ALBANY—District attorneys from around the state, led by Staten Island's Dan Donovan, released this tape recording (caveat: it contains explicit language) supposedly of an incarcerated inmate talking with an associate out of jail, proclaiming newly enacted restructurings of the state's drug laws are creating "the beast."
"Now that I know I'm Read More
ALBANY—They really don't want Darrel to go.
While he has been mentioned as a very strong candidate for the congressional seat John McHugh is set to vacate, State Senator Darrel Aubertine's colleagues in the State Senate do not want to defend their majority without an incumbent in his district, which is Read More
ALBANY—Add another voice to the list of Republicans calling for the immediate resignation of Joe Mondello as chair of the state party: State Senator Marty Golden.
"He should get out. It's time for him to step aside," Golden told me by phone, after expressing similar sentiments on Fred Dicker's radio show Read More
ALBANY—The State Senate's
Austin Shafran, a spokesman for Smith, said that a bill will be introduced Wednesday, and a vote will take place next week.
Counting Padavan as a "yes" and Foley and Johnson as "no," and assuming all the other Democrats will vote yes (everyone I've seen has said they will, but Read More
Michael Bloomberg said the best way he can push state lawmakers to permanently fund the M.T.A. is to do it "outside the glare of the camera."
During the mayor's Q&A today after an event in Washington Heights, he was asked about a story in today's New York Times that reported Bloomberg hasn't Read More
ALBANY—The pressure on lawmakers to do something about the M.T.A. is starting to build again.
Members of the Straphangers Campaign, as well as other groups—General Contractors Association of New York, Environment Defense Fund, the Campaign for New York's Future and Transportation Alternatives—have so far spent $8,900 to place ads like the one above in newspapers Read More
ALBANY—Sheldon Silver has a new idea about finding Republican allies as lawmakers seek consensus around a package to fund the M.T.A. – look upstate.
"They should be on line first to make sure there's a well-funded M.T.A. capital plan," Silver said to reporters after giving a speech to T.W.U. Local 100, whose members Read More
ALBANY—Democratic state senators, after a long slog over the state budget and a weekend in their districts, are going to dinner.
Majority Leader Malcolm Smith called a meeting to be held at the suburban Desmond Hotel & Conference Center, where members are expected to serve as Monday-evening quarterbacks on how they handled the Read More
ALBANY—It looks like the State Senate will – gasp – have to hold session on Friday.
Members on both sides of the aisle said they expect to be at the Capitol tomorrow, and while debate on the bills comprising the state budget - three have been passed so far, the fourth, containing a Read More
ALBANY—As we figured the other day, any reforms to the Rockefeller drug laws will be addressed by the State Senate as part of the budget, and not before.
"It became clear in our discussions that this is as much a budgetary and economic issue as it is a sentencing issue," Majority Leader Malcolm Smith Read More
