The