some agita, surprised onlookers said.

 “It’s apparent that’s what is happening is that the Senate started the (confirmation) process to get tantalizingly close to finishing and that was a setup until after the budget, to use as a bargaining chip,’’ said John Sheehan of the Adirondack Council, one of the many groups on hand to back Grannis, a Democrat who has represented a Manhattan district in the Assembly for 30 years.

 Marcellino attributed it all to scheduling problems. He said he didn’t think his colleagues would have so many questions for Grannis and he wanted to make sure they all got a chance to ask them.\

(AP Photo/Tim Roske)