SpinCycle [$]:

Blair Horner, legislative director of the New York Public Interest Research Group, said Cuomo made a “naked political deal” with hospitals on malpractice to get their support for a painful 2-percent cut in Medicaid reimbursement.

“It’s appalling,” said Horner, who was distributing fact sheets around the Capitol showing that New York’s malpractice payouts have declined in in the past four years. Yet, malpractice insurance rates for hospitals and doctors have increased faster than inflation, which Horner said should be investigated separately.

Cuomo aides said the plans came after Medicaid hearings across the state.

"It is absurd to brand as a political deal an open process that produced meaningful results with shared pain on all sides,” said Cuomo spokesman Josh Vlasto in a statement. “Evidently, old-style Albany special interest attacks during the budget process have not ended -- they are merely being carried out by surrogates. In this case, Blair Horner is the mouthpiece for the trial lawyers.”

UPDATE: Horner emails me to add:

"Pretty funny the best insult a career mouthpiece can come up with is to call someone a mouthpiece. It's not about personal insults, it's about the cruel impact that could result from the deal cut by the governor."

UPDATE II: Liz Benjamin chimes in: "I’m not sure how it is that Horner could be characterized as a handmaiden for trial lawyers."

"At the state level, it's sort of the Wild West now anyway," Mr. Horner told me earlier today. Mr. Horner, who hadn't yet read the decision, said there's no McCain-Feingold equivalent at the state level, so corporations can already spend with few restrictions. (Earlier, the city's Campaign Finance Board said it won't apply to city races either.)

"At the state level, New Yorkers are already in the whisper category and the big donors speak with megaphones. At the federal level, I think the megaphone just got amped up," Mr. Horner said.

But business as usual might be changing, at least a little bit. "The interesting thing is that the ethics bill that passed yesterday requires reporting independent expenditures--which I don't think is affected by the court decision--and which ironically may actually give more information to the public than exists now," he said.

"My understanding is we're actually looking at a new bill that has elements from all of the different passages that have actually been presented and as I said before I think that is a positive development," said Susan Lerner, the executive director of Common Cause. "Both houses have this problem, and both houses have to step forward jointly. No more one-house bills."

The Assembly has passed a "turn back the clock" bill that would blow up the Commission on Public Integrity and diffuse enforcement responsibilities across multiple agencies. Democrats controlling the State Senate considered the same bill as well as some further-reaching chapter amendments in September, but down a member, they laid it aside when it was clear Republicans would not provide any votes for the amendments. They opted to have no loaf instead of half.

No matter. A Senate source familiar with the negotiations said a new bill drafted in that chamber--and the threat of its introduction--prompted negotiations to start again with the Assembly and David Paterson.

"We hope the kumbaya moment happens soon," said Blair Horner, the legislative director for NYPIRG. He and Lerner joined Dick Dadey of Citizens Union which found in a new report, not surprisingly, that the number of legislators leaving office for ethical misconduct is increasing. The bill is not on the agenda for this special session, however, though the good-government groups hope a vote will happen as quickly as possible. Legislators are actually feeling incentivized to do something about ethics, as recent elections showed a strong anti-incumbent sentiment and polls show they are perceived by voters as a giant morass of dysfunctionality.

Horner said the current enforcement provisions--the Legislative Ethics Commission, controlled by legislators, is responsible for policing other legislators and does nothing--is inadequate.

"It's sort of Lake Wobegon-like enforcement where everyone is above average," Horner said.

"If he really asks for the tickets, it's a clear violation of the ethics law. It's mind-bogglingly inexplicable. Why would the governor do that? It makes no sense," Blair Horner, legislative director for NYPIRG, just told me by phone. "We're looking at it now, but the Commission on Public Integrity doesn't need a complaint. Again, I think it's a pretty clear case. There may be some aspect about it that we don't know, but the Commission on Public Integrity should investigate whether the governor was involved in the solicitation of an illegal gift from a lobbyist."

"If he did what's been reported, it was a dumb idea," Horner added.

Horner and others filed a request with the Commission to investigate smearing leaks made by the Paterson administration against Caroline Kennedy, which the commission has just said it would not pursue with a notice of reasonable cause that legal violations have occurred.

