Politics on the Hudson

The Republican primary didn’t just shake up the race for Yorktown supervisor.

It might well have triggered a move for new leadership of the Republican Town Committee, possibly putting a political staffer with ties to both the town’s state legislators at the helm of the local party.

Under county by-laws, the committee has 20 days after a primary to hold a reorganization caucus, which is set for Wednesday night. Chairwoman Serafina Mastro declined to comment on the ramifications of that vote, but Matt Slater said today he is vying for the post.

Slater, 25, works for state Assemblyman Steve Katz, R-Yorktown, has worked with former Assemblyman and current state Sen. Greg Ball, R-Patterson, and was campaign manager for current Councilman Terrence Murphy in 2009. The vote will take place at Murphy’s, the restaurant Murphy co-owns.

A 2004 Yorktown High School graduate, Slater said he had met with Mastro and current party leadership about his intentions so they should come as no surprise.

“I made some phone calls as to whether people think it’s a good idea, and I’ve been getting a fair amount of support,” he said today. “So we’ll see what happens. Until then nothing is set in stone.”

The election is being billed by some as a potential rebuke of current Supervisor Susan Siegel, who was defeated in the primary by former town attorney Michael Grace after she was tapped by the GOP committee as its nominee.

“I really think it would be good for a change, and maybe they’ll elect Republicans for a change and not Democrats who change to Republican,” said Republican district leader Ed Ciffone.

Democratic Rep. Mike Arcuri of Utica holds an 8-point lead over Republican challenger Richard Hanna in a rematch of their 2008 race in New York’s 24th Congressional District, according to a Siena Research Institute poll released today.

Arcuri, a former district attorney, leads Hanna, a businessman from Barneveld, 48 percent to 40 percent, in a campaign that’s rated a tossup by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. Highlighting the fluidity of the race, only 39 percent of voters predicted their preference would not change by Election Day.

Arcuri’s seat is considered among the top three opportunities Republicans have to pick up more seats in the state this year in their quest to regain majority control of the House. Also topping that list is the open seat in the 29th District in Western New York, where former Corning mayor Tom Reed is favored to beat Democrat Matt Zeller, an Afghanistan war veteran. Another GOP opportunity is the 19th District race in the Hudson Valley, where Democratic Rep. John Hall’s effort to win a third term against Republican physician Nan Hayworth is considered another tossup.

Democrats hold a 26-2 majority in the state’s House delegation, with New York’s 29th District seat vacant.
Siena pollster Steven Greenberg said the Arcuri-Hanna race “figures to be just as intense and just as hard-fought as the race two years ago.  While Arcuri has two more years of a record in Congress, it’s hard to know whether that will help him or hurt him in a year where voters are unhappy with Washington.  This race is getting national attention, and we can certainly understand why.”

Arcuri was viewed favorably by 53 percent of 605 likely voters surveyed last Monday through Wednesday by Siena. Another 26 percent viewed him unfavorably while 21 percent had no opinion or didn’t know him.
Forty-four percent said they didn’t know Hanna or had no opinion of the Republican challenger. He was viewed favorably by 36 percent and unfavorably by 19 percent.

Voters in the district — which covers central New York and parts of the Southern Tier — were divided in their opinion of President Barack Obama, 47 percent to 47 percent, in terms of favorable or unfavorable.
Voters also split 47 percent to 47 percent on the issue of recently passed health care reform legislation, with equal numbers supporting it and wanting Congress to repeal it.

Obama’s proposal to eliminate income tax cuts for individuals earning over $200,000 and couples earning more than $250,000 had the support of 54 percent of those polled, with 42 percent opposed.

By a slightly larger margin — 55 percent to 39 percent — voters also supported Obama’s proposal for another $50 billion economic stimulus program to create jobs through road improvements and other transportation projects.
The No. 1 election issue, by a large margin, is jobs. Forty-six percent of likely voters cited that issue as their top choice, ahead of the federal budget deficit (15 percent), health care (13 percent), the war in Afghanistan (9 percent), taxes (8 percent) and education (8 percent).

That ranking of issues roughly mirrors the responses Siena received last week in another congressional poll for the state’s 20th Congressional District in the upper Hudson Valley.

On the eve of tomorrow’s Republican Assembly primary in the 99th District, challenger Steve Katz continues to take issue with Jim Borkowski’s 2009 Working Families Party endorsement.

That was the only line Borkowski held in his run for Putnam County Sheriff after losing the GOP primary to incumbent Don Smith. Katz has hammered away at his opponent’s prior affiliation with the left-leaning party and its connection to the now-defunct community organizing group Acorn.

Citing reference to the issue in a recent debate, Katz called on Borkowski to release the questionnaire he filled out to secure the line.

