"Spitzer answers critics of driver's license plan - Governor says policy will make state safer but opposition is fierce"

By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press

First published: Sunday, October 14, 2007

ALBANY -- Few New York policy issues have ignited such swift and fiery opposition and even confounded likely supporters than Gov. Eliot Spitzer's proposal to make it easier for illegal immigrants to get state driver's licenses.

"Spitzer maintains his policy ... will improve (homeland) security," the Watertown Daily Times wrote in one of several editorials on the topic.

"That may be true, but discussion of the policy is being drowned out by the rhetoric on both sides."

It doesn't help that Albany remains neck-deep in political mire that has veteran lawmakers and staffers shaking their heads.

Even New York's Democratic Sens. Charles Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton have so far avoided the fray, despite the national security concerns.

Spitzer's order, effective in December, will allow immigrants to use a valid foreign passport, confirmed by state officials, to get a license, instead of Social Security numbers that were tied to valid U.S. residency.

In an interview with The Associated Press, the freshman governor answered some of the harshest criticisms.

Spitzer: "The underlying objective here is to make everyone safer."

"This policy will finally generate a driver's license that will be used by people we can actually identify."

"They will have to provide a foreign passport that we can check and validate and instead of having a million people living in the shadows without having any idea who they are."

"We will now know who is driving, which will make the roads safer, save people money on their insurance rates, and begin to address an issue the federal government has totally abdicated, which is how do we deal with our immigrant population ..."

"Every security expert we have spoken to believes this policy makes us safer."

Q: Former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman, a member of the 9/11 Commission, told The Buffalo News that Spitzer's policy is a "perfect formula for al-Qaida."

"They won't be able to resist it ..."

"So New York becomes a sanctuary for al-Qaida and all sorts of other people on the lam."

A: "That's simply not the real world."

"Anybody who comes will have to prove identity with a valid foreign passport."

Q: Peter Gadiel of the 9/11 Families for a Secure America told the New York Post: "Every illegal is a person whose true identity and possible history of violence and terrorism is unknown."

"Thus, any illegal may be a terrorist."

A: "The 9/11 Commission outright rejected the views he has articulated ... the people he's talking about are here."

"We will have a valid, foreign passport for every individual getting a license."

"We will know who they are, know of their criminal record if they have one, and deny them a license if they are not entitled to get one."

"We are going to be way ahead of where we are right now.

(From the 9/11 Commission report: "The federal government should set standards for the issuance of birth certificates and sources of identification, such as driver's licenses ... At many entry points to vulnerable facilities, including gates for boarding aircraft, sources of identification are the last opportunity to ensure that people are who they say they are and to check whether they are terrorists.")

Q: Republican Sen. Thomas Libous, to the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin, countered: "What part of 'illegal' don't people understand?"

A: "This is law and order."

"It is an effort to ensure that when an officer stops a car, the driver's license is a genuine document that gives you the actual identity of the person."

"Alternatively, you can have an environment in which people forge their social security numbers, or drive without a license, or use somebody else's license."

"Those are alternatives."

"The issue of our giving a privilege to those who are not here legally, necessarily, I don't think is the right way to view it."

"These are individuals who are here in our communities, going to our public schools, going to our hospitals, working in our economy."

"And we are all better off making them part of the aboveground economy rather than keeping them beneath the surface where we don't even know they exist."

Q: Why?

Most states don't allow illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses.

A: "That is true, but there are also other states that do not require proof of residency in order to get a driver's license."

"Seven or eight states have no legal status requirement and so what we're doing is saying, 'We need to know who you are, we're just not asking how you got here' ..."

"Millions of people come in every year on a foreign passport.

"The fact that when you crossed the border you didn't have a visa, you didn't come in properly, that is not the purpose of the driver's license."

"That's the federal government's responsibility, and they have failed for decades to enforce and do their job."

"Panel offers 5 for top court - Commission names candidates for judgeship on state Court of Appeals"

Associated Press

First published: Sunday, October 14, 2007

ALBANY -- The state Commission on Judicial Nomination has named five candidates for the Jan. 1 opening on the state's highest court, the Court of Appeals, including the judge whose current term is expiring.

Gov. Eliot Spitzer will nominate one person to the seven-member court for a 14-year term, unless the nominee reaches retirement age of 70 before the end of the period.

His choice is subject to Senate confirmation.

Candidates for the $151,200-a-year job are:

Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick, associate judge on the Court of Appeals since 1994.

A former state Supreme Court justice in Bronx and New York counties, she would have to retire after 2012.

George F. Carpinello, a partner in the Boies, Schiller & Flexner law firm in Albany.

He attended Princeton University and Yale Law School.

He was admitted to the bar in 1976 and has been director of the Government Law Center at Albany Law School.

Jeremy G. Epstein, a partner in the Shearman & Sterling law firm in New York City, he attended Columbia University and Yale Law School, was law clerk to U.S. District Judge Arnold Bauman and was an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York.

Helen E. Freedman, currently a state Supreme Court justice for New York County, Commercial Division, she attended Smith College and New York University Law School.

She is a former Civil Court judge and former associate justice for the Appellate Term.

Steven C. Krane, partner in the Proskauer Rose law firm in New York City, he attended the State University at Stony Brook and New York University Law School.

Former president of the New York Bar Association, who still chairs its Committee on Standards of Attorney Conduct, he was law clerk in 1984-85 to Court of Appeals Judge Judith Kaye, who is now chief judge.

"Decades of decay - Vacant and crumbling structures in Albany pose dilemmas for neighbors, officials"

By KATE GURNETT and TIM O'BRIEN, Staff writers, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Sunday, October 14, 2007

Albany -- New York's state capital, hundreds of homes are vacant, crumbling or collapsing, at times leaving unfortunate families homeless.

In June, a Delaware Street house abandoned for 25 years finally had to be demolished, and next-door neighbor Catherine Niles said that work damaged her home's foundation, forcing her and five children onto the street.

In September, the city was forced to tear down five mold-filled houses on Alexander Street.

Stuck in the middle, a sixth house also was destroyed, wrecking the 28-year residence of retirees Rebecca and Richard Lawson.

The Lawsons say they spent years warning the city about the decaying structures, break-ins and rodents.

The city says it has no record of complaints until last month.

Block after block in Arbor Hill, West Hill and the South End are marred by plywood-covered windows, fallen fences and towering weeds.

There are 870 structures on a Vacant Building Registry compiled by the Department of Fire, Emergency & Building Services.

Those who live nearby say their calls go unreturned and their complaints unaddressed as problem structures rot.

"This is the story I hear all the time," said 3rd Ward Alderman Corey Ellis.

"Orange Street, Sheridan Avenue."

"City Hall has to begin to take this seriously."

"These problems didn't happen overnight."

What's lacking is vision, said Common Council President Shawn Morris.

"Right now the mentality is complaint-driven."

"In an old city with a lot of inspection duties, it's hard to keep up."

"And the more vacant buildings, the less engaged a community."

And the owners?

Often, they're speculators.

They pay roughly $225 a year in city taxes on a $5,000 property while waiting for the value to rise.

With scant code fines, there's little incentive to sell.

The city has filed 336 charges -- an average of less than one a week and netting an average fine of $60 -- between 2001 and 2007, said Public Safety Public Information Officer James Miller.

Some buildings, like the long-empty eyesore at Clinton Avenue and Henry Johnson Boulevard, are city-owned.

They sit for years while awaiting redevelopment.

Even the Vacant Building Registry is out of date.

Published in 2006, it requires owners to register and cite plans for vacant structures.

Only 162 are registered.

A 2007 quarterly update erroneously lists 15 properties as county-owned although 14 have been sold, rehabbed or earmarked for larger improvement projects.

City response?

Send reminders to the 790 unregistered.

"It's not to penalize owners," Miller said.

"It's to encourage reinvestment."

That's unlikely.

Mayor Jerry Jennings said he faces absentee landlords and speculators who sit on empty tear-downs, waiting to flip them for a profit.

"I am not happy with the code enforcement and the way it's going," he said.

And the city is trying to keep ahead of the problem, Jennings said.

Albany ranked lowest in vacancy percentage among cities with populations of 50,000, at 10 percent, Miller said, below Schenectady, Syracuse and Rochester.

The Department of General Services boarded up 617 buildings from 2004 to 2007, billing owners $194,000, Miller said.

The Fire Department's 19,314 inspections on occupied buildings in 2006 led to 35,336 violations, as well as 2,206 inspections on vacant structures, he added.

Neighbors of the abandoned structures say their complaints are ignored.

"I call."

"I write."

"I call."

"I write."

"I call, call, call, call, call," said Pansy Robinson, the next-door neighbor who tried to get 118 Third St. demolished for more than a decade.

"I'm so tired of that raggedy house, I don't know what to do."

Last week, Robinson pleaded with Fire Chief Robert Forezzi after officials showed up and met reporters at the dilapidated shack -- owned by the city since 2004.

"It's a crack den inside," Robinson said.

Each day, elementary students from the New Covenant Charter School walk past the broken glass and open side windows, she said.

It appeared the city was in violation of its own vacant buildings law, which requires acceptable window coverings.

This "might be, as they call it, the ghetto," Robinson said.

"But I'm proud to be a part of it."

The next day, the city knocked down 118 and 133 Third St., which had collapsed into a hazardous backyard heap.

By holding onto vacant houses, speculators force hundreds of low-income families to search for remaining housing.

Waiting lists for affordable, subsidized apartments are years long.

Home ownership is now only enjoyed by 38 percent of city dwellers, according to the U.S. Census.

While the state plunks down $5 million to help restore Albany's historic Wellington Row, similar decline is writ small along dozens of city blocks, said Louise McNeilly of the Delaware Avenue Neighborhood Association.

"We've got 800 little Wellingtons," she said.

A question of money

Mayor Jerry Jennings is crafting a vacant buildings plan for release later this month.

Fifty-five blocks in the city contain more than 80 percent of the 870 vacant buildings, he said, and those are the areas he wants to target.

Certainly, there are funds available to combat blight.

But it's not enough, the mayor notes.

The city-owned red-plywood eyesore at 339 Clinton Ave. that greets thousands of commuters at the corner of Henry Johnson Boulevard?

It needs at least $200,000 to rehab, Miller said.

Ditto for 125 Henry Johnson Blvd.

The city's federal block grant allotments for urban renewal have dropped by a third since 2004, to $3.8 million in 2007.

Urban development is a mix of federal, state and private cash, drawn out over several years.

Many projects are in the works, Jennings said.

One $10.6 million, 54-unit duplex development was just completed in Arbor Hill.

Others, for 130 city units costing $32 million, are on tap, Miller said.

But on Orange Street, Ruby Hughes, 73, and her neighbors say they've waited 40 years for new sidewalks while uptown neighborhoods get routine improvements.

Here, weeds, gaps and broken pipes mark stretches of sidewalk.

"We're taxpayers," added Luther Dorsey.

"Why not do all of Orange Street?"

It's benign neglect, 2nd Ward Alderwoman Carolyn McLaughlin said.

"We've been talking about it for eight years."

Enforcement is too scarce, fines too small and buildings need fixing before it's too costly, she said.

Business development shouldn't be the top priority, McLaughlin added.

"Neighborhoods have got to be the priority."

"Otherwise, you have no need for business because you won't have any people for the businesses."

As 19th-century houses rot, cities like Albany lose their uniqueness, said Susan Holland, executive director of the Historic Albany Foundation.

Young professionals can be attracted to live in and restore historic structures, but they aren't apt to buy a vacant Albany lot and put a new house on it, she said.

"These buildings were constructed superbly with old-growth wood ..."

"It certainly gives us an identity."

"There are building styles you don't see in other places."

One easy fix is to stabilize marginal buildings before they fall apart, said McNeilly, of the Delaware Avenue association.

Restored buildings have to be affordable, she adds.

"We need more work force housing and supported housing."

Losing families

When their Alexander Street house was demolished, Rebecca Lawson said, "a part of me went down, too."

Back in 1979, every house on her Alexander Street block was occupied by a family, she recalled.

She and her husband hosted barbecues, raised children and grandchildren.

Neighbors swept their sidewalks.

Then old people died and young people left.

Out-of-towners began to buy, her son, Richard Lawson Jr., said.

"They throw a mailbox up and you don't see 'em no more."

By 1997, vacant buildings had the Lawsons surrounded.

Their annual homeowner insurance soared to nearly $1,000.

One day, water began to pour into their light fixtures from the vacant house next door, owned by a New Jersey woman.

"It was like a mini-Niagara Falls," Rebecca Lawson said.

"And all our stuff is gone."

These days the Lawsons pay a mortgage on a nonexistent house while staying rent-free in a city-owned subsidized apartment.

They are using space sought by dozens of other needy families, and hoping for a solution.

"The only thing I would like is for us to be made whole again," Rebecca Lawson said.

"I'd like our home to be put back."

Like others, she said, she lost a precious slice of her city.

It's a slice she'd still like to restore.

Now, because a real live family -- the Lawsons -- has been affected, there are a number of groups forming to take action, Alderwoman McLaughlin said.

"Our legislators at every level, from federal to state to county, have an obligation to fix this."

Kate Gurnett can be reached at 454-5490 or by e-mail at kgurnett@timesunion.com.

"Assembly GOP exploring possibility of recall - A measure allowing the removal of a sitting governor would likely require a change in the constitution"

By RICK KARLIN, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Saturday, October 13, 2007

ALBANY -- In what may be the Republicans' most aggressive action so far in their increasingly bitter struggle with Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer, lawyers for Assembly Republican Minority Leader James Tedisco are researching a proposal to create a way of allowing voters to unseat a sitting governor.

Such a recall mechanism would probably have to come through a constitutional amendment, which would entail approval by two consecutive legislatures and by voters.

And while it's highly unlikely the Democratic-dominated Assembly would pass the plan, the fact that Republicans are looking at it underscores how hard they are going after Spitzer.

"We're researching the possibility of a recall, similar to what California has," said Bill Sherman, Tedisco's chief of staff.

His remarks came a day after Tedisco tore into the governor during one of several press conferences during the past few weeks to decry the governor's policy that would allow illegal aliens to obtain driver's licenses.

That plan comes with what the administration has said is tighter scrutiny of license applicants, but it has nonetheless drawn heavy protest from mostly Republican county clerks as well as Republicans in the Legislature.

"This is not only about illegal aliens, we think it's about illegal Eliot," said Tedisco, who contends the change should have been debated in the Legislature rather than imposed by executive order.

Spitzer's office had not seen the Republican plan and had no comment.

A prominent Democratic senator, Eric Schneiderman of Manhattan, dubbed the recall idea "absurd."

New Yorkers have voted on some 75 constitutional amendments over the last 40 years with about two-thirds passing, said Robert Ward, deputy director of the SUNY Rockefeller Institute of Government.

The vast majority of those amendments, though, concerned relatively minor or narrow issues, such as helping rebuild municipal water systems.

The last major constitutional change, Ward said, was in 1977 when voters eliminated elections for Court of Appeals judges, giving the governor appointment power.

Even though it's a long shot in New York, talk of a recall is at least likely to get the attention of the Spitzer camp when one considers what happened in California in 2003 -- when Democratic Gov. Gray Davis was recalled following a number of controversial moves including his plan to grant driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.

Rick Karlin can be reached at 454-5758 or by e-mail at rkarlin@timesunion.com.

THE NEW YORK POST

"EX-DMV BOSS RIPS SPITZ LICENSE PLAN"

By KENNETH LOVETT, Post Correspondent

October 15, 2007 -- ALBANY - A former state motor vehicles commissioner yesterday labeled Gov. Spitzer's plan to allow illegal aliens to obtain driver's licenses a "complete surrender" of security measures enacted after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Raymond Martinez, who served as former Gov. George Pataki's DMV commissioner from 2000 to 2005, told The Post that Spitzer is being disingenuous when he says the plan will actually improve security and roadway safety.

"People say this is a retreat from those security measures we enacted," Martinez said.

"I would disagree."