Members of the chamber failed--along party lines, with Republicans voting against--to pass a bill requiring more enforcement by government watchdogs, prompting Democrats to lay aside another bill passed by the Assembly.

On the chamber floor, Republicans attacked a chapter amendment introduced by Senator John Sampson that would have created a compliance-enforcement unit
with the State Board of Elections. The Republicans objected that it would cost the state money that the state doesn't have while creating inefficiency and the potential for partisan "witch hunts."

The chapter amendment--which currently has no companion proposal in the Assembly, and has difficult path to becoming law--was ostensibly introduced by Sampson in order to add to a bill already passed in the Assembly and carried in the Senate by Daniel Squadron. That bill would blow up the Commission on Public Integrity, to its dismay, and "turn back the clock" to 2007, in the words of NYPIRG's Blair Horner. (Other good-government groups, like Common Cause, have said they did not support the Assembly bill without the Sampson bill.)

Sampson's chapter amendment failed by party-line vote of 31 to 29; Senator Brian Foley, a Long Island Democrat, was absent as he buried his father. Senator John Bonacic, a Hudson Valley Republican, was also not present. Once that happened, the Squadron bill was laid aside.

"It's just a political act by this body," Senator John DeFrancisco, a Syracuse-area Republican, said of the Sampson bill. "It's not as good a solution as the Squadron bill."

Democrats blasted Republicans for voting against the bill.

"They don't' get it--New Yorkers want reform," said Austin Shafran, a Democratic spokesman. "This is like the mustard without the hot dog, and Republicans leaving New Yorkers hungry for reform once again."

"The basic pro is that anything that rids the state of New York of the Public Integrity Commission, is a step forward," Grandeau told me by phone. "This zombie agency has done more to set back ethics in the state of New York than anything that any legislator has done in the last two years."

He considers the commission's handling of the "Troopergate" affair a bungle; earlier this year a report by Inspector General Joseph Fisch called the CPI's investigation into question, and in response, David Paterson called for the resignation of all of the commissioners. None obliged, but executive director Herb Teitelbaum did resign.

Of course, the Commission on Public Integrity was created in 2007 by then-Governor Eliot Spitzer by combining the lobbying commission and the ethics commission.

Grandeau was the only person to lose his job in that merger (and has indulged his grudge in the past), which NYPIRG's Blair Horner agreed with Grandeau that the current CPI is the result of a "fatally flawed" "shotgun marriage" that "wasn't thought through."

(CPI spokesman Walter Ayres' rebuttal to Grandeau: "What does he mean by a zombie agency? I know it's a good-sounding phrase, but I'm not sure what it means. There's a book now called 'Pride, Prejudice and Zombies' in the bookstores, and I guess it's a trend now to add ‘zombie' to everything. I still don't know what it means, though, so I'll assume it's a compliment and that he thinks we're on the cutting edge of new trends.")

If the Senate passes this bill (it's also considering a chapter amendment), which already passed the Assembly, it would be up to David Paterson to sign or veto. He has proposed a different approach to structuring ethics enforcement that would keep the CPI largely intact.

At a hearing today, CPI Chairman Michael Cherkasky countered this assertion, and called the Senate's pending vote hasty and politically "advantageous and expedient."

He said breaking apart the agency into multiple enforcement entities--while putting him out of a job--would create a "tower of Babel" that "poses a substantial risk that the same law will be applied differently" by different agencies. It also won't change the way the toothless Legislative Ethics Commission operates, nor move it from under the control of the legislature.

"The elephant in the room is the fact that there's no action to the oversight of the legislature," Cherkasky told reporters after the hearing. I asked him if he had communicated his concerns to the governor; he said he had not (beyond talking to all of us) and said he was speaking out as a citizen in an unpaid position.

"Boy, there's obviously an ethical problem in this state," Cherkasky said. "There's perception and there's reality, and I think it's important for all of us to speak out. Other than that, how people accept it, I'll go back to my day job."

And speaking of going back to day jobs:

If this bill passes and the clock is turned back to 2007, does that mean Grandeau will return?