“He cut deals with the local Democratic Party and proudly took the ACORN backed Working Families Party line,” Katz said. “Now in the desperate throws (sic) of a failing campaign, he is spending thousands of dollars trying to label himself as a ‘Conservative’.”

The Working Families Party was co-f0unded in 1998 by ACORN, which in April closed its offices and state affiliates in the wake of public criticism following the release of a series of sting videos. The videos showed ACORN workers across the country advising a pair of undercover conservative activists who claimed to be a pimp and prostitute looking to set up shop.

Borwkowski, who has the Conservative line in the November election, dismissed what he called a last-minute attempt by Katz to attack his conservative credentials.

“Steve Katz is a one-trick pony,” Borkowski said. “If he didn’t talk about the Working Families Party 24 hours a day, he’d have nothing to talk about.”

The Working Families Party has endorsed Democrat Brendan Tully of Yorktown, who will oppose the winner of Tuesday’s GOP primary.

UPDATED: The race, and this issue in particular, was the subject of a piece today by former ACORN employee Anita Moncrief, who in 2008 was a witness in a lawsuit alleging voter registration fraud by the organization. Moncrief, writing at the conservative website emergingcorruption.com, equates Borkowski’s endorsement by Republican leaders to the selection of  Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, R- in the 23rd Congressional District race in 2009.

Photo: Borkowski, left, and Katz at a League of Women Voters debate in Carmel last month. (Brian Howard/The Journal News)

It has been a busy week in the Republican race for state Assembly in the 99th District.

Challenger Steve Katz of Yorktown is touting a recent poll showing him with a 10-point lead over GOP nominee James Borkowski of Southeast. The poll of 250 likely primary voters, taken Aug. 10-12 by pollster Vitale & Associates, puts Katz ahead 36 percent to 26 percent. Most of those polled, 38 percent, remain undecided.

“This poll shows that the voters reject the insiders from Albany telling them who to vote for,” Katz said. “I decided to run for the sole purpose of trying to help our district and our state. I have absolutely no other reason for doing this and intend to go up to Albany, help make New York great again, then go back home.”

UPDATE: Borkowski responds to the poll by calling the release of the poll suspect.

“Why release the poll if your campaign is doing so well?” he said in a statement. “In fact, polls that we have seen totally contradict Katz’s claim, but the only poll that matters is the one on Primary Day, and the response I have been getting all over the district has been extraordinary.”

Meanwhile, Borwkowski unveiled a TV ad he began airing this week that looks more like a general election spot than one by a candidate in a primary contest. In it, he touts his conservative bona fides and attacks a broken Albany in need of reform, a popular target these days. Katz and the primary aren’t mentioned.

Ramondelli2010 sent this notice about Mike Ramondelli’s successful petition for a new ballot line, “cut my taxes.”

” Independent businessman Mike Ramondelli, the Republican candidate for the Assembly in the 93^rd Assembly District, officially introduced his “Cut My Taxes” ballot line today when he filed over 3,500 signatures with the Board of Elections placing his name on the November Ballot on the independent “CUT MY TAXES” line.”

The new  line will join the Republican, Democratic, Working Families and Independence lines that share space on local ballots, depending on the race and candidate endorsements.

YORKTOWN — In back-to-back, Friday the 13th press conferences, including one at a funeral home, first-time candidates in the race for state Assembly each vowed to bring reform to New York.

This is a “unique time for reform,” Democrat Brendan Tully said this morning outside the Yorktown Community and Cultural Center.

“There’s an overall feeling that things are broken in Albany,” Tully said. “Taxpayers and constituents are lookng for reform and demanding it.”

Around the corner at Clark Funeral Home, a longtime family business, Republican Steve Katz said he would use the bully pulpit of the office to challenge the Democrat-controlled Assembly to educate people about needed reforms.

“Democrats and Republicans, we all see New York dying,” said Katz, like Tully a Yorktown resident.

The pair are vying to represent the 99th Assembly District, which covers Yorktown, Somers, North Salem, Carmel, Southeast, Patterson and Pawling.

With an illustration of an ailing human heart, Katz said the state is on life support because residents and businesses are overtaxed. He specifically cited the unpopular MTA payroll tax, which supporter and incumbent Assemblyman Greg Ball, R-Patterson, called a tax on jobs.

“This will be the final nail in the coffin for New York State,” Ball said.

Tully, meanwhile, laid out a five-point reform plan that includes funding only those programs that are proven effective, requiring quarterly report cards to gauge their performance, holding public audit hearings, publishing a statewide spending map to show people where money is spent, and publishing every agency’s goals and results online.

“By doing these five things, we’ll actually be able to get a dollar’s worth of service for every dollar spent,” Tully said.