"It's a complete surrender that I believe makes New York and the United States less secure."

Martinez is set to testify today at a state Senate public hearing on Spitzer's plan to no longer require applicants for driver's licenses to provide Social Security numbers or letters showing that they are not eligible for such numbers.

He charged that Spitzer was more interested in providing a "gift" to pro-immigrant groups and lawmakers.

"It's political pandering in the extreme," said Martinez, who now serves as deputy chief of protocol for the United States at the U.S. State Department.

"Anyone who says this is based on sound security, public safety or road safety, it's a canard."

"It's simply not true," Martinez said.

"If it were true, there would be a large segment of the law-enforcement community coming forward supporting it," he added.

Spitzer spokeswoman Jennifer Givner called Martinez's comments "laughable," saying eight states have similar practices.

"Security experts from around the country support New York's policy change because it is being implemented with state-of-the-art anti-fraud and security measures to make it one of the most secure licenses in the nation," Givner said.

Also appearing at today's Senate hearing will be Spitzer's current DMV Commissioner, David Swarts, who is charged with enacting the controversial new plan, as well as several county clerks who run local DMV offices and say they will not comply with the state order.

Martinez said he will focus on the policies the Pataki administration put in place.

One such policy was to enact a temporary visiting program in which those legally in the country for a set period would have the word "temporary" stamped on their license with the date their stay is set to end.

The Spitzer administration recently ended that policy, a move criticized yesterday by Martinez and Assembly Republican Minority Leader James Tedisco.

Tedisco called Spitzer's elimination of the policy a "critical mistake that will make New York's roadways less safe."

Spitzer aides said the "temporary" label was "meaningless" since the licenses themselves were valid for eight years regardless of how long someone was allowed to be in the country, and also because of the governor's position that driver's licenses are not intended as documents to prove legal status.

kenneth.lovett@nypost.com

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS DAILY POLITICS BLOG:

I just read the article "Spitzer answers critics of driver's license plan - Governor says policy will make state safer but opposition is fierce" by MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press, first published Sunday, October 14, 2007, wherein "BULLDAWG" Spitzer actually answered questions put to him by the AP concerning his plan to hand out valid NYS driver's licenses to people from other countries here illegally ....

And I have to say that it is one of the most convoluted "arguments" in favor of something that I have ever heard coming from out the mouth of a politician anywhere here in America ....

His answers actually make "BULLDAWG" Spitzer seem even more clueless than he has been since DAY ONE ...

The "BULLDAWG" has lived for far too many years locked away in an IVORY TOWER down here in Manhattan, is my thought right now, after reading that article ...

He apparently believes that before people come here illegally from other countries, that they stop into their own government first, to get a valid passport ...

I wonder how many illegals that died in the back of that sweltering truck trailer hauled by that Schenectady dude Tyrone Williams had valid Mexican passports with them when they boarded his truck trailer down there in George W. Bush's home state of Texas?

Spitzer talks about a million illegal aliens being here already and working here ...

These are the ones he says he wants to bring "out of the shadows", or in his own words in that article:

"And we are all better off making them part of the aboveground economy rather than keeping them beneath the surface where we don't even know they exist."

end quotes

Which on the face of things is a totally ridiculous assertion, because obviously Spitzer already DOES KNOW that they exist, and he has known of their existence since before he became governor ....

Since one of his campaign pledges to them while he was still state AG was to lobby on their behalf as NYS governor to get them valid NYS driver's licenses ....

And so ....

This Spitzer dude can sure talk out of every side of his mouth all at once ....

Which is what makes him the MASTER POLITICIAN that he is ....

As well as being seen out here in the countryside as a MASTER BAMBOOZLER or a MASTER HORNSWOGGLER ....

And so ...

Posted by: John Galt | October 14, 2007 6:55 PM

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypoli...106.html?page=3

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS DAILY POLITICS BLOG:

ITEM: Spitzer sat down for a Q-and-A on his license plan with the AP.

JOHN GALT MUSES: Yes, EL CAUDILLO Spitzer in fact did that, according to published reports by the AP this weekend ...

And one of the things that EL CAUDILLO said in his answer which caught my attention up here in Rensselaer County was as follows:

"This is law and order."

"It is an effort to ensure that when an officer stops a car, the driver's license is a genuine document that gives you the actual identity of the person."

"Alternatively, you can have an environment in which people forge their social security numbers, or drive without a license, or use somebody else's license."

"Those are alternatives."

end quotes

That set of statements caught my attention because up here in Rensselaer County, IF you have the right connections, and IF you have the right amount of money, you can "PROCURE" a BOGUS CERTIFICATE from a politically-connected doctor here in Troy, who is affiliated with a CORPORATION in Troy with a secure psychiatric facility, that will direct the NYSP to apprehend the person of your choice for forced transportation to this secure psychiatric facility for forced incarceration ...

And removal from society at large here in upstate NY ...

And in December of 2005, EL CAUDILLO Eliot "BULLDAWG" Spitzer secured "permission" from the federal 2d Circuit Court of Appeals here in NYC to keep that "RING" intact, after one of its victims attempted to have the operation shut down in federal court as being in violation of the civil rights of an American citizen residing in NYS ...

Soooo ...

Law enforcement is a CHIMERIC thing with this EL CAUDILLO is my thought in here this morning ....

EL CAUDILLO is very concerned with the "rights and privileges" of persons from other countries who are here unlawfully ...

While at the same time, EL CAUDILLO "BULLDAWG" Spitzer has clearly demonstrated to us upstate residents in this case in question, where his office suppressed the sworn eye-witness account of the commission of crimes by an Albany Police Officer, that he does not give a TINKER'S DAMN about the rights of a true American citizen here in NYS ...

And so ...

What are the priorities of Eliot Spitzer?

What truly is his AGENDA?

Who drives that AGENDA, where Spitzer seems to care more for the alleged "rights and privileges" of illegals in this country than he does about the civil rights of American citizens here?

Some thoughts for the day ...

And so ...

Posted by: John Galt | October 15, 2007 8:34 AM

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypoli..._weekend_3.html

NEWSDAY

"Public hearing today on Spitzer's license plan"

JAMES T. MADORE AND JOIE TYRRELL

October 14, 2007

The first public hearing by a committee of the State Legislature on Gov. Eliot Spitzer's plan to give driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants is scheduled for tomorrow morning in Albany.

Political observers say the proposed policy does not appear to comply with a proposed federal regulation - called "REAL ID" - that would require Americans to carry standardized driver's licenses.

The licenses, which would include a Social Security number, would be shown to board aircraft or enter federal buildings.

But under Spitzer's policy, immigrants who apply for licenses would need only to produce foreign passports.

They don't have U.S. Social Security numbers.

While the Department of Homeland Security has said that it wanted states to be ready to issue the new Real ID licenses as of next year, the regulations will not apply to the general public until 2013.

Spitzer has said that the state can't make policy decisions based on federal regulations that remain in draft stage.

"New York is going with the realities we have to deal with and we'll wait and see what Real ID requires of us," Spitzer said last month.

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/politics...,0,969372.story

BUFFALO NEWS /WGRZ POLL

"As Spitzer arrives, Democrats cringe"

By Robert J. McCarthy NEWS POLITICAL REPORTER

Updated: 10/14/07 8:03 AM

Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer comes to town today to campaign for county executive hopeful James P. Keane, the kind of appearance that normally attracts a lot of smiling Democrats.

But Spitzer’s plan to grant driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants is giving local Democrats a case of the political cringes, right at the height of campaign season.

Now, with a new Buffalo News/WGRZ-TV Channel 2 poll showing Erie County voters opposed to the idea by a whopping 72 to 22 percent, Democrats are finding it more difficult to stand behind their titular leader.

“It is hard to project how this would have a huge positive impact for Keane,” said John Zogby of Utica, whose Zogby International conducted the poll.

Few Democrats will publicly criticize the governor, but many here and elsewhere in the state are questioning whether Spitzer has turned into a liability during this campaign season.

“The nervousness among local party chairs is palpable,” said one statewide Democratic activist who is following the situation.

“He started a fight right in the middle of the local campaign season that nobody was prepared for.”

A Democratic consultant said Spitzer never seemed to calculate the damage that the license order is wreaking among candidates, especially upstate.

“Could the timing on this issue be any worse for upstate Democrats?” he asked.

Zogby, who for two days last week surveyed 400 Erie County residents who are likely to vote, said he finds the order “a loser everywhere” throughout the state.

He noted that grass-roots candidates such as those running for county clerk know their politics and that most of them have turned against it.

‘Can’t understand’

Democratic candidates such as Keane and County Clerk Kathleen C. Hochul oppose Spitzer on the license order.

Hochul finds herself on an especially hot seat, given that she hosted a campaign event for Spitzer at her Hamburg home last year and subsequently was appointed by him to the vacant position of county clerk.

She has tried to distance herself from Spitzer and last week asked the County Legislature to pass a resolution requesting that the governor rescind his order or allow county clerks to disregard it.

And the recent licensing controversy isn’t the only issue nagging the governor’s popularity in his first year in office.

A Zogby poll for The News and Channel 2 conducted in late September showed that 62 percent of county residents were confident that Spitzer can fulfill his campaign promises as opposed to 35 percent who are not.

But 25 percent said they are less inclined to vote for him after it was disclosed that his staff improperly used the State Police to obtain information against Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno.

The poll showed that 11 percent were more inclined, while 64 percent said that it would have no effect or that they were unsure.

While the governor remains popular, Zogby said, Spitzer needs to recognize that his constituents are restless, and this is affecting Democrats associated with him.

He calls Hochul’s position “political and laughable,” noting that she abstained when county clerks in a special session voted last week to criticize the governor for his new policy.

And from the standpoint of a political strategist, Domagalski says, he doesn’t get it — and, he says, neither does the governor.

“For the life of me, I can’t understand what he’s doing,” Domagalski said.

Conservative factor

The position that minor parties hold in New York politics enters the equation, too.

Democratic candidates such as Keane and Hochul are also running on the Conservative line, and the minor party’s outspoken position against the Spitzer order is forcing them to pay attention.

“[Spitzer] made a decision to appeal to the hard left and the moveon.org people to solidify his base,” state Conservative Chairman Michael R. Long said.

“But he’s really just awakened a sleeping giant."

Republican candidate William A. O’Loughlin has vowed not to enforce the Spitzer directive if he’s elected, while Hochul says she took an oath to uphold the law.

“Yeah, it’s complicated my life,” Hochul said, “but I rise to the challenge.”

Erie County Democratic Chairman Leonard R. Lenihan acknowledges that the governor’s order is “causing problems.”

That’s because the issue is easily exploited, he said, and the Republicans are doing that — especially in the campaign for clerk.

“There is no doubt it’s a flash point, but I think Kathy is handling it well,” Lenihan said.

Lenihan’s Republican counterpart, James P. Domagalski, has pounced all over the issue.

"Spitzer shows his arrogance the way he’s ramming it down people’s throats and risking their safety.”

The governor’s stand affects countless Democrats, mostly upstate, who have traditionally counted on Conservative support to counter Republicans who criticize their coziness with Manhattan liberals.

Now Long warns that the Democrat-Conservatives should heed the party’s opposition to what has become a hot-button issue.

“It could certainly take away from them having the Conservative Party endorsement,” Long said.

“You can’t be for law and order and then say you’re for allowing the governor of the State of New York to give illegal immigrants a driver’s license.”

rmccarthy@buffnews.com

http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/buff...ory/183882.html

THE NEW YORK SUN

"Reading Eliot's Mind"

By JACOB GERSHMAN

October 15, 2007

Obviously, things haven't worked out precisely as I had planned.

I was once Wall Street's top cop, the "enforcer," the "crusader of the year."

Now, I'm taking orders from Sheldon Silver.

My most powerful political ally is an obscure comptroller.

And I'm insulted on a daily basis by a discredited, retired boxer named Joe Bruno.

My friends ask me, "how did things get so out of control?"

The better question is, "how could I have avoided this?"

I won 69% of the vote because I am not Rip Van Pataki, who served out his 12 years by taking the path of mediocrity and unimaginative compromise.

My mandate wasn't to get along with people.

Manifested in the millions of votes cast last November was a real thirst for reform.

I was elected because, unlike other politicians, I simply don't care if every lawmaker and lobbyist in Albany thinks I'm a jerk.

I was elected to effectuate change upon a sclerotic capital, to stand up to those interests who do not like to be stood up to.

As Teddy Roosevelt said: "It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage that we move on to better things."

My advisers urged me to delay my plans to grant driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.

It's political suicide, they said.

It's just the issue Republicans need to rouse their base, they said.

Others argued that I should have at least held public hearings to discuss the issue.

I argue that it's a false dichotomy to suggest that politicians must choose between political expediency and defeat.

If the county clerks don't implement the new policy, I will sue every one of them because it's the right thing to do.

I don't need allies because I have the people on my side.

New Yorkers yearn for a new culture in state politics.

They yearn for on-time budgets.

They yearn for a reconstituted New York Racing Association.

They yearn for campaign finance restrictions on limited liability companies.

They yearn for tighter lobbying laws.

Now, I'm supposed to call off this war on Joe.

I brought Wall Street to its knees, and now I'm supposed to take a beating from a smooth-talking salesman from Rensselaer who probably doesn't know how to spell subpoena.

Albany mocks me as a "steamroller," while the majority leader swaggers around as "Gentleman Joe," the king of pork-barrel politics.

He spends hundreds of thousands of public dollars jetting around to political fund-raisers, like some kind of emperor.

But I'm a "dirty trickster" because I tried to do what's right by stopping his outrageous actions.

I never should have apologized for anything.

I never should have abandoned Darren Dopp, who stood loyally behind me for more than eight years.

I should have rejected the Cuomo report as a slap dash, political hit job manufactured by a man who determined to do me what his father did to Hugh Carey.

Perhaps, having the Senate Democrats ask the IRS to investigate Joe wasn't the wisest move.

I wanted to teach him a lesson that he cannot repeatedly attack me without facing consequences.

If he is going to play hardball, then I'm going to let the federal government know that he didn't pay all of his taxes on helicopter flights between Albany and New York.

If Joe won't listen to me, then he'll listen to the IRS.

My mistake was to have assumed that Malcolm Smith could handle the assignment without confessing everything to Fred Dicker.

But I'm confident that I got my point across.

New Yorkers didn't elect me to allow Joe to get away with tax evasion.

Joe seeks to destroy me because I refused to play his game: We go into a room, I give him what he wants, he gives me what I want, and we're all happy.

My job was to say "enough," whether it was demanding an end to an inequitable education funding formula or refusing to coddle a health care union that had been spoiled by the Pataki administration.

I concluded early on that I would never succeed in pursuing my agenda as long as Joe and Republicans stood in the way.

This breakdown in civil discourse is regrettable, but a conflict was unavoidable.

I simply did not have the patience to wait for the Republicans to die a natural death.

There's nothing left for me to do but to tough it out until 2008.

While, I've gambled everything on that election, I'm confident that Malcolm and the Democrats will finally take over the Senate.

Because when voters see the gridlock of the first two years of my administration, they won't hold me responsible.

They will put the blame squarely on Joe, the man who didn't pay all of his taxes.

jacob@nysun.com

http://www.nysun.com/article/64573?page_no=1

THE NEW YORK POST

"JOE FOE IN CROSSFIRE - PLOT PUTS QNS. POL IN ELIOT'S & GOP'S DOGHOUSE"

October 15, 2007 -- SENATE Minority Leader Malcolm Smith, a Queens Democrat caught last week plotting with Gov. Spitzer against the Senate Republican leader, is now under attack from both the governor and the GOP, insiders have told The Post.

Democratic sources said Spitzer became enraged after learning that Smith had admitted the governor's aides encouraged him to sic the Internal Revenue Service on Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno for possible income-tax evasion resulting from his possible misuse of a state helicopter.