"We've always thought very highly of David and we thought he did a good job," Horner said. "But I have no idea what he wants to do with his life."

Grandeau didn't directly address the issue when I asked him.

"That's a difficult question for me," he said. "I've been very fortunate and lucky that in the last two years I developed a fortunate and successful business. But when the speaker of the assembly said that it was a mistake to split lobbying from ethics, I took that as a testament to the work that I did for 12 years. I took it as a compliment."

Since July 2005, the Committee to Re-Elect Senator Stafford has contributed nearly $60,000 to charities and fellow Republicans including Betty Little, his successor in the North Country-based Senate seat. The committee still has over $50,000 in its coffers available to be spent by Stafford's widow Kay, the president of CMA Consulting Services in Latham, which has been a registered lobbyist in New York since 2007.

Stafford died in June, 2005, leaving the Committee to Re-elect Senator Stafford with $108,321.95.

Since then, campaign finance filings show the committee gave $12,000 to the Clinton County Republican Committee; $6,800 to Little; $5,000 to support the failed 2006 campaign of Jeanine Pirro; $4,250 to the Republican State Committee; $3,500 to Senator Tom Libous, a Binghamton Republican; $2,509.31 for a "Faso Event" in the fall of 2006; $1,350 to the Republican Assembly Campaign Committee; $1,000 to Senator Steve Saland, a Hudson Valley Republican; $1,000 to the Republican Senate Campaign Committee; $1,000 to Clinton County Legislator Paul Maroun; $1,000 to Judge Thomas Mercure; $800 to Assemblywoman Janet Duprey; $5,000 to the Empire Leadership Council and $7,750 to various charitable and not-for-profit groups including the American Cancer Society and March of Dimes.

"I've never heard of ghost contributions before, but I guess it applies," said Blair Horner, NYPIRG's chief lobbyist for government reform at the Capitol. "This clearly underscores that there needs to be a law that you have to give the money back."

John Conklin, a spokesman for the State Board of Elections, said election law says "contributions received by a candidate or committee may be expended for any lawful purpose."

"There's no mention of whether the candidate has to be alive or dead, and the board has never expressed an opinion or policy on the use of the campaign funds post mortem," Conklin said.

It's unclear, once the candidate dies, who controls the fund. Conklin said that "we don't have any specific guidance" on who inherits control of the money, but noted the campaign treasurer is officially liable for and in charge of the actions of a committee.

The listed treasurer for the committee is Bonnie J. Lucas, of Plattsburgh, who was employed by the State Senate in Stafford's office for over 10 years, payroll records show. She is currently a "legislative aid" to Little who, according to the senator, works three days a week doing constituent services in her Plattsburgh office. She said there is no conflict with Lucas serving as treasurer and directing money from Stafford's campaign committee because "Kay Stafford makes those decisions."

"They're not unusual amounts, actually. I had a golf tournament and it was $1,000 for a foursome and I believe she came," Little said. Before his death, Little said that Senator Stafford "had contributed to my campaigns before that, and he had directed those. I believe that Bonnie was the treasurer then."

Both Maroun and Theresa Mercure, the wife of Judge Mercure, are or have been on Little's publicly funded senate staff.

"I've never thought of it as being any kind of a conflict," Little said. "The invitations are not sent to [Lucas]—the invitation went to Kay."

Ms. Stafford has donated herself over the same period, but not nearly as much as the committee. Horner said her control of and use of the committee raised several questions.

"Essentially, a campaign account is being controlled by a lobbying entity," he said. "Normally, the person involved is the retired legislator, not the dead one. In many states, you have to give the money back; New York is not one of them. Not even when you're dead: when you retire. Particularly when you're involved in lobbying."

"CMA is a big recipient of government contracts, and that's what they live for," Horner continued. "They don't make campaign contributions because they're feeling charitable, they do it fatten the bottom line."

CMA deals mostly with information technology contracts from local and state governments, and hired former Senate majority leader Joe Bruno as its CEO after his retirement from the State Senate in 2008. He was indicted by federal prosecutors for depriving the right of the public to "honest services" later that year, but is fighting the charges in court.