While Tully is the Democratic nominee in the race, Katz is seeking to secure the Republican line in a primary next month against GOP nominee Jim Borkowski of Southeast.

Photos: Brian Howard/The Journal News

Gov. David Paterson sat next to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel Sunday night at a dinner hosted by President Barack Obama, but he’s not revealing what they talked about.

“Usually when people have dinner with you, if they ever sit next to you again, it would be that you didn’t share what they talked to you about,’’ Paterson told reporters Monday.  “Next year when I come in, I might be sitting by myself, if I did that.’’

Surrounded by reporters in the White House driveway following a meeting with the president and a briefing by Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Paterson said there’s no tension between him and the administration over his decision to seek election in November.

“When you say there’s tension, I think that’s assuming a fact not in evidence,’’ Paterson said, observing that the report by the New York Times last year that the administration tried to persuade him not to run has been discredited.

“The two White House sources, if there were two, said that a congressman approached me about not running and the congressman said the next day that he didn’t,’’ Paterson said.

Asked if other governors have spoken to him about his intention to campaign for the governorship, Paterson pointed out that 36 states will elect governors this year.

“Everybody’s in trouble,’’ he said. “So that was a conversation because there has been a great deal of anger expressed by the American public. But I think that anger is not necessarily at incumbents, as people surmise, or at any particular party that’s in control. I think it’s what they see over the past few years as an inability of public servants to embrace the difficulties of our time to the extent that perhaps some of the decisions we are making should have been made some years ago.’‘

State Sen. Vincent Leibell today declined to say whether he would seek a ninth term this year in the Senate. If he does, he will face a Republican primary from state Assemblyman Greg Ball, who announced late last year he would run for the 40th Senate District instead of the Assembly.

Leibell and Ball appeared together at an event this morning, calling for the repeal of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s payroll tax. It was somewhat of a rare, dual appearance for the two Putnam Republicans, who have been more political enemies than friends in the past. It’s maybe even a more rare occasion for Leibell to appear with an election opponent, which is what Ball is should the senator want another term in Albany.

Leibell has said he’s considered a run for Putnam County executive. That seat is also up this year. The senator said he would make an announcement after the state budget passes. That deadline is April 1.

The top Democrat and Republican on the Senate Finance Committee unveiled an $85 billion proposed jobs bill today that includes a  tax holiday on Social Security payroll taxes  for employers that hire people who have been unemployed for at least 60 days.

The package, which largely mirrors the legislation that has been publicly discussed for more than a week, includes an extension of long-term unemployment benefits, the subsidy for COBRA health coverage, new money for Buy America bonds and a deduction for small business equipment purchases.

The difference from a week ago: Republicans such as Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley are officially on board with the Senate’s Democratic majority.

With unemployment at 9.7 percent nationally, lawmakers say job creation is their No. 1 priority.

 ”We have a bipartisan bill that will create jobs, according to the (Congressional Budget Office), immediately,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. ”Not when the design’s done, not when the planning’s done, not when they hire people, but immediately.”

That’s encouraging news from our nation’s capital.

But here’s the bad news. Despite the bipartisan agreement, Reid said the Senate won’t take up the legislation until the week of Feb. 22.

The reason: Washingtonians are still digging out from the second of two recent snowstorms. And the Senate is on recess next week in observance of George Washington’s birthday.

At a news conference this afternoon, Reid explained that many Senate staffers were not able to get to work. There are places that the subway’s not running and many, many places the buses aren’t running,” he said. “And we have massive numbers of staff who get here with public transportation and they couldn’t get here.

 One reporter asked why Congress can’t change its plans to take off next week.

“People have schedules,” Reid answered. “You know, when people leave Washington who are members of Congress, it’s not that they head for the beach and sip tea and smoke cigars. People have work to do. We represent constituencies.”

A physician from Mount Kisco who is seeking the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic Rep. John Hall in the November election ended 2009 ahead of Hall in campaign cash.

Aided by a $250,000 personal loan to her campaign, physician Nan Hayworth reported $519,008 in cash as of Dec. 31, according to a report filed over the weekend at the Federal Election Commission.

Hall’s report showed his campaign with $451,585 in cash at the end of the year. He raised $647,595 last year, including $265,875 from political action committees.

Hall, former vocalist for the rock group Orleans who lives in the Dutchess County community of Dover, is seeking a third term representing the Hudson Valley’s 19th Congressional District covering parts of Westchester, Rockland, Dutchess and Orange counties.

Hayworth, an ophthalmologist who practiced in northern Westchester for more than 15 years, left her most recent job at a New York City-based health care communications in October to run full-time for Congress.

Hayworth’s campaign committee received $345,660 in contributions last year, including $11,000 from political action committees. Her $250,000 in personal loans were in addition to the contributions.