Smith's admission - first to The Post and then in a public statement - contradicted Spitzer's claim that he wanted to put the earlier Dirty Tricks Scandal, in which aides to the governor used the State Police to gather purportedly damaging evidence against Bruno, behind him.

"Malcolm basically threw Spitzer in and totally undermined his public position that he just wanted to focus on government issues, not politics," said a source close to Smith.

"The governor wasn't happy about that at all because he was then forced to admit that he was involved, that he was again trying to get Bruno," the source continued.

Another Democrat contended the governor had angrily called Smith and "questioned his ability to remain as the minority leader."

Smith didn't return over a dozen telephone calls seeking comment.

Senate Republicans, meanwhile, quietly retaliated against Smith late last week by canceling service on six of the cellphones used by his top aides.

They also halted a construction project designed to enlarge the office of his press secretary, Curtis Taylor.

"I think they'll get the message that trying to damage Sen. Bruno isn't a smart thing to do," said a Senate source.

Senate Republicans are also sending out word that they're furious at prominent Albany lobbyist Patricia Lynch for hiring Spitzer's just-resigned communications director, Darren Dopp, who was suspended in July for his central role in the original Dirty Tricks Scandal.

"This is a guy who tried to kill us, and she hires him?" declared a senior Senate Republican.

fredric.dicker@nypost.com

http://www.nypost.com/seven/10152007/news/...n_crossfire.htm

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Michael Goodwin

"Spitzer's obsession has him teetering on the edge"

Sunday, October 14th 2007, 4:00 AM

"Oh, no, he didn't," I thought as I read the first report that Gov. Spitzer plotted a new round of dirty tricks against a Republican rival.

But as each detail emerged, including a confession from one of the plotters and the draft of a letter to the Internal Revenue Service calling for a tax probe, the facts were undeniable.

"He did it."

"He did it again."

What's wrong with Eliot Spitzer?

The Democratic governor seems to have a political death wish, and if he keeps going this way, it'll be granted.

Following his wildly unpopular plan to give driver's licenses to illegal immigrants - a top Dem called it the "third rail" of politics - the latest twist in the Eliot Mess has all of Albany scratching its head.

Asked if Spitzer needed a psychiatrist, one insider had another idea:

"Better get an exorcist."

Or at least Spitzer ought to upgrade his hit men.

Once again, his Dream Team acted like the gang that can't shoot straight.

The letter to the IRS, which was to be signed by three Democratic state senators - shame on them - was mistakenly sent to an ally of the target, Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno.

One of the chief plotters, Malcolm Smith of Queens, the Senate minority leader, then quickly called Bruno that night and confessed all.

Only in Albany, where every night is Amateur Night.

Still stuck in the public doghouse over Troopergate, the plot to get the State Police to improperly compile the travel records of Bruno and give them to a newspaper, Spitzer obviously hasn't learned anything.

While he publicly apologized after getting caught, the governor privately kept digging for dirt.

Once again, he was prepared to use law enforcement for the purely political aim of weakening Bruno.

Once again, his office claimed it was acting because of media interest.

"Media outlets have raised questions about the tax implications" of Bruno's use of state aircraft was how Spitzer's press office defended the move.

The statement admitted that "executive chamber staff and Senate staff" worked together to try to get the tax man's attention.

Press secretary Christine Anderson wouldn't answer when asked by reporters whether Spitzer himself was involved.

No need to - of course he was.

Just as he was with Troopergate - this is his MO.

He thinks he's still attorney general.

Dirty 'em up and then they'll have to settle.

Imagine if Republicans behaved that way - the civil liberties people would be filing lawsuits before breakfast.

Plot No. 2 looks similar to Plot No. 1 because it is.

Indeed, Plot No. 2 was even part of the original planning.

According to Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's July 23 report that revealed Troopergate, in early June, William Howard, then the deputy secretary for Homeland Security, wrote an e-mail to Spitzer's chief of staff about Bruno, saying:

"The impending travel stuff implies more problems - particularly in the tax area, I think."

"I think the timing is right for that move."

It took them awhile, but they made that move.

So here we are again.

The rapid unraveling of Spitzer's tenure is starting to resemble another political collapse - Jim McGreevey's.

Like Spitzer, the New Jersey governor won in a landslide and was soon up to his neck in nonstop corruption scandals, lousy government and a shaky relationship with the truth.

When McGreevey finally quit 2-1/2 years after taking office, his party was looking for an alternative to replace him because two-out-of-three New Jersey voters opposed a second term.

Spitzer isn't that far gone yet, but in office less than 10 months, he's moving downhill faster and earlier than McGreevey did.

Unless he gets his act together, he could meet the same end and have the same legacy that a New Jersey political scientist pinned on the disgraced McGreevey.

"He wasted the governorship because of an enormous character flaw: not recognizing how he was trapped by his own dishonesty," David Rebovich, director of Rider University's Institute for New Jersey Politics, told the Philadelphia Inquirer.

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/col/goodwin/index.html

THE NEW YORK POST

"EVEN DEMS FEAR 'DIRTY TRICKS' FROM SPITZER"

By FREDRIC U. DICKER, State Editor

October 15, 2007 -- ALBANY - State Democrats are "increasingly distrustful" of Gov. Spitzer and fear he'll use the same dirty-trick tactics on them as he's used on Republican Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, a prominent Bronx Democrat charged yesterday.

"I believe there is a wide and growing dislike of the governor among legislators, who are increasingly distrustful of him," Assemblyman Michael Benjamin (D-Bronx) told The Post.

"His attacks on Sen. Bruno make many of us feel that if we crossed Spitzer, we could look forward to some of the same type of treatment."

"I'm very disappointed in him."

A spokeswoman for Spitzer declined to comment.

Benjamin also criticized Democratic Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith of Queens, who The Post revealed last week was secretly plotting with Spitzer to seek a tax-evasion investigation of Bruno by the Internal Revenue Service.

"I'm disappointed in Sen. Smith for looking to intimidate one of his colleagues in the Legislature, whether it is someone on the other side of the aisle or not," Benjamin said.

"We shouldn't be looking to use governmental processes to score political points."

Benjamin's blast comes as several public and private polls show Spitzer's job-approval rating plummeting with voters, largely because of the Dirty Tricks Scandal - in which aides to the governor used the State Police to dig up purportedly damaging information on Bruno - and his efforts to grant driver's licenses to illegal aliens.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/10152007/news/...y_tricks_fr.htm

THE NEW YORK TIMES

"Albany’s Prestidigitators"

Published: October 14, 2007

New York Senate Republicans have been busily fanning the last embers of the “Troopergate” investigation.

Their hearings on this matter are designed to reflect poorly on their most aggressive Democratic opponent, Gov. Eliot Spitzer.

But a recent story in The Times Union of Albany raised an interesting question: why are the politicians aiming their peashooters only at Mr. Spitzer?

It also raised the distinct possibility that Troopergate is designed mainly to distract the public from the seedy behavior of other politicians in Albany.

Since early summer, the headline issue has been whether Mr. Spitzer’s team forced state troopers to somehow manufacture or “create” documents for the media.

Those documents, from 2007, involved the lavish use for political purposes of state helicopters and state drivers by the Senate leader, Joseph Bruno, New York’s top elected Republican.

Using the state’s Freedom of Information Law, The Times Union has now pried loose another batch of documents from the State Police.

These new travel records deal with Mr. Bruno’s journeys during the Pataki administration.

Mr. Spitzer’s administration has been accused of abusing its power and using the State Police to spy on Mr. Bruno.

But travel records have obviously been kept as a matter of routine.

The difference between the Spitzer and Pataki administrations is that under the previous governor, they were also kept under lock and key.

Mr. Spitzer’s staff may have behaved clumsily.

But it is also possible that their efforts were far less sinister than Mr. Spitzer’s foes make them sound — that they were aimed chiefly at transparency by bringing to light records that should have been public all along.

Democrats who have grown increasingly weary of the long Republican investigation into Mr. Spitzer’s alleged misdeeds have suggested that their only recourse may be to start their own investigation of Mr. Bruno.

Let’s hope they don’t.

The matter should be left to the Commission on Public Integrity.

There is also a lot of far more important state business that needs the Legislature’s urgent attention.

At the same time, an intriguing idea is now gaining ground — that Mr. Spitzer’s real problem is that he’s not playing the old Albany game.

For one thing, he’s trying to oust Republicans who control one-third of the lawmaking process in New York — the State Senate.

There has long been a kind of unspoken truce that allows Democrats to control the Assembly and Republicans the Senate.

For another — and this is even more worrisome to some Albany regulars — Mr. Spitzer is trying to take away all the free candy that politicians from both parties have been enjoying for decades.

Given Mr. Spitzer’s announced intention to clean up Albany’s stables, the Troopergate hoopla begins to look like a warning shot from the old guard — play by our rules, they seem to be saying, or we will bring you down.

Legislators are planning to return soon to Albany, where a campaign finance reform agreement is still in limbo.

The reform is not perfect, but it is an improvement over the sloppy way campaign money is now handed out in New York.

Lawmakers should not let Troopergate or any other diversion distract them from more important tasks — like finally cutting off Albany’s golden spigot.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/opinion/...amp;oref=slogin

THE NEW YORK TIMES

"Cuomo Pension Fund Inquiry Reaches Bank of Ireland Unit"

By DANNY HAKIM

Published: October 14, 2007

ALBANY, Oct. 12 — Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo’s office is investigating a well-connected American division of the Bank of Ireland as part of its inquiry into the New York State pension fund.

The division, Guggenheim Advisors, which is based in New York and caters to wealthy investors, has a board of paid advisers that includes Fred D. Thompson, the Republican presidential candidate and former Tennessee senator, and Lawrence B. Lindsey, a former economic adviser to President Bush.

There is no indication that either one is a subject of the investigation.

The Bank of Ireland, which says it is cooperating with the attorney general’s office, is also conducting an internal inquiry into the unit.

Two executives who run Guggenheim made large donations to the campaign of former Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi last year.

In early 2005, Guggenheim secured a $447 million investment from the fund.

In the same inquiry, a fund-raiser for Mr. Hevesi, Bill White, has been subpoenaed by the attorney general’s office.

Investigators are said to be trying to determine if Mr. White, who is the president of the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in Manhattan, solicited campaign contributions from executives of Guggenheim.

Calls to Guggenheim and the Bank of Ireland were referred to Brian Maddox, an outside spokesman for the bank in New York.

“Guggenheim Advisors is fully cooperating with the investigation of the attorney general’s office,” he said, adding that the bank was “undertaking its own internal investigation and has informed all relevant regulatory authorities.”

Efforts to reach Mr. Lindsey for comment were unsuccessful.

Todd Harris, a spokesman for Mr. Thompson, had no comment on the investigation.

Mr. Harris said that Mr. Thompson had not been to a board meeting since June.

“Fred Thompson is an inactive member of an advisory board where his role is to advise on issues related to national security,” he said.

Mr. White said, in an e-mail message, “I am voluntarily cooperating with the ongoing matter being reviewed by Mr. Cuomo’s office.”

He added, “It would be inappropriate for me to add anything further at this time.”

Bradley Simon, a lawyer for Mr. Hevesi, said that “Alan certainly has known Bill White for a long time.”

Mr. Simon said that Mr. White raised money for Mr. Hevesi’s campaigns, but that Mr. Hevesi had “no personal knowledge of Bill White having anything to do with pension fund business.”

For the past nine months, Mr. Cuomo’s office and the office of P. David Soares, the Albany County district attorney, have been pursuing a broad investigation into relations between the pension fund and companies that managed its money.

The state’s $154 billion fund is one of the world’s largest pools of investment capital, and investment firms can reap lucrative fees by managing even a small fraction of its assets.

For decades, investment firms have showered contributions on comptrollers, a practice that troubles government watchdog groups but is legal, except when it can be proved that investment business was given with the understanding that political contributions would follow.

Mr. Hevesi, a Democrat, won re-election last November but resigned on Dec. 22 when he pleaded guilty to a felony count for using state workers to chauffeur his ailing wife.

Now, investigators are scrutinizing a widening circle of his friends and aides.

The Securities and Exchange Commission recently began its own informal inquiry into oversight of the pension fund.

The two top executives of Guggenheim, Patrick T. Hughes and Loren M. Katzovitz, each made a $25,000 contribution to Mr. Hevesi last October, according to records maintained by the Board of Elections.

There are no other donations close to that size on record from either executive to a state political candidate, though both men have made significant contributions to several Republican candidates for federal office.

Guggenheim manages what is known as a “fund of funds” for the state pension fund — acting in effect as an intermediary by investing the $447 million in a variety of hedge funds.

Guggenheim has earned $3.2 million in fees since it began managing money for the pension fund in February 2005, according to the comptroller’s office.

The Bank of Ireland purchased a majority stake in Guggenheim in February 2006, after the firm won the business from the pension fund but before the political contributions were made.

Little had surfaced previously about the relationship between Mr. Hevesi and Mr. White.

Mr. White, however, has long been an associate of the Fisher family, who started the Intrepid museum and have financed it over the years.

The family and its Fisher Brothers development company were major donors to Mr. Hevesi, who for decades held city and state offices.

Hank Morris, Mr. Hevesi’s former political director, has been linked to six businesses known as placement agents that reaped millions of dollars in fees by arranging deals between the pension fund and investment firms.

Mr. Soares’s investigators have sought to determine whether Jack Chartier, who was Mr. Hevesi’s chief of staff, used his official position to obtain a loan for a friend, the actress Peggy Lipton, from an investment firm that manages pension fund assets.

Also, a brokerage firm run by Mr. Hevesi’s elder son, Daniel, has been subpoenaed in Mr. Cuomo’s inquiry.

The firm, Praetorian Securities, acts as a placement agent, but Daniel Hevesi’s lawyer has said that it did no business with the state pension fund and that her client did nothing improper.

Alan Hevesi raised money prodigiously from investment firms, and several prominent firms made donations to his younger son, Assemblyman Andrew Hevesi of Queens.

Dennis Tompkins, a spokesman for the current comptroller, Thomas P. DiNapoli, declined to comment on the inquiries but said that steps had been taken to improve oversight of the pension fund.

“We have a new policy that Comptroller DiNapoli implemented that will increase disclosure and prevent the conflicts of interest,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/nyregion...amp;oref=slogin

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS DAILY POLITICS BLOG:

Ben Bernacke was on FOX radio news this morning up here in APPALACHIA ...

And his comment was that housing is going to be a "DRAG" on the American economy well into next year ...

And up this way, all you have to do to know that is to take a short drive and look around at the number of "for sale" signs there are out there on fancy houses up this way with "PRICE REDUCED" plastered all over the "for sale" sign ...

And thus is coming to an end a LONG-RUNNING SCAM by land speculators here in NYS that was pouring worthless properties out on the market by the barrel-full with the direct aid and assistance of, make that collusion and connivance of the professional engineering community in NYS, the NYS Department of Health, the county health departments, town planning boards, banks, and Eliot Spitzer, when he was NYS AG ...

You reap what you sow, folks ....

And sometimes, you are forced to have to choke down the bitter seeds of what someone else has sown around you ....

And here we are today ....

PAIN is coming, if you happen to be the one "invested" heavily in those worthless propertiees ...

And so ...

Posted by: John Galt | October 16, 2007 6:06 AM

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypoli...d_ends_107.html

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS DAILY POLITICS BLOG:

Down here in NYC, in the files of the federal 2d Circuit Court of Appeals, there is a 600+ page OFFICIAL RECORD filed there in or about November of 2005 in connection with this ON-GOING LAND SCAM in Rensselaer County by silver-tongued lawyer Tommy O'Connor, brother to former NYS Lt. Gov. Mary O'Connor Donohue, on behalf of Joe "LAND SPECULATOR" Bruno's Rensselaer County in upstate NY, and its REPUBLICAN County Executive Kathleen "JOE'S GIRL" Jimino ....

At p. 190 of that OFFICIAL RECORD (Appeal #05-2133-CV), is an official Federal Bureau of Investigation report dictated on March 16, 1989 by an FBI special agent involved in a federal Hobbs Act investigation of public corruption in Rensselaer County ...

In the 3rd paragraph on p. 190, that FBI special agent stated as follows with respect to this LAND SCAM, to wit:

"According to [name deleted], the results of the State's investigation were that New York State laws were not being followed by the Rensselaer County Health Department, Rensselaer County laws were not being followed by the Rensselaer County Health Department, and there was very little 'enforcement activity' even in the face of illegal sales."

"According to [name deleted], the object of any county health department (in the state of New York) is to protect the public, and not to facilitate developers, or development."

"In the case of Rensselaer County, it appears that the Rensselaer County Health Department was in business to facilitate developers and development rather than to protect the public!"

end quotes

Yes, indeed ....

An interesting sentiment, anyway ....

PROTECT THE PUBLIC ...

But that is all it is, despite OUR Constitution and OUR state laws ...

For IF the "state" really started acting in accordance with all of those laws that require it to protect the public, POLITICIANS like Joe Bruno would be deprived of a big source of their "outside" income ...

As would the professional engineers who can make good money here in NYS by simply affixing their seal to a document stating that the land does meet code requirements when that is an outright lie ...

And so ...

Sorry about that "reality check" so early in here this morning ...

But that is the way it goes ....

For a long-running SCAM like this one to persist, there had to be an endless stream of SUCKERS, which there has been ...

And there had to be a law enforcement community which was willing to turn its back and look another way ....

Which we have in place here in NYS, and well-entrenched it is ...

And so ...

Posted by: John Galt | October 16, 2007 6:44 AM

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypoli...d_ends_107.html

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS DAILY POLITICS BLOG:

Ah, yes ...

The FAMOUS RENSSELAER COUNTY LAND SCAM!

And now ...

Well, as we countryfolks learned when we were maybe one or two days old, THE CHICKENS ALWAYS COME BACK TO THE ROOST ...

And so it is today here in upstate NY where land prices are now plummeting ...

AND ...

One of the key "PLAYAHS" back then (1989) in the "COVER-OVER" of this SCAM is now running for Rensselaer County District Attorney with the BLESSING and ENDORSEMENT of Eliot "BULLDAWG" Spitzer's Working Families Party ...

That "PLAYAH" being former Chief Assistant Rensselaer County District Attorney Rich McNally, ESQUIRE ...

And so ...

Posted by: John Galt | October 16, 2007 7:08 AM

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypoli...d_ends_107.html

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS DAILY POLITICS BLOG:

And yes, folks ...

Rich McNally's role in this RENSSELAER COUNTY LAND SCAM is at least partially documented in these same FBI records that I am quoting from in here this morning ...

And to give credit where credit is due, Rich McNally is one of the "PLAYAHS" up here who did YEOMAN SERVICE to the LAND DEVEOPMENT COMMUNITY being "SERVICED" by the CORRUPT Rensselaer County Department of Health by getting "THE RUG" pulled back over this MESS up here in 1989 ...

So that the SCAM could continue unabated ...

Which brings us right to this present moment in time ...

Where CORRUPTION PROTECTOR Rich McNally is now "stepping up to the plate" to collect his REWARD for past services rendered ...

As the ANNOINTED ONE of "BULLDAWG" Spitzer, upstate Congressman Mike McNulty, upstate Assemblyman Ron Canestrari and the Working Families Party ...

To be the next Rensselaer County District Attorney ...

Where Rich can continue to protect the law-breakers ...

By maliciously prosecuting those in Rensselaer County who might think to make a peep in public about the CORRUPTION ...

And so ...

Well done, Rich ...

You are a REAL AMERICAN SUCCESS STORY in here this morning ...

And so ...

Posted by: John Galt | October 16, 2007 7:25 AM

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypoli...d_ends_107.html

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS DAILY POLITICS BLOG:

With respect to the role that former Chief Assistant Rensselaer County District Attorney and present-day ANNOINTED ONE Rich McNally played in the COVER-OVER of this LAND SCAM back in 1989 and after ...

Page 190 of that OFFICIAL RENSSELAER COUNTY RECORD filed with the federal 2d Circuit Court of Appeals down here in NYC continues with the FBI special agent recounting as follows with respect to his prior statement that "it appears that the Rensselaer County Health Department was in business to facilitate developers and development rather than to protect the public", to wit:

"Regarding the instance concerning Algonquin Estates, the realty subdivision wherein the original map was falsified ...."

end quotes

Here, folks, is evidence of the commission of a Class "E" felony in the State of NY that was verified first by the NYS Dept. of Health AND then in its turn by the federal Bureau of Investigation ...

And at p. 191 of what I will call the "TOMMY REPORT" to the federal 2d Circuit Court of Appeals in November of 2005, this same FBI special agent had this to say about the "disposition" of that case involving this felony:

"After discovering that this map had been falsified, Rensselaer County apparently made no request of the Rensselaer County District Attorney's Office to investigate this act and further apparently made no effort to report this transgression to the New York State Education Department which certifies licensed professionals such as [redacted]."

"Additionally, it appears that the Rensselaer County Attorney (REPUBLICAN Robert A. Smith, ESQUIRE) failed to put together a formal legal notice to withdraw the plan."

"In [redacted] view, it appears that the County did 'nothing' regarding this situation but advised [redacted] they were trying to "work it out with the developer."

"[redacted] advised that the State Health Department investigation determined that one [redacted] had written a memo to [redacted] on October 25, 1988, citing the Algonquin Estate Phase 2 problem of the falsified map."

"It appears then that the county has had knowledge of this situation since October 1988 but failed to take any action against the engineer, surveyor, or developer involved."

end quotes

Which of course, is all true ...

INSTEAD ...

In October of 1988, REPUBLICAN Rensselaer County Executive John L. Buono appeared live on TV Channel 13 down in Albany on the 6 O'CLOCK news and "reported" that the principal investigator who had uncovered and documented this SCAM and felony had "gone crazy" and was considered to be dangerous ...

And that Buono had suspended him from his position as Rensselaer County Associate Public Health Engineer ....

And here we are today, folks ...

One long unbroken line from there to here ....

And now ...

Well, hey ...

Yes, the chickens always do come home to roost ....

And now, they are ...

And so ...

Posted by: John Galt | October 16, 2007 8:04 AM

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypoli...d_ends_107.html

"Poll: New Yorkers oppose Spitzer's license plan"

By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press

Last updated: 5:22 p.m., Monday, October 15, 2007

ALBANY -- Armed with results of the first poll on Gov. Eliot Spitzer's proposal to make it easier for illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses, Senate Republicans on Monday sought to delay the policy's implementation and warned they could dismantle it in budget negotiations beginning in January.

But Spitzer, who said he can start the policy in December without the Legislature, was undeterred by a Senate hearing in which his Department of Motor Vehicles commissioner was cross-examined without break for four hours.

"The policy change is critical to ensuring the safety and security of New Yorkers and the governor would never abdicate this foremost obligation simply to appease those peddling fear and hatred," Spitzer spokeswoman Christine Anderson said after the hearing.

Seventy-two percent of voters in Monday's Siena College poll said they were opposed to "the governor's plan to allow undocumented immigrants to get New York driver's licenses."

Twenty-two percent of those polled supported the plan of the once widely popular governor, according to the Siena Research Institute.

Spitzer's DMV Commissioner David J. Swarts defended the plan Monday as a way to get hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants already in New York into the state data base.

Spitzer said that will make the streets safer for drivers, reduce auto insurance rates, and provide a better tool for law enforcement and homeland security to track illegal immigrants.

He noted several homeland security and law enforcement experts support it.

"Fear is a major element in the misrepresentation of this issue," Swarts told senators.

He described Republicans' criticism as "hysterical rhetoric" that was "deliberately misstated."

The New York Immigration Coalition accused the Senate Republicans of loading the hearing, billed as the first of several, with opponents of Spitzer's plan.

Coalition Executive Director Chung-Wha Hong called it a "hateful anti-immigrant agenda."

The poll also found Spitzer, elected in November with a record share of the vote, has taken a big hit in his popularity and approval.

He scored his lowest numbers yet during the last three months of political conflict with the Senate's Republican majority.

Fifty-four percent of those polled said they had a favorable opinion of the governor, while 36 percent view him unfavorably and 10 percent didn't know or had no opinion.

That's down from 75 ercent approval in January.

"The voters' message to the governor is clear: `No, no, no,'" Siena spokesman Steven Greenberg said.

"Opposition to the Spitzer proposal is intense, with 41 percent strongly opposing it and only 7 percent strongly supporting it."

Although three years from facing re-election, the numbers to Spitzer are "very important from an ability to use the bully pulpit and the powers of persuasion," Greenberg said.

Spitzer blamed the numbers on a "misunderstanding of the facts."

"It's what happens when you govern and make tough decisions and you do things that you believe are right and don't govern based on polls, which is never what I've done," Spitzer said at a separate event in the Albany suburb of Colonie.

"When I was attorney general, for all eight years I brought cases that people said, 'Oh you're crazy to do it.'"

"'You're bringing cases against major institutions.'"

"And I did and they were screaming and shouting," he said.

"At the end of the day, when what you do is right, I have confidence that the public will be supportive and I'm sure that will happen."

Republicans who forced the public hearing on Spitzer's plan weren't persuaded.

"For the sake of good public policy, halt the program now," said Sen. Thomas Libous, a Binghamton Republican in concluding the hearing.

"At this rate, if we don't have good discussion, I can see the budget ending up in December of next year -- maybe."

The 2007-08 budget is due April 1.

But Swarts told senators that the administration would likely need the Legislature's approval to buy some of the new anti-fraud technology in Spitzer's plan.

Swarts said added revenue will surpass the initial cost.

In a related move, the state on Sept. 24 stopped noting "temporary visitor" on driver's licenses issued to immigrants on temporary visas because the license would remain valid as many as six or seven years after a visa could expire, Swarts said.

State officials noted this is one of many ways illegal immigrants have always held or secured driver's licenses.

Republican senators said Monday that putting drivers' licenses in the hands of illegal immigrants will lead to using the document to vote.

Although a driver's license is supposed to only prove identity, not citizenship, it is often used to prove legal residence and can lead to other documents such as was done by several terrorists in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the senators argued.

Driver's licenses, however, haven't been used to prove citizenship to vote.

To register to vote a person signs an affidavit, subject to prosecution for perjury, that he or she is a U.S. citizen, said Lee Daghlian, a spokesman for the state Board of Elections.

A driver's license is used to confirm identity at the polls.

Sen. Vincent Leibell, a Dutchess County Republican, opened the hearing by putting Spitzer's proposal in the context of the Sept. 11 attacks.

"We realize New York and American were asleep," he said.

"We resolved we'd never be so unprepared again."

Under the plan, Leibell said, "Osama bin Laden could get a license."

"I think we'd catch that one right away," Swarts said, in an attempt at humor that fell flat with Republicans.

"As a columnist said, at least we'd know where he was."

Siena polled 620 registered voters by phone between Oct. 7-10.

The poll has a margin of error of 3.9 percentage points.

------

AP writers Jessica Pasko and Valerie Bauman contributed to this report from Colonie and Albany.

"Drivergate comes to a boil before Troopergate has simmered"

By FRED LeBRUN, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Eliot Spitzer's strategy for pulling himself out of the soup certainly strains the intellect.

Here he is, plummeting in the polls over Troopergate, and what does he do?

Make himself warm and fuzzy, and try to win back his wavering support?

Not a chance.

Instead, he grabs a brick and tosses it through a window to create another mess, Drivergate.

A mess that is infuriating the public.

Arguably, Troopergate was not of his creation, at least initially, but rather the result of potentially overzealous staff work.

When the dust settles over this over-hyped issue, we may even find the staff work was merely zealous, and not all that far out of line.

That remains to be determined, primarily by the state's public integrity commission.

But the latest uproar, loosening requirements so illegal aliens can obtain New York state driver's licenses, is a pure Eliot Spitzer invention.

Why this issue?

Why now?

If we look at the initial public opinion results -- devastating poll numbers -- it would appear whatever the plan was, it didn't work.

The latest Siena poll on Monday shows 72 percent of New Yorkers are not with Eliot over his eliminating Social Security numbers from the license application process.

Yet he remains belligerently defiant that he's right and the majority is wrong, and that those who are against him are either right-wingers, or morons, or morally corrupt, or anti-immigrant and a host of other pejoratives.

Furthermore, he may sue county clerks who refuse to go along.

It's Eliot Spitzer threatening to prosecute the world, governing with an iron fist.

No matter how strongly he feels about the issue, Spitzer didn't have to take this immigration issue on now.

Not while we're all waiting for the integrity police to issue what is expected to be the determining word on Troopergate.

And if he really wanted to sway New Yorkers to his counter-intuitive position, that loosening standards for illegals actually makes us safer, then he should have launched a persuasive education and propaganda campaign first to do just that: persuade us.

He could have enlisted the help of the allies he keeps referring to in the security world who approve of his idea.

The governor could have gone through at least a show of considering other opinions and all the criticisms he's hearing now before implementing his radical departure in New York's official policy toward illegal aliens.

Instead, for reasons that to defy logic, he issued a proclamation with little notice and no preparation for New York's citizens.

I was first made aware of the change by Rensselaer County Clerk Frank Merola a day before it was made public, and he had only learned about it less than 48 hours before.

Merola is one of the 52 county clerks in the state who act as agents of the Department of Motor Vehicles and issue licenses.

This was all done in hurry-up mode.

More than 20 of the state's county clerks, including Merola, have said they would defy the governor on this, which is bound to raise a nasty legal confrontation.

On its face, the governor is obviously correct that county clerks can't choose which state laws to enforce.

But there is the question that Spitzer's executive order may be out of sync with looming federal laws over national identification requirements, driven by homeland security considerations.

In addition, the state Senate, in open warfare with the governor, has said it might stall any funding necessary to implement Spitzer's changes.

So all Governor Spitzer has managed to accomplish with Drivergate is to broaden the pool irritated with him.

Plus, give the state Senate a legitimate issue to pound the governor over.

Curiously, the governor has also chosen to depict those who oppose him as whipped up by Bush Administration thinking, which is particularly galling for those of us who have had no use for George W. Bush or his administration from the very beginning.

At any rate, this all belies the obvious: Why would a super smart guy like Eliot Spitzer trip himself up yet again?

A possibility was raised by Quinnipiac University pollster Mickey Carroll that maybe Spitzer was looking to create a distraction from Troopergate.

If so, he succeeded.

Then there's the old political conventional wisdom that the governor is raising this unpopular issue in the first year of his term so the public will forget about it by re-election time.

Only time will tell if that's another miscalculation, but I have a hunch it is.

LeBrun can be reached at 454-5453 or by e-mail at flebrun@timesunion.com.

"Guilty plea over town gravel - Businessman admits providing false information for Stephentown records"

By BOB GARDINIER, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Tuesday, October 16, 2007

STEPHENTOWN -- A Nassau businessman has pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges for providing false information on town records regarding gravel purchases, and charges against others are possible.

Russ Freeman of Russ Freeman Excavating Inc., which regularly performs work for the Stephentown Highway Department, pleaded guilty in Town Court last week to one count of second-degree offering a false instrument for filing.

Freeman was ordered to pay a $1,000 fine, said John Milgrim, spokesman for the state attorney general's office, which prosecuted the case.

A year ago, state investigators took records from the town clerk's office, the office of highway Superintendent Neil Gardner and from Freeman's offices in Nassau, sources familiar with the investigation said.

Milgrim said the investigation is continuing and further charges against others are possible, though he refused to say what part, if any, Gardner may have played.

Freeman and Gardner were not available for comment.

Town Supervisor Michael Angley has said that a problem became apparent in 2005 when a North Stephentown landowner came to a Town Board meeting complaining that he was not paid for gravel the town and Freeman mined from a pit on his land.

The state told the town that the mine was not permitted.

Freeman had sent a bill to the town in the amount of $30,715 for sand and gravel, but the town refused to pay after discovering the mine was illegal, Angley said.

EDUCATION FOR FREEDOM - LESSON PLANS FOR TEACHING THE FIRST AMENDMENT

First Principles

The First Amendment applies to all Americans.

Our nation affirms the truth of inalienable rights for all, working for more than 200 years to make the ideals expressed in the First Amendment a reality in the lives of all Americans.

These rights were so important to early citizens and their leaders, many states refused to ratify the Constitution of the United States without the promise of amendments that would protect individual rights.

Here are some “First Principles” to help you and your students to interpret these eloquent 45 words and understand how they influence our daily lives.

1. The First Amendment affirms the freedom of the individual.

American government is based upon the concept that all human beings are born with certain rights or freedoms.

The First Amendment guards these rights by prohibiting the government from denying citizens their rights.

The government does not give us our rights.

Its role is to guard the rights that we already have.

We, as individuals, have freedom of conscience.

Religious liberty, or freedom of conscience, protects the beliefs of everyone, not just those of recognized faith communities.

We are free to worship —or not to worship — as we choose.

The government may not tell us what church, synagogue, mosque or temple to attend or whether, where and how we should pray.

As individuals, our ideas and beliefs are our own.

We are free to develop and express our thoughts.

Through our free press, we have access to a vast range of information.

We may criticize our government if we see fit to do so.

Judgments about ideas are for individuals to make, not for government to decree.

The First Amendment guarantees we may associate with people and join groups of our own choosing.

We may ask or lobby the government to correct certain wrongs or support our beliefs.

2. Free expression is the foundation — the cornerstone — of democracy.

The First Amendment is based on the premise that people who can freely share information (especially about their government) will be informed and able to make sound choices about what leaders to elect, what forms of government they want, what laws to enact.

The freedom to exchange information about the government enables people to seek alternatives to bad government.

3. The First Amendment tells the government to keep its “hands off” our religion, our ideas, our ability to express ourselves.

“Congress shall make no law …” means that as far as possible the government may not interfere with our fundamental rights.

The government may not pass laws that take away our First Amendment freedoms or that force us to express ideas — including religious beliefs — that we do not embrace.

But the First Amendment is not absolute.

“No law” does not mean “absolutely no law.”

For instance, human sacrifice cannot be permitted in the name of freedom of conscience.

The Supreme Court has affirmed that some limits must be placed on our freedoms.

The government, for example, may regulate the time, place and manner, but not regulate solely on the basis of the content of our beliefs, ideas, and expressions.

We may need to hold a permit before we march in support of a particular cause, but we should not have to worry about the government telling us we have no right to believe in that cause or express that idea.

4. Other people have rights, too.

The First Amendment is based upon the conviction that all human beings have inalienable rights.

Our commitment to rights is inseparably linked to our civic responsibility to guard those rights for all others.

When faced with unpopular views or unrefined speech, members of the public may ask, “Why doesn't the government do something about that?”

The answer?

Neither government nor a majority of the public has the authority to stop an unpopular idea.

Because the First Amendment belongs to everyone — to each individual — it encourages us to respect the right of others to hold their viewpoints and religious beliefs.

The First Amendment protects minority viewpoints and helps us to understand that limiting the rights of some people may eventually limit the rights of all.

5. When rights collide, government must balance them.

Sometimes the government plays a role in balancing our rights.

When two rights collide, tension and controversy may result.

What happens, for example, when a person's right to a fair trial conflicts with our right to learn if a fair trial is actually taking place through accounts reported in our free press?

What happens when an individual’s right to personal privacy conflicts with the free flow of information?

The government (through the courts) may make decisions that protect both rights to the fullest extent possible.

In addition to knowing where government officials draw the line when regulating expression, it is important to understand who may and may not control what we say or write or perform.

Public school administrators are government officials and, like city officials, have both power and limits regarding regulation of expression.

Although students do not give up their First Amendment rights when they come to school, the United States Supreme Court has determined that school officials may restrict students’ rights if the administrators determine that exercising those rights would interfere with the school’s mission of educating its students.

However, as government officials, they may not control or censor expression to the degree that a private organization or family might.

The First Amendment does not apply to private school officials.

6. The First Amendment helps us make choices.

In the “marketplace of ideas,” we may choose which views to support and which ones to reject.

When all ideas are allowed to flourish, we — as individuals — may decide what ideas and concepts to question, embrace or reject.

First Amendment advocates say it best: The antidote to distasteful or hateful speech is not censorship, but more speech.

http://www.freedomforum.org/packages/first...tPrinciples.htm

"Funding cut called political punishment - Tedisco claims Spitzer is penalizing Schenectady health clinic in GOP district"

By RICK KARLIN, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Thursday, October 18, 2007

ALBANY -- A Schenectady health clinic for the poor may be the latest casualty in the escalating battle between Gov. Eliot Spitzer and Republican lawmakers.

Funding cuts have long been weapons of choice in the Capitol's partisan wars.

But Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco said Spitzer has taken the art of political retaliation to a new level by cutting $100,000 from a health clinic for the poor in a Republican-held district in Schenectady.

"The governor has really stepped over the line," Tedisco said a day after learning that money he requested for the financially strapped Schenectady Free Health Clinic had been eliminated.

He said thousands of low-income Schenectady residents depend on the clinic's free care.

It is hardly the first time one of Albany's leaders has been accused of cutting funding for political reasons.

Republican Gov. George Pataki infuriated Assembly Democrats in 1998 when he axed $1.6 billion of their spending and borrowing items.

Over the past year, Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno's office has pulled back local grants for two Long Island and Westchester districts where Democrats seized longtime Republican seats.

The cut in Schenectady was just outside Tedisco's district in an area represented by one of his Republican colleagues, George Amedore Jr., who won a special election this summer.

It also came amid a high-profile battle over Spitzer's plan to allow illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses.

Tedisco has emerged as the opposition's point man, appearing on national TV shows blasting the plan and calling the governor "Illegal Eliot."

Spitzer's cut also comes just days after the Times Union reported that Tedisco was researching a legislative proposal, which, if passed, could allow for a recall of the governor.

The driver's license plan, enacted by Spitzer last month, is the latest flash point between the governor and Republicans in the Legislature.

"This is payback," said Tedisco.

"And this is governance with a vengeance."

Spitzer spokesman Jeffrey Gordon countered that Tedisco and other lawmakers knew the governor was changing the way local grants, known as member items, were allocated and they could have asked for the funding during the budget process but instead waited until August.

"They had ample opportunity to secure funding for this and they did not attempt to do so," Gordon said.

In past years, the health clinic got money from a discretionary fund controlled by the state health commissioner.

But as part of what he said was an effort to make spending more transparent, Spitzer, who took office in January, did away with these multimillion-dollar pots of money controlled by agency heads and put them in the state budget as line items.

The governor said he would use money left over from 2006 to fund some requests from local lawmakers, which is what Tedisco sought in August, after he realized the clinic's traditional funding source no longer existed.

Even though the request came late in the year, Tedisco said, he was led to believe he'd get the money.

As proof, he released a Sept. 6 e-mail from the governor's office to Tedisco stating that "we're prepared to process this project along with the other items."

The other items included additional grants requested by Tedisco, including $90,000 for a bicentennial celebration in Ballston Spa; $10,000 to buy boats for the Scotia Glenville Rowing Association; and $50,000 toward an elevator at the Italian American Heritage Association.

None of the items, totaling $482,548, was approved for funding.

When he asked what happened, Tedisco's chief of staff, Bill Sherman, said Spitzer's Budget Director Paul Francis told him "that was the decision of this administration."

The health clinic operates on an annual budget of about $700,000, said Executive Director Bill Spolyar.

Local retired doctors donate their services, and most of the expenses are for medication and malpractice insurance.

He wasn't familiar with the combative budget politics but said the clinic is starting to solicit charitable donations and still hoping the state funding will come through.

"We're hopeful that's going to happen," he said.

Karlin can be reached at 454-5758 or by e-mail at rkarlin@timesunion.com. Capitol bureau reporter James M. Odato contributed to this story.

"Spitzer to Senate: See you in court"

By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press

Last updated: 6:24 p.m., Thursday, October 18, 2007

ALBANY -- Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer expects to spend up to $400,000 in state money to oppose a subpoena from the Senate's Republican majority looking into an alleged political plot, a Spitzer spokesman confirmed Thursday.

"The subpoena raises a lot of very important separation of power issues which both we and the Senate agree should be resolved in court," said Spitzer spokesman Jeffrey Gordon.

"We have mutually agreed to a briefing schedule so that the matter can be resolved in an appropriate timeframe."

The spending was first reported Thursday by the New York Daily News.

The Republican-led Senate had previously announced that it planned to spend up to $500,000, also in state money, to hire a Washington public integrity attorney to press the case against the Spitzer administration.

Bruno has accused Spitzer staffers of using state police for political espionage to track his whereabouts in Manhattan on days he legally mixed meeting with lobbyists with Republican fundraisers.

A month later, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo found two Spitzer aides acted improperly, although no illegally, in planning to hurt Bruno by compiling the records and releasing them to a reporter who requested them.

In September, Albany County District Attorney P. David Soares found no misconduct and no evidence of a plot to smear Bruno.

The state Public Integrity Commission and the Senate's investigations committee continue to investigate.

The conflict has ground Albany negotiations and legislative action to a halt since June, when talks on several major policy proposals fell through.

"GOP accuses Spitzer of blocking $740,000 in aid"

By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press

Last updated: 6:14 p.m., Thursday, October 18, 2007

ALBANY -- Assembly Republican leader James Tedisco on Thursday accused of Democratic Gov. Eliot of Spitzer of retaliating against 21 more Republican Assembly members over Tedisco's criticism of the governor.

Tedisco said Spitzer has yanked grants totaling more than $740,000 for projects in lawmakers' districts including a walkway for a senior center, volunteer fire companies, food pantries, and schools as well as a free clinic in his own Schenectady County district.

Spitzer spokesman Jeffrey Gordon, however, said $405,583 in grants to 19 community groups was cut as part of Spitzer's previously announced plan to fund only "member items" that were approved before Jan. 1, when Spitzer took office.

More than $300,000 worth of projects that Tedisco referred to are still being reviewed, Gordon said.

The grants cut in Tedisco's district includes $90,000 to the village of Ballston Spa for its bicentennial celebration, $10,000 for updated boats for the Scotia-Glenville Rowing Association, $11,000 for two youth football leagues, $25,000 for rubber mulch for a playground at a school, and $11,748 for a tractor for the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Saratoga County, according to the list provided by the Spitzer administration.

Other state grants cut were $50,000 for an elevator for the American Italian Heritage Association, $10,000 for the Canandaigua Police Department, $10,000 for the Canandaigua Police Department, and thousands for pagers and safety equipment for volunteer fire companies.

The grants that lawmakers call member items have long been criticized by good-government groups as pork-barrel spending by incumbent to curry favor with local voters and donors, sometimes for questionable public benefit.

Lawmakers emphasize that many go to health and social programs.

"My message to Gov. Spitzer is, don't take out your frustration over my opposition to your plan to give illegal aliens driver's licenses on the millions of men and women our conference represents," Tedisco said in a press release.

Tedisco said he believes the funding was cut because of his criticism of Spitzer's plan to make it easier for illegal immigrants to receive drivers' licenses.

Tedisco told reporters Osama bin Laden would celebrate Spitzer's plan.

Spitzer defends the plan, saying it would increase security by making streets safer, reducing insurance premiums, and tracking hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants consistent with the findings of the 9/11 Commission.

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS DAILY POLITICS BLOG:

And while you are on the subject of "funky stuff" topo, I just came across a "Political Message From Attorney General Eliot Spitzer" circa 3/8/99 which was posted at http://www.oag.state.ny.us/message.html and was likely prepared using NYS personnel and resources ....

It starts as follows:

We live in an age of increasing skepticism about government.

The reasons for this are clear: People have been turned off by scandals, excessive partianship and negativity.

I am determined to change this sentiment.

end quotes

Interesting words, topo ....

In light of what has been going on with the Spitzer administration since DAY ONE descended down on us here in NYS, with the ascension of this "BULLDAWG" Spitzer to the office of governor ...

So that we now live in an age of even more skepticism about government than existed back in 1999 ....

Because we have been totally turned off by scandals in the Spitzer adminstration, coupled with excessive partianship by the Spitzer administration ...

And so ...

Posted by: John Galt | October 20, 2007 8:08 PM

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypoli...111.html?page=2

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS DAILY POLITICS BLOG:

A POLITICAL MESSAGE TO THE PEOPLE OF NEW YORK STATE FROM NYS AG ELIOT SPITZER, CIRCA 3/8/99, PREPARED USING NEW YORK STATE RESOURCES, INCLUDING THE NYS AG WEBSITE TO BROADCAST THIS POLITICAL MESSAGE:

We live in an age of increasing skepticism about government.

The reasons for this are clear: People have been turned off by scandals, excessive partianship and negativity.

In addition, people often view government as a hindrance rather than a help in their daily lives.

I am determined to change this sentiment.

I am convinced that the Attorney General's Office can make an important difference in people's lives, and actually help restore public confidence in government.

To achieve this goal, I have identified two key priorities during the first year of my administration.

First, I must bring together a staff of legal professionals unquestioned for their credentials, integrity and commitment to public service.

The Attorney General's Office in New York once enjoyed such a reputation, but in recent years the stature of the office has been diminished somewhat by the perception that political affiliation was a factor in the appointment process.

This was wrong.

I believe the Attorney General's staff should be known not as a Republican team or a Democratic team but as an independent, creative and aggressive "people's team".

In this regard, I invite you to review the credentials of the appointments I have made so far to the Attorney General's staff.

You can review this information by clicking on the Attorney General's Bulletins and Reports section below.

My second priority is to ensure that the Attorney General's office has a clearly defined mission and that it functions as effectively as possible.

The office actually has dozens of operational units covering issues ranging from criminal law enforcement to consumer protection to civil rights.

My challenge is to ensure that each of these units is focused on the issues that matter most to working men and women throughout New York.

Therefore, I will restructure and refocus the Attorney General's office to achieve three broad goals:

1. Protecting and Strengthening the Family

2. Improving the Quality of Life in Our Communities

3. Ensuring the Integrity of Public institutions

By emphasisizng these basic goals, I am convinced that we will make rapid progress in becoming the finest public interest law organization in the nation, and that the Attorney General will rightfully be known as "the People's Lawyer."

The pages that follow will describe the specific programs and services designed to benefit all New Yorkers.

I urge you to review the information and to take advantage of any and all assistance available to you.

Finally, but most importantly, if there is a matter that is not represented in the menu above, or if you would like to express a concern or comment, please do not hesitate to Contact the Attorney General.

Very truly yours, Eliot Spitzer

Posted by: John Galt | October 21, 2007 8:41 AM

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypoli...111.html?page=2

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS DAILY POLITICS BLOG:

And speaking of THE DEPARTMENT OF ONCE WE HAD IT AND NOW WE APPARENTLY DON'T, topo ...

What jumped right out of that 1999 Spitzer POLITICAL MESSAGE above here and slapped me right across the face, in the light of young Andy Cuomo's actions or lack thereof in connection with his "investigation" of TROOPERGATE, is this following sentence from the mouth and pen of Spitzer himself in 1999, to wit:

The office actually has dozens of operational units covering issues ranging from criminal law enforcement to consumer protection to civil rights.

end quotes

According to Eliot Spitzer in an official NYS AG COMMUNIQUE circa 3/8/99, the office of the NYS AG then had an OPERATIONAL UNIT covering criminal law enforcement ....

THAT WAS 1999 ...

Now, today, in 2007, somehow, young Andy Cuomo seems to no longer have that OPERATIONAL UNIT ....

SO?

Where did it go?

Is it really still there, only young Andy Cuomo doesn't know about it?

Is it really still there, and young Andy Cuomo does know about it, but he doesn't want us to know about it, lest we wonder why he didn't have this OPERATIONAL UNIT in play in the botched-up TROOPERGATE investigation conducted by his office?

Young Andy lost it, somehow, and he doesn't remember where he put it?

Or did Eliot Spitzer do away with it when he became governor?

Or did the Legislature take it away, which is to say Joe Bruno?

I mean, obviously, if this OPERATIONAL UNIT covering criminal law enforcement still existed in the office of the NYS AG, certainly young Andy Cuomo would have brought them in to play in connection with his limited investigation of TROOPERGATE ....

Which investigation was greatly hampered because young Andy Cuomo had no authority to investigate criminal wrongdoing by the SPITZER-ITES in connection with TROOPERGATE ...

And so ...

Posted by: John Galt | October 21, 2007 4:51 PM

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypoli...111.html?page=3

THE ALBANY, NEW YORK TIMES UNION CAPITAL CONFIDENTIAL BLOG:

Comment by UpstateWonk: John Galt said “We do expect the Rensselaer County Clerk to do his job ….”

actually John We don’t…We in my instance being 72% of the State who did not get the right to vote on this issue but if given the opportunity by DICTATOR SPITZER, we would gladly correct his stupid ILLEGAL directive…

And so…

JOHN GALT RESPONDS: Wonk, dude, we ARE on the same page …

I’m in that 72% with you, not against you …

Perhaps I did not express myself clearly enough …

I am saying that Frank Merola has a duty to enforce the law just as it is written …

Not some cut-and-paste version that Spitzer is trying to force on him …

In a bid to prove to us NYS citizens that Spitzer can RULE NYS WITHOUT the NYS legislature …

You put it correctly, dude ….

What Spitzer has is a DIRECTIVE ….

Spitzer’s DIRECTIVE does not constitute law here in NYS ….

The thought that it might is LUDICROUS ….

IF Spitzer wants to try and make his DIRECTIVE into law that Frank Merola has to abide by, then let Spitzer do it properly, by coming before the people and the state legislature, as OUR Constitution requires him to do …

And that is what I am posting about …

Sorry to not be more clear, originally, Wonk …

Thanks for the chance to clear that point up …

And so ….

Comment by John Galt — October 20, 2007 @ 7:25 am

http://blogs.timesunion.com/capitol/?p=5631#comments

THE ALBANY, NEW YORK TIMES UNION CAPITAL CONFIDENTIAL BLOG:

Comment by UpstateWonk: John Galt said “We do expect the Rensselaer County Clerk to do his job ….”

actually John We don’t…We in my instance being 72% of the State who did not get the right to vote on this issue but if given the opportunity by DICTATOR SPITZER, we would gladly correct his stupid ILLEGAL directive…

And so…

JOHN GALT CONTINUES: And Wonk, you are the only person in these BLOGS who seems to have clued in to the actual reality in play here in NYS right exactly now with respect the the DRIVERGATE CHAPTER of the ON-GOING ELIOT MESS here in New York State ….

ALL WE HAVE RIGHT NOW ON THE TABLE FROM SPITZER IS A DIRECTIVE ….

In the near future, Spitzer says that he is going to try and impose this DIRECTIVE on the elected COUNTY CLERKS in NYS ….

The elected COUNTY CLERKS in NYS have gotten together on the matter ….

And some, like Rensselaer County Clerk Frank Merola and Columbia County Clerk Holly Tanner have stated that they will not abide by Spitzer’s DIRECTIVE, which you call illegal …

And I call NULL, because it is in excess of his authority, jurisdiction and discretion as NYS Governor …

HIS DIRECTIVE HAS NO LAWFUL EXISTENCE, Wonk ….

And so, Spitzer is powerless to impose it upon the elected COUNTY CLERKS ….

Nothing more can now really transpire in the matter until Spitzer tries to enforce his DECREE somehow against the elected COUNTY CLERKS ….

So in some way, Spitzer will need a TEST CASE …

We countryfolks can picture Spitzer walking into the Office of the Rensselaer County Clerk holding a big silk pillow in his arms with a person from another country here in the United States unlawfully resting comfortably on it …

And Spitzer will be trailed by all the GOO-GOO’s who are his groupies …

And the labor unions who want at a ready supply of these illegals …….

And a HOST of media …

And on behalf of this illegal person, and on national TV, Spitzer will then try to bend Frank Merola to his will to have Frank Merola issue this illegal person a NYS driver’s license …

OR ELSE …

Spitzer will give Frank Merola the “STEAMROLLER” treatment ….

And knowing Frank Merola ….

It’s my thought that on NATIONAL TV, he is going to sign right up for a block of that instruction ….

AND THE WORLD WILL BE WATCHING, Wonk …

CAN ELIOT SPITZER B***H-SLAP FRANK MEROLA IN PUBLIC AND GET AWAY WITH IT?

The CANDID WORLD would like to know that answer ….

And so would we countryfolks ….

And so …

Comment by John Galt — October 20, 2007 @ 2:35 pm

http://blogs.timesunion.com/capitol/?p=5631#comments

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

October 19, 2007

"Kirwan To Gov: Stick Member Items Where Sun Don't Shine"

Assemblyman Tom Kirwan, a Newburgh Republican who is never one to mince words, said the following to the Catskill News regarding Gov. Eliot Spitzer's blocking of the Assembly minority's member items - allegedly in retaliation for their opposition to his driver's license plan:

"As far as him threatening to hold these member items, he can stick these member items up his ass."

"Neither I nor my constituents are a bunch of prostitutes willing to prostrate ourselves to this buffoon."

"This guy is an absolute embarrassment as a governor."

"By far, he is going to go down as the worst governor in the history of the state."

Kirwan is known for his maverick streak.

He's probably best known for crossing party lines to join Democratic Sen. Liz Krueger in suing their own Legislature and then-Gov. George Pataki in 2005 over the majority-controlled system in Albany that they argued disenfranchsied minority members and their constituents.

The suit was unsuccessful, but it did manage to bring some attention to the imbalance at the Capitol at a time when government reform was a hot topic.

Posted by Elizabeth Benjamin on October 19, 2007 11:44 AM

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypoli...e.html#comments

THE NEW YORK TIMES

"Lou Dobbs Crusades Against Spitzer’s Driver’s License Plan for Illegal Immigrants"

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE

Published: October 17, 2007

ALBANY, Oct. 16 — The CNN anchor Lou Dobbs calls Gov. Eliot Spitzer “a genius.”

But not in a nice way.

“I was being about as facetious as one could be,” Mr. Dobbs said in an interview Tuesday as he prepared for his nightly broadcast, “Lou Dobbs Tonight.”

For the last nine days, the show has included discussion of Mr. Spitzer’s plan to allow illegal immigrants to apply for driver’s licenses.

Mr. Dobbs, a pinstriped journalist turned populist crusader against illegal immigration, is not a fan.

“It’s an abuse of power!” Mr. Dobbs thundered.

“He is being absolutely irresponsible."

"When the governor of New York embarks on this kind of irresponsibility, it is national news as far as I’m concerned.”

And when Mr. Dobbs — whose broadcast is CNN’s second-highest-rated show — speaks, many people listen.

His relentless mockery of Mr. Spitzer’s decision has thrust the driver’s license policy onto the national stage, helping fuel an uproar not only among New Yorkers, but among national groups opposed to illegal immigration as well.

As it happens, Mr. Dobbs was recovering from a tonsillectomy when Mr. Spitzer announced the policy on Sept. 21.

But the anchorman went on the attack almost immediately after going back on the air Oct. 8, saying it was “hard to imagine what this governor is thinking.”

It only took him another week to conclude that Mr. Spitzer, in fact, was not thinking at all.

“This governor is a genius,” he proclaimed disgustedly on Monday.

“An overwhelming majority of New York voters oppose the governor, but he refuses to back down.”

With the television set on mute, the scrunch alone of Mr. Dobbs’s brow conveys his belief that Mr. Spitzer’s new policy is, possibly, the dumbest idea in the history of dumb ideas.

“I think he’s definitely had an effect,” said State Senator Martin J. Golden, a Brooklyn Republican who was on Mr. Dobbs’s show on Sunday to denounce the plan.

“Everybody’s chiming in."

"I get e-mails from across the country because of Lou Dobbs."

"I got an e-mail from a soldier in Iraq saying, ‘Go for it, Golden, keep it up.’”

Mr. Golden is one of several New York elected officials — most of them with more experience on New York 1 than on CNN — who have been recent guests on Mr. Dobbs’s show.

Many have expressed support for proposals by state lawmakers to overturn the license policy or to deny funding for it.

But not everyone who goes on gets supportive e-mail messages.

José M. Serrano, a Democratic state senator who represents parts of Manhattan and the Bronx, appeared with Mr. Golden to defend Mr. Spitzer’s policy, but found himself under a verbal barrage from both the host and his fellow guest.

“Oh my goodness, that was something else,” Mr. Serrano said.

“I think it was my first time on national television."

"I wound up debating both of them — Lou paid very little attention to Marty Golden and instead just kind of dug in on me.”

This next morning, Mr. Serrano said, his office was bombarded with angry e-mail messages from around the country.

“One guy wrote, ‘We will derail the illegal gravy train from within,’” he said.

“I don’t really know what that means."

"Another person said, ‘Go back to Mexico, you’re obviously Mexican.’”

(Mr. Serrano is from Puerto Rico.)

“I’m not naïve, but I was still surprised at the level of ignorance,” Mr. Serrano said.

(Mr. Dobbs’s correspondents have also stated on the air that illegal immigrants will need only a foreign passport to obtain a driver’s license, and that Mr. Spitzer’s policy was instituted through executive order, neither of which is true.)

Mr. Dobbs’s guests and interviewees are typically opponents of the policy.

A segment that Mr. Dobbs pitched on Thursday as “a lively debate” on the issue, for example, featured the host and two members of the State Assembly who oppose the governor’s plan, along with a viewers’ poll on whether Mr. Spitzer should be recalled.

(Ninety-seven percent said yes.)

One person who has not made an appearance on Mr. Dobbs’s show, despite repeated invitations, is the governor himself.

Christine Anderson, a spokeswoman for Mr. Spitzer, said scheduling problems had prevented the governor from appearing.

The administration had made other officials available to Mr. Dobbs’s bookers, she said, including Michael A. L. Balboni, the governor’s top Homeland Security aide.

But the show’s producers had declined.

“We don’t really have a position about his show,” Ms. Anderson said.

“That said, facts matter, and what we have endeavored to do throughout this entire debate is to make an argument about the safety and security benefits to doing this.”

But Mr. Dobbs said that Mr. Spitzer, and Mr. Spitzer alone, is responsible for defending his new policy.

“The man hasn’t shown the gumption to come on the air and debate the issue with me,” Mr. Dobbs said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/17/nyregion...amp;oref=slogin

THE RECORD

"Rhetoric drowns out any rational discussion"

By: The Watertown Daily Times

10/17/2007

Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer's unilateral decision to change the rules on obtaining a driver's license unleashed a barrage of scathing criticism which has been followed by the governor's intemperate defense of his decision.

The latest uproar in state politics began when Spitzer announced that his administration was abandoning the five-year-old policy requiring driver's license applicants to provide a Social Security card.

Instead, the estimated 500,000 to 1 million illegal immigrants in the state will be permitted to substitute a valid foreign passport for the Social Security card.

The governor's position isn't new.

He said during the 2006 campaign that he would change the rule but the sudden policy revision without prior public discussion provoked an angry response from opponents.

They raised the specter of another 9-11 by terrorists now able to obtain a driver's license that could be used as valid identification and make it easier for them to move freely about.

Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco ridiculed the plan with emotional images, saying 9-11 mastermind Osama bin Laden was taking delight in the proposal.

State Sen. Martin Golden said Spitzer wasn't elected "to allow terrorists to go unchecked."

New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and others speculated the change would render state driver's licenses useless as an ID for boarding an airplane or other federal purposes.

Even county clerks whose offices issue driver's licenses have rebelled at the change and several intend to ignore it.

An irascible Spitzer accused his critics of "fear-mongering and extremist rhetoric," "knee-jerk reactions" and engaging "in the politics of fear and selfishness."

Spitzer lashed out at Bloomberg as "wrong at every level - dead wrong, factually wrong, legally wrong, morally wrong, ethically wrong."

Spitzer maintains his policy, when it takes effect in December, will improve security by bringing illegal immigrants out of the shadows, improve safety on state highways and reduce insurance premiums since unlicensed drivers are more likely to be involved in car accidents.

That may be true, but rational discussion of the policy is being drowned out by the rhetoric on both sides.

Spitzer has missed an opportunity.

He failed to anticipate the opposition, which might have been avoided by laying the groundwork for acceptable change through dialogue rather than imposing it by fiat.

http://www.troyrecord.com/site/news.cfm?ne...=7018&rfi=6

THE NEW YORK OBSERVER

"Troopergate Makes a Slow Fund-Raising Season for Spitzer"

by Azi Paybarah

Published: October 16, 2007

This article was published in the October 22, 2007, edition of The New York Observer.

Next week will mark the return of the legislature to Albany for a special session.

It will also mark the expiration of a missed fund-raising opportunity for Eliot Spitzer.

According to a regular contributor and fund-raiser for Mr. Spitzer, the governor originally planned to spend the out-of-session months starting in late June making a push for new donations with appearances across the country, but abandoned those plans because of the Troopergate scandal.

“When the legislature is out of session, the governor can command more of the limelight,” this fund-raiser said.

“The governor’s rating always goes up when the legislature is out of session."

"He has the stage to himself."

"Obviously, that hasn’t happened here.”

That may be an understatement.

In May, Mr. Spitzer attended fund-raisers in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and earlier this month, he was at an event in Texas.

But for most of the time in between, Mr. Spitzer was in New York playing defense in front of editorial boards and local reporters, explaining his role (or non-role, as the case may be) in directing state police to track State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno’s use of state aircraft and then leaking it to the press.

A July 23 report from the attorney general’s office found two of Mr. Spitzer’s aides responsible.

One was immediately suspended and has since joined a lobbying firm.

The other was demoted.

“I don’t think this is what a lot of people expected,” said the Spitzer fund-raiser.

“And even if there was going to be contention, I don’t think this is the contention narrative” they wanted.

One of Mr. Spitzer’s aides, speaking on background, disputed the notion that Troopergate had derailed the governor’s fund-raising schedule.

The aide said that summer fund-raising was always going to be difficult, with many regular contributors out of the city, and that the donor events weren’t tied to the legislative calendar.

The aide also said that the plan all along was for Mr. Spitzer to spend the time between sessions focusing on local initiatives.

Whatever the reason for the fund-raising slowdown, it seems to have taken a toll on the governor’s finances.

Though Mr. Spitzer still has a comfortable amount of money in his campaign war chest, the amount has been greatly diminished, most notably by his costly ad battles over health care policy with the powerful (and well-funded) 1199 SEIU union, but also by the campaign staff he still employs.

Mr. Spitzer came into this year with $3,692,033.66 in his reelection account after a landslide win in November.

According to the latest figures from the State Board of Elections in July, he was down to $1,478,572.95 in the same account.

(Mr. Spitzer also has $32,894.56 on hand in his federal PAC, which he said is used to help selected congressional candidates.)

But the news hasn’t all been bad.

On Sept. 20, the Albany County district attorney cleared Mr. Spitzer of any wrongdoing in the matter of the troopers and Joe Bruno.

And now, according to the fund-raiser, Mr. Spitzer’s financial operation is going to be looking to make up for lost time as best they can.

“They’re making a big push,” the fund-raiser said.

“They want big numbers for their January filing, to show strength at the beginning of session and that their political team is in a good place.”

Allyson Giard, a fund-raiser on the staff of Mr. Spitzer’s campaign committee, e-mailed the following comment on the situation:

“The governor’s fund-raising continues to be robust: it speaks to his ability to raise money under self-imposed limits, and it operates within the constraints imposed by a schedule that makes governing—not fund-raising—a priority.”

http://www.observer.com/2007/troopergate-m...-season-spitzer

PRESS & SUN-BULLETIN

Wednesday October 17, 2007

"New York horse-racing authority proposed"

ALBANY -- Republicans in the state Senate on Tuesday proposed establishing a new state authority to oversee thoroughbred racing in New York, a plan likely to further divide political leaders over how to revive the sagging industry.

Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno laid out a proposal to create a "public-private" partnership between the racing industry and the state by establishing a new public authority called the New York State Racing, Gaming and Equine Sports Development Corp.

The authority would be an umbrella organization that would oversee racing at the New York City-based Aqueduct and Belmont racetracks and at Saratoga, about 30 miles north of Albany.

It would oversee the bidding for contracts to run video lottery terminals at Aqueduct and Belmont, as well for marketing and capital improvements.

Bruno said the entity could also serve as the oversight group for the state's six off-track betting operations.

"What's been going on the last 40 or 50 years hasn't been working in this state," Bruno, R-Brunswick, Rensselaer County, said of the current oversight by the New York Racing Association.

The Senate has balked at Gov. Eliot Spitzer's plan to continue to have NYRA run the racetracks and to let a private entity run video lottery terminals at Aqueduct.

Spitzer's proposal calls for about $250 million in state aid to help make NYRA financially stable as it tries to get itself out of bankruptcy protection.

The state's contract with NYRA, a private, non-profit corporation, expires at year's end.

If a deal is not approved by the state Legislature, NYRA has warned that the state's racing industry could be shuttered; lawmakers say the state racing oversight board would manage the tracks.

http://www.pressconnects.com/apps/pbcs.dll...10170342%2F1006

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

"Bruno's copters cost $72G, but Troopergate cost $1.5M"

By JOE MAHONEY, DAILY NEWS ALBANY BUREAU CHIEF

Thursday, October 18th 2007, 4:00 AM

ALBANY - The tab for Joe Bruno's state helicopter flights this year: $72,000.

The $1.5 million public tab for the Troopergate investigation: Priceless.

Albany is in the fourth month of gridlock from the scandal that began when Gov. Spitzer's aides plotted to make the Senate majority leader pay a political price for using state aircraft.

And the costs are still mounting - Spitzer's office now plans to spend $400,000 for an outside lawyer, Dietrich Snell, to fight subpoenas from GOP state senators, the Daily News has learned.

"The attempted cure is costing much more than the initial problem," lamented Richard Dadey, executive director of Citizens Union.

"These scandals and the resulting investigations have cost the state significant money, both in terms of dollars and time lost from addressing crucial issues."

In tallying the costs, The News reviewed work hours by lawyers, investigators, public relations specialists and others.

Government insiders say the total estimated tab of $1.54 million could easily grow.

The protracted battle grew out of suspicions by Spitzer aides that Bruno attended political fund-raisers in Manhattan on several trips made with a state police helicopter.

The total tab for his 10 trips is about $72,000.

After state police records on Bruno's travels were fed to an Albany newspaper, the senator cried foul and accused the governor of having troopers spy on him.

Both Bruno and Spitzer called for investigations.

Costs started mounting.

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's July 23 report found the Spitzer administration misused the state police, while Bruno broke no laws because his trips included government business.

Because Spitzer's aides didn't fully cooperate with Cuomo, Republicans demanded more digging.

Separate inquiries were launched by the Albany County district attorney along with the now-defunct state Ethics Commission and its successor, the Pubic Integrity Commission, which is still investigating.

The state Senate Investigations Committee hired former federal prosecutor Joseph diGenova, whose firm is expected to collect $500,000.

The panel, led by Sen. George Winner (R-Elmira), subpoenaed records from Spitzer's office and indicated it wants the governor to testify.

So Spitzer hired Snell.

Government insiders said Spitzer plans to claim executive privilege to fight the subpoenas, which could drag out the legal wrangling and boost Snell's billable hours.

The warring sides blame each other for the spiraling bills.

"It's rather pitiful that all these public funds are being expended all because of the governor's own behavior," said Winner.

He said Spitzer can spare the taxpayers simply by cooperating.

Spitzer spokesman Jeffrey Gordon shot back, "The most egregious cost to taxpayers is the Senate's refusal to do the real work of governing, such as passing the Wicks Law."

That delay has cost New York City taxpayers more than $30 million on construction projects, he said.

Dadey said the spending should be halted when the Public Integrity Commission issues its findings, though no one can say when that will happen.

But he said the controversy won't die until Spitzer answers questions under oath on what he knew or didn't know about the anti-Bruno scheme.

"The governor ought to formally testify so the citizens and the state can put this behind us," Dadey said.

jmahoney@nydailynews.com

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/10/18...pergate_-1.html

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

"Spitzer's immigrant license fight gets uglier in Albany"

BY ELIZABETH BENJAMIN, DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Thursday, October 18th 2007, 10:03 AM

The fight over Gov. Spitzer's illegal immigrant driver's license plan got nastier yesterday as Assembly Republicans and Democrats traded charges of censorship and rule-bending.

An aide to Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco (R-Schenectady), who has been outspoken against the governor's plan, said the Democratic majority refused a request for some 50,000 mailers.

The literature would have gone to five Assembly Republicans' districts, featuring each lawmaker with Tedisco, at a cost of roughly $58,000.

The Democrats accused the Republicans of trying to bend in-house mail rules.

Tedisco's chief of staff, William Sherman, rejected that argument as "bogus."

"It's censorship; all of the mail was going to go out until [Tedisco] picked up the pace" of criticizing Spitzer on driver's licenses, Sherman insisted.

Sherman noted the rejections came one day after the Spitzer administration told Tedisco it had canceled $300,000 in state-funded health care and education projects in his district, claiming he was never authorized to allocate that cash.

Tedisco has threatened to sue to block Spitzer from fully implementing his driver's license plan.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) backs the governor.

Silver spokesman Dan Weiller said the censorship allegation "does not stand up to scrutiny."

Weiller noted a Tedisco mailer blasting the license plan was sent out just last week.

The Republicans wanted to pay for the new mailing through the $100,000 allocated each year to both the speaker and minority leaders for "leadership" missives.

Individual members get a much smaller budget - three district-wide mailers a year plus $2,750.

The Democrats argued the GOP mailers didn't meet the arguably murky standards laid out for leadership mail, which according to a 1999 speaker's directive, is supposed to inform constituents of "the majority or minority party's positions on issues."

Weiller noted the contact information on the mailers was for the rank-and-file members, not Tedisco himself, and were slated to be sent into the lawmakers' districts, not statewide.

ebenjamin@nydailynews.com

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/10/18...ht_gets_ug.html

THE NEW YORK SUN

"Republicans See Flaw in Spitzer License Plan"

By JACOB GERSHMAN, Staff Reporter of the Sun

October 18, 2007

Illegal immigrants in New York who don't drive but nevertheless want official state identification will be eligible to receive nondriver IDs under Governor Spitzer's new policy.

The contentious debate over Mr. Spitzer's immigration policy has focused on his recent decision to grant driver's licenses to state residents without regard to their legal status.

Republican lawmakers hostile to the governor's policy are now trying to draw attention to the fact that undocumented New Yorkers, many of whom don't own a car or drive to work, can apply for nondriver photo identification cards, which serve the same identification purposes as driver's licenses.

Lawmakers argue that granting nondriver IDs to illegal immigrants undercuts one of the main arguments Mr. Spitzer has articulated in defense of the policy.

The governor has insisted that his new regulations would improve road safety and reduce insurance costs, pointing to statistics that show unlicensed drivers are more likely to be involved in fatal traffic accidents.

"He hid behind this notion that the reason why he was doing this was to keep the streets safe and to bring insurance costs down … when the reality is it had absolutely nothing to do with it," a spokesman for Senate Republicans, John McArdle, said.

Under Mr. Spitzer's policy, undocumented immigrants could apply for driver's licenses by submitting foreign passports and birth certificates, which would be scanned into a system to determine if the records were fraudulent.

It's not clear how many undocumented immigrants would seek nondriver state identification and voluntarily enter a state database.

The identification could be used to cash checks, buy alcoholic beverages, board airplanes, and enter government buildings.

Opponents of the policy, which is scheduled to take effect next year, say it would make it easier for illegal immigrants to blend into society and reward individuals who have violated immigration laws.

They are also skeptical that technology and information exists to confirm that a foreign applicant is not misrepresenting his or her identity.

Senate Republicans have threatened to withhold funding for the DMV and are planning to pass legislation to overturn Mr. Spitzer's policy, which the governor handed down last month to the DMV.

Lawmakers and other critics of the plan are planning to file court challenges.

Most Assembly Democrats, including Speaker Sheldon Silver, say they stand by the policy.

A recent poll found that 72% of New Yorkers are opposed to granting licenses to illegal immigrants.

Beyond the issue of traffic safety, Mr. Spitzer has argued that granting licenses to illegal immigrants would "bring an entire population of people into a database that, when necessary, can be used to help law enforcement agencies track down criminals."

http://www.nysun.com/article/64787

NEWSDAY

"Police give Spitzer's license plan mixed reviews"

BY CHRISTINE ARMARIO | christine.armario@newsday.com

The commissioner of the Suffolk Police Department, which arrests unlicensed drivers for traffic violations if they can't prove their identities, said Wednesday he doesn't back Gov. Eliot Spitzer's plan to grant licenses to undocumented immigrants.

Suffolk police initiated the policy of arresting unlicensed drivers earlier this year because, they said, it would help reduce fatal accidents in a population considered at high risk.

But, in an interview, Commissioner Richard Dormer said issuing licenses to the undocumented would be unlikely to decrease traffic deaths.

Of those involved in fatalities, he said, many are unlicensed because they have lost their driving privileges, not because they are undocumented.

"You're still going to have folks who are not going to obtain a license driving, and get involved in crashes and then come to the attention of police," Dormer said.

"So that's still going to happen."

"That's not going to eliminate that."

Dormer's viewpoint stood in stark contrast to several other Long Island police departments, including Nassau County's, which touted the plan as an effective tool in getting more educated drivers on the road, increasing the number of people with insurance, and reducing the number of incidents where an unlicensed driver leaves the scene of a crash.

"I think the policy will promote less accidents, overall," Nassau County Police Commissioner Lawrence Mulvey said.

The issue is a critical one in Suffolk and Nassau counties, which ranked first and second, respectively, in the number of fatal crashes statewide in 2005, the last year figures were available, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Under Spitzer's plan, immigrants could use a valid foreign passport and other records to apply for a license.

Spitzer contends the measure will improve traffic safety and help law enforcement by creating records of a population now in the shadows.

The plan has faced criticism from lawmakers, county clerks and others who have raised concerns it will undermine the credibility of the drivers' license document and compromise homeland security.

In interviews this week, Mulvey and two East End chiefs said the licenses could potentially provide police with an important investigative resource, by allowing them to confirm identities and access photographs and other vital information of suspects and witnesses.

"Giving unidentified people an identity and having a record of that, would help an investigation," Riverhead Chief David Hegermiller said.

Southold Chief Carlisle Cochran said those benefits would hinge on whether or not the documents provided to the state Department of Motor Vehicles are valid.

"It's difficult to take people's word for granted," he said.

According to Spitzer's office, new anti-fraud measures, including photo comparison, and a Document Verification Unit will ensure a driver's identity.

But those measures have not quelled the worries of some in federal law enforcement.

"I think perhaps at a local level it could have some benefits," Kelly Nantel, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said yesterday.

"But from a federal law enforcement perspective, in general, it is our position that it is never a good idea to issue a legal document to someone in the country illegally."

Joe King, an associate professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said one possible problem is that people will forge an unfamiliar document -- a Tongan passport, for example -- to get a valid New York license under another name.

The person would then use the license to get other forms of identification to create a "legend," a law enforcement term for documents used to support a false persona and history.

Dormer said yesterday that he shared those concerns.

"We're all aware that every time we come up with a new document, the bad guys figure out how to forge it," he said.

Staff writer Andrew Strickler contributed to this story.

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/ny-lipol...0,7590496.story

THE NEW YORK POST

"E-MAILS THE 'SMOKING GUN' IN GOV VENGEANCE"

By FREDRIC U. DICKER State Editor

October 18, 2007 -- ALBANY - A key Republican lawmaker disclosed several "smoking gun" e-mails yesterday showing Gov. Spitzer's administration had OK'd funding for a local health-care clinic last month - before suddenly canceling the grant on Monday after his attack on Spitzer's plan to give driver's licenses to illegal aliens.

Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco (R-Schenectady) revealed the records to back up his charge that Spitzer cut over $300,000 of his community projects to punish him for opposing the governor's licensing plan and not - as Spitzer contended yesterday - to help get state spending under control.

"That's an outright lie," Tedisco's chief of staff, William Sherman, said of Spitzer's claim, calling the e-mails "the smoking-gun evidence."

Disclosure of the e-mails came as The Post learned that Spitzer was holding up over $100,000 in local "member item" district projects for nearly 20 other Assembly Republicans.

The move against Tedisco's district was reported in The Post yesterday.

One e-mail appeared to directly contradict claims of Spitzer and his budget director, Paul Francis, that Tedisco was told in January that the funding would no longer be available.

Spitzer's office e-mailed Tedisco's on Sept. 6, saying:

"We're prepared to process this project along with the other items."

Tedisco released the e-mails shortly after Francis made public a letter to Tedisco stating that Assembly Republicans were notified after Spitzer took office that "it was never our intention to provide member item funding for new projects after Jan. 1, 2007, outside the budget process."

However, an aide to Spitzer conceded there was not written proof that such a notification was sent.

Additional reporting by Maggie Haberman

http://www.nypost.com/seven/10182007/news/..._gun_in_gov.htm

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS DAILY POLITICS BLOG:

Well, topo ...

With respect to this admittedly very murky "plan" of NYS Governor Eliot "MAD DAWG" Spitzer to issue NYS driver's licenses to people in this country illegally ...

I went back and re-read the October 19, 2007 LA Times article "An unlikely treasure-trove of donors for Clinton - The candidate's unparalleled fundraising success relies largely on the least-affluent residents of New York's Chinatown -- some of whom can't be tracked down" by Peter Nicholas and Tom Hamburger, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers ...

And one disturbing statement from the humanistic point-of-view that leaped right out of that article at me was as follows:

Kwong thinks Clinton may be "exploiting the vulnerabilities of recent immigrants."

end quotes

EXPLOITING ...

There is a word that takes us back in time, here in NYS, topo ...

Back to the days of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire ...

Back to the days of my own youth, actually, when the mills were still running up here in Troy, and women were exploited as commodities, and not human beings at all ...

And that brings us to this following from that same article, to wit:

Many, on the other hand, said they gave for reasons having more to do with the Chinese community than with Clinton.

He Duan Zheng, who gave $1,000, said of the Fujianese community:

"They informed us to go, so I went."

"Everybody was making a donation, so I did too," he said.

"Otherwise I would lose face."

end quotes

OTHERWISE, I WOULD LOSE FACE ...

I find this whole SPITZER-ITIC PLAN to be disturbing, precisely because of all the very gray areas contained within it, coupled with the refusal of the SPITZER-ITES to be forthcoming about many of the details of the SPITZER-ITIC PLAN ...

Such as this DATABASE that the SPITZER-ITES hint at, but do not provide details of, to include WHO will "own" this DATABASE with the names of all these illegal immigrants contained therein ...

EXTORTION is what comes to mind, topo ...

EXTORTION and EXPLOITATION of these people in this country illegally by the SPITZER-ITES, who are very hungry for money ...

And that EXTORTION and EXPLOITATION is made possible due to the fact that these same people have no legal rights here in America that will protect them, once their names are on this DATABASE, and the SPITZER-ITES show up at their door to demand some "PROTECTION MONEY" from them, if they want to keep their faces on their heads ...

They have no right to sue for redress of grievance, because they are not American citizens ...

And then, there is the TAX ANGLE ...

If these people are here and actually working ...

But they are "beneath the radar" ...

Then it is highly unlikely that their employers have been withholding any income taxes for them for submission to the government for the use of their labor ...

Sooooo ....

IS SPITZER DECLARING A TAX HOLIDAY FOR THESE EMPLOYERS, I MUST WONDER?

A MORATORIUM ON WITHHOLDING INCOME TAXES FOR THOSE WHO EMPLOY ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS?

Any thoughts, topo?

And so ...

Posted by: John Galt | October 22, 2007 8:04 AM

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypoli..._weekend_4.html

"Suit filed over driver's licenses going to illegal immigrants"

By KENNETH C. CROWE II, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

Last updated: 12:56 p.m., Monday, October 22, 2007

TROY -- Rensselaer County Clerk Frank J. Merola said he has sued the state Department of Motor Vehicles and Commissioner David Swarts to stop Gov. Eliot Spitzer's plan to issue driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.

Merola said he filed the lawsuit today in Albany County.

"The governor is not listening to the people; perhaps he may listen to the courts," Merola said.

"New York residents have stated loudly and clearly that we are not in favor of giving license to illegal aliens and all we get from the governor are lectures on how we are wrong, and that if we were as smart as he was, we would understand and support this policy," Merola said.

Thomas Gleason, a senior partner with the firm Gleason, Dunn, Walsh and O'Shea, will represent Merola.

The lawsuit alleges that the state DMV is in violation of the New York State Vehicle and Traffic Law Article 19 Section 502 that mandates a Social Security number for purposes of license issuance.

The suit seeks a restraining order against the state DMV's imposition of this policy as well as overturning the governor's policy change.

"I have stated from the beginning that Rensselaer County will not issue any licenses to those who cannot prove that they are in this country legally."

"I am filing this suit on behalf of the people of Rensselaer County to prevent this outrageous and dangerous policy change that poses a threat to the safety and security of New York residents," Merola said.

"Ex-aide to Spitzer, Senate clash over subpoena"

By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press

Last updated: 2:33 p.m., Monday, October 22, 2007

ALBANY -- Gov. Eliot Spitzer's former communications director refused Monday to testify or provide information under a subpoena issued by a Senate committee investigating an alleged plot to smear the state's top Republican.

"So much for 'full cooperation,'" Senate investigations committee Chairman George Winner said of the move by former Spitzer aide Darren Dopp.

"The governor clearly told him not to provide any information and assert certain privileges and he said, 'Yes, sir.'"

Winner, a Republican senator from Elmira, said Dopp could face a misdemeanor charge of contempt of the Legislature.

Terence Kindlon, Dopp's lawyer, said he will try to bring the issue to a state Supreme Court judge in Albany who is scheduled to consider in early November whether the governor is protected from the Senate's subpoenas.

"We're caught between a rock and a hard place," Kindlon said.

"We had a subpoena from the Senate committee and a demand from outside counsel to the governor saying you will be violating a privilege that exists in favor of the executive chamber."

"We don't at this point know what's right and what's not, so we are doing what people do when there is a question that needs to be resolved: We are asking that it be resolved by a judge," Kindlon said.

He said the Senate knew there would be no testimony or substantial information provided on Monday.

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo reported in July that Dopp and at least one other top Spitzer aide used state police to compile travel reports on Senate Republican leader Joseph Bruno.

The data tracked Bruno's use of state aircraft and a state police driver on days he attended Republican fundraisers after meeting with lobbyists.

The travel records were then provided to a newspaper reporter who had requested them.

A subsequent investigation by Albany County District Attorney P. David Soares found no wrongdoing and no plot to smear Bruno.

The Senate investigations committee and the state Public Integrity Commission continue to investigate the case, which has led to gridlock in Albany since early summer.

A letter from Kindlon was delivered to the committee as it prepared to question Dopp and receive e-mails, private e-mail accounts and other documents.

"We reminded everyone on the record of the provisions of the penal law involved in contempt of the Legislature," Winner said.

"Our next step is either to enforce this on our own, or fold it into other litigation that's going on with the governor's office."

Spitzer is fighting the Senate committee's subpoenas.

The Democratic governor has said the hearings run by Republican Senators are politically motivated.

"The stonewalling continues, notwithstanding the promises of transparency," Winner said.

"It just belies the facts."

There was no immediate comment from Spitzer's office.

Spitzer said he is fully cooperating with the integrity commission probe as he did with the investigations by Cuomo and Soares, both of whom are Democrats.

"Senate GOP strikes back at Spitzer's illegal immigrant plan"

By VALERIE BAUMAN, Associated Press

Last updated: 5:42 p.m., Monday, October 22, 2007

ALBANY -- The Senate's Republican majority moved Monday to try to block Gov. Eliot Spitzer's plan to make it easier for illegal immigrants to receive driver's licenses.

It's part of an uncertain special session that could include action on pay raises for legislators and judges and tax breaks despite a projected deficit.

The Senate's license bill would require applicants for a driver's license to be in the country legally.

Spitzer's plan will end that requirement in December, by no longer requiring a Social Security number to get or renew a license.

Spitzer has said he can start the new policy in December without the Legislature's approval.

"We will change those rules," Spitzer said.

"If somebody will challenge it, we'll see what the courts will do."

He said he believes his administration is within its legal authority in changing the rules.

"This governor is so ill advised, there's an arrogance to it that is hard to understand," said Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno.

The Assembly's Democratic majority has supported the Democratic governor's plan, although some Democrats may side with the opposed Republican minority.

The Senate's measure, if passed as expected in that chamber, wouldn't become law without the Assembly's support.

Bruno said the attempt to change the policy on illegal immigrants was unconstitutional, contradicted the REAL ID Act and opposed the guidelines provided by the 911 commission.

After leaving a closed-door conference with Senate Democrats, Spitzer said the discussion was ongoing.

"Reasonable people will disagree on tough issues," Spitzer said.

"That's part of the discourse we have on tough issues and that's wonderful, that's as it should be."

"I think some of the rhetoric that has been imposed and brought into this issue has not only been overheated but I would say counterproductive."

Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism adviser to three presidents, and William Bratton, the former commissioner of the New York City Police Department have supported the governor's plan.

Meanwhile, the Assembly's minority Republican caucus called on Democrats to help pass legislation with new amendments when they go into session Tuesday.

The new items would also prevent Spitzer's plan from going through.

Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith said he and most of his Democratic caucus support the governor's plan.

"This is the right way to go, given that Washington has failed to act" on illegal immigration, Smith said on the Senate floor.

A spokesman for Silver and Assembly Democrats had no comment on how they would vote on the issue if forced to.

A Siena College poll released last week found 72 percent of voters were opposed to "the governor's plan to allow undocumented immigrants to get New York driver's licenses."

Assembly Republican leader James Tedisco of Schenectady said Republicans plan to force a vote on the issue on Tuesday, if the Assembly goes into session.

The session came the same day that Rensselaer County Clerk Frank Merola filed a lawsuit to prevent implementation of the new license policy.

"All county clerks this is a crazy idea," he said.

Earlier in the day more than 100 people gathered in front of the state Capitol to protest the governor's plan.

Shelley Martin, 54, of Cobleskill, said the governor's plan would send a bad message, and that it's wrong to reward people for breaking the law by being in the country illegally.

"I thought as attorney general he would enforce our laws," Martin said.

"I'm disappointed."

------

Associated Press Writer Michael Gormley contributed to this report.

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Eliot Spitzer's first year accomplishments (in no special order):

1. The DiNapoli mess, which demonstrated his remarkably weak political acumen.
2. His first NYS budget, which demonstrated his remarkably weak negotiating skills.
3. Telling an elected official that he's a f--king steamroller.
3. Traveling to districts of GOP Senators in order to embarrass them.
4. Trooper- or Chopper-gate.
5. Trying to get the IRS to investigate Bruno.
6. Giving undocumented immigrants NYS driver's licenses.

I'm sure I've left plenty out.

I'm also sure that this list will continue to grow.

Posted by: what's next | October 22, 2007 2:59 PM

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypoli...i.html#comments

"Records fight is cast as issue of privilege - Ex-Spitzer aide contends Senate subpoena covers confidential materials"

By RICK KARLIN, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Tuesday, October 23, 2007

ALBANY -- Former top Spitzer administration aide Darren Dopp is defying a Senate subpoena, setting the stage for a court fight over executive privilege.

"The stonewalling continues," Sen. George Winner, R-Elmira, chairman of the Investigations Committee, said after a brief meeting at which Dopp, the governor's former communications director, and his lawyer, Terence Kindlon, had been scheduled to appear.

The committee is investigating the controversy that erupted after top aides to Gov. Eliot Spitzer asked the State Police to re-create from memory records of travel by Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno to New York City using a state helicopter and police drivers.

Albany County District Attorney David Soares and Attorney General Andrew Cuomo both investigated the affair and found no illegalities.

Cuomo, however, said Spitzer's aides improperly drew police into what was essentially a political issue.

Dopp, who was suspended and then left to work for the Patricia Lynch Associates lobbying firm, was subpoenaed earlier this month.

Senators are seeking e-mails and other related correspondence.

Kindlon had previously said his client would come before the Investigations Committee at an Oct. 29 hearing.

The two were also scheduled to appear initially on Monday.

But that changed last week, Kindlon said, when Deitrich Snell, the lawyer representing the Spitzer administration, contended that a judge would have to decide whether the governor's aides are protected by executive privilege.

Joseph DiGenova, a lawyer advising the Senate Republicans, agreed, Kindlon said, adding that he hopes the judge who hears Snell's argument can also rule on whether Dopp is covered under executive privilege.

Kindlon maintains the items the Senate is requesting from Dopp are protected, either by attorney-client privilege or executive privilege.

In a letter sent to Winner on Monday, Kindlon said such items cover Dopp's e-mails, including those on his Blackberry device; policies on dealing with Freedom of Information Law requests; FOIL requests and communications with Times Union reporter James Odato; document retention and destruction policies; meeting notes, and "any and all information concerning any advice as to legality."

Controversy arose after a story July 1 by Odato questioning Bruno's use of state aircraft.

That prompted Bruno to claim Spitzer was spying on him.

Items that were not privileged, Kindlon said, were a copy of Dopp's resume and newspaper articles about the use of state aircraft.

The correspondence the committee is seeking is from when Dopp worked for the governor.

Karlin can be reached at 454-5758 or by e-mail at rkarlin@timesunion.com.

"Lawsuit filed as pressure increases - County clerk sues DMV; opposing bill passes in Senate as GOP pledges to fight Spitzer plan"

By JAMES M. ODATO and KENNETH C. CROWE II, Staff writers, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Tuesday, October 23, 2007

ALBANY -- Opponents of Gov. Eliot Spitzer's plan to allow illegal immigrants to gain driver's licenses turned up the pressure on the first-term Democrat on Monday, with Rensselaer County's elected clerk filing a private lawsuit, Assembly and Senate Republicans threatening taxpayer-funded litigation and several hundred citizens rallying against the governor's "unilateral" act.

"We are going to do everything that we can to keep that from happening," said Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno, R-Brunswick, in supporting a bill passed Monday night to derail the governor's action.

Rensselaer County Clerk Frank Merola, a Republican, sued the state Department of Motor Vehicles in Albany County in an effort to block the governor's policy and, as Merola told demonstrators on the Capitol steps, "to stop this nonsense."

"The governor is not listening to the people; perhaps he may listen to the courts," Merola said.

"New York residents have stated loudly and clearly that we are not in favor of giving licenses to illegal aliens and all we get from the governor are lectures on how we are wrong, and that if we were as smart as he was, we would understand and support this policy," Merola said.

Merola drew enthusiastic support from the crowd of about 200 people.

Holding a sign that read, "Don't Steamroll Our Safety," Richard Benz, 62, of Wyantskill said, "I voted for Spitzer."

"I regret it."

"Our country needs a lot more border protection."

"We're not against immigration."

"We're against illegal immigrants," said Karen Gilmore, 63, of Albany.

Spitzer, who met privately with Democratic lawmakers, some of whom also dislike the directive, insists it is legal and seemed undeterred by the heavy criticism and a recent poll showing more than 70 percent of New Yorkers dislike his licensing plan.

He said he governs according to principle, not polls.

"That is part of the discourse we have on tough issues and that's wonderful, as it should be," Spitzer said.

"Some of the rhetoric that has been imposed and brought into this issue is not only overheated but ... counterproductive."

Some of Spitzer's Democratic allies in the Senate minority and Assembly majority portrayed him as showing leadership amid fear-mongering and an undercurrent of racism.

Citing the use of fraudulent driver's licenses by the terrorists of Sept. 11, 2001, Bruno and other opponents charged that the governor's program will cause safety and security breaches and voter fraud.

Supporters said Spitzer's move will enhance security by bringing illegal immigrants out of the shadows.

They denounced references to the World Trade Center terrorists.

"Racists ... are having a ball," said Sen. Rubin Diaz Sr., D-Bronx, adding that he was referring to people outside the Senate.

"There is no connection between immigration and terrorism," said Sen. Jose Serrano, D-Bronx.

He backed Spitzer's assertion that New York motorists would save $120 million because illegal immigrants who register their cars will become insured, an estimate from the state Insurance Department that opponents consider dubious.

Following more than three hours of arguments, a bill from Sen. Frank Padavan, R-Bellerose, passed along party lines, 33-19.

The legislation would require applicants for driver's licenses and nondriver identification cards to provide proof of U.S. citizenship or lawful presence in the United States.

A few Democrats in competitive districts voted with the Republicans, including Andrea Stewart-Cousins of Westchester County, David Valesky of Syracuse and Craig Johnson of Nassau County.

Sen. Neil Breslin, D-Bethlehem, said he sided with Spitzer despite opposition from his constituents because he believes extending driving privileges is the right thing to do, and Spitzer's opponents are "pandering to people's emotions."

In the Senate debate and in an Assembly GOP news conference, Republican lawmakers expressed outrage at the governor's failure to consult with them or the public before announcing on Sept. 21 a policy to grant licenses to New York's more than 500,000 illegal immigrants.

That could happen as early as December if an applicant can produce identification such as a passport or birth certificate.

He would no longer need a Social Security number or a letter explaining why he lacks one.

Assembly Republicans plan to push today for legislation blocking the policy and providing immunity to county clerks who defy it.

Although the effort is expected to fail in the Democratic-controlled chamber, Minority Leader James Tedisco said it could help expose Democrats who "have been hiding in the weeds on this issue."

Assemblyman David Townsend, R-Rome, said the Spitzer initiative is part of a conspiracy to get illegal immigrants registered as voters in time to vote for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., next year in the presidential primary and general election.

Under the conspiracy, he said, even "Senor Tedisco" could vote.

Spitzer suggested Townsend's comments are illogical.

"A driver's license is not a ticket to voting," Spitzer said.

M. Odato can be reached at 454-5083 or by e-mail at jodato@timesunion.com.

ITHACA JOURNAL

"License controversy: Immigration reform must come from national level"

It is hard to disagree with Tompkins County Clerk Aurora Valenti's decision to follow the directive from Gov. Eliot Spitzer to license illegal immigrant drivers.

Other county clerks — and legislatures — have to take a different tack by refusing to follow the directive.

But both sides are just being pulled into a larger debate that needs to be fixed at the federal level.

We feel Valenti is right to follow the law because, in fact, it is the law.

When she and other clerks took oaths of office, they promised to follow the law as it is, not how they want it to be.

Since the law allows the governor to call the shots on this one, Valenti and other clerks who follow him are doing the right thing.

They can't decide they are not going to uphold the law — we would have an ugly form of anarchy if they did.

Though the driver's license issue has drawn the headlines lately, it is really just one piece of a much larger puzzle.

The federal government needs to revisit the immigration issue and come to a bipartisan compromise that will answer the smaller debates such as if someone who is here illegally should be able to obtain a license.

A piecemeal approach to this problem won't solve anything.

If a compromise could be reached, county clerks wouldn't become foot soldiers in a debate they shouldn't be involved in.

Originally published October 18, 2007

http://www.theithacajournal.com/apps/pbcs....F1014%2FOPINION