Kris Thompson, a spokesman for CMA, said that "the use of the campaign funds is totally appropriate."

"These are the same people Ron supported over the years," he said. "It only stands to reason that he would have continued to do the same."

Chris Keeley, the associate director of Common Cause, said that's a tough case to make four years after Senator Stafford's death.

"If it's four years later, it's arguable that it's being spent for its originally intended purpose. It's that sort of gray area that leads many in the public to be disillusioned by state politics."

He agreed with Horner that campaign accounts should be closed at the departure—by death, resignation or indictment—of a legislator. His group has advocated for similar measures for years, but none have advanced. Albany's power structure rarely rushes to more tightly regulate itself.

"I think it was deliberate. I think he was judge shopping and he was wrong," said State Senator Marty Golden, a Brooklyn Republican, noting that Judge L. Priscilla Hall was appointed to the Appellate Division Second Department four months ago. "I find it pretty shocking that this governor, out of all the judges in the state of New York, he would have to choose judges that he just raised to the next level in appointment within the next four months."

If this sounds familiar, it is. Democrats, including the governor himself, were attacking Republicans for filing their court challenge to the constitutionality of Ravitch's appointment in Nassau County instead of Albany. Now the case has been appealed to Brooklyn, and everyone expects it will work its way to the nine-judge Court of Appeals in Albany.

I asked Blair Horner, an advocate of transparency, ethics and such, if this boded poorly for public confidence in the ultimate result of the case.

"I hope it's just the typical antics that you see from whatever one side thinks they're on better ground, depending on the ideological orientation of the judge," he said. "It's hard to say. This is, in our opinion, not a slam dunk one way or another. Reasonable people can differ, and that may be the way the court ultimately comes down one way or another. I'm hoping at the Court of Appeals level, that that's the court of last resort and no one will attack the judges themselves."

"It's not in their political D.N.A. to work in a bipartisan fashion," said Blair Horner, the legislative director of NYPIRG and a longtime Capitol observer. "I don't know how long it takes to get there, but if there's any hope for the session, it's going to have to be in a bipartisan way."

Maybe, but expect more bickering first.

Here's one scenario:

Justice Thomas McNamara could decide this morning to sign an order presented by Republicans that would dissolve the Democrats' legal challenge to the "coalition" of State Senators Pedro Espada Jr. and Dean Skelos, a Bronx Democrat and a Long Island Republican. McNamara has indicated he doesn't want to get involved. This is one way not to do so.

Republicans would claim victory, wrap it in a cloak of bipartisanship and rules reform, but Democrats would no doubt continue to cry foul, possibly opting to boycott any session they call or claiming that Espada Jr. is in violation of a temporary restraining order they've obtained.

Here's another:

McNamara could side with the Democrats, signing a legal order continuing that party's control of the chamber by declaring State Senator Malcolm Smith still the majority leader and temporary president. The 31-31 split would still frustrate any agenda.

"It's the worst-case scenario," Assemblyman Jack McEneny, the Capitol's resident historian, said of the 31-31 split.

So about those bipartisan coalitions. In negotiations with the Republicans-plus-Espada caucus, State Senator Jeff Klein, a Bronx Democrat, proposed a system where the president pro tempore and floor leader would alternate day-to-day, and be of opposite parties. A six-member committee composed of three Republicans and three Democrats would determine what bills reached the floor.

"Regardless of if they win in the court case, we're still at a tie and we still need to come up with a short-term solution," Klein told me by phone after a closed-door session where he floated the system.

It was rejected.

In the long term, there have been suggestions of a system where committee chairs are more greatly empowered, like in Congress. Variations on Klein's plan for bipartisan control have been tried in other states, and may come to apply here.

But until the ruling comes down, its hard to see which what's going to be workable.

If McNamara favors the Republicans, as his stated reluctance to actively overturn the coup suggest, there will be more talk about bipartisanship from the Democrats, and more pointing by Republicans to the one Democrat voting with them, and the rules changes they voted in last week.

If Democrats win the case, it will be fun to see if Klein is still as interested in sharing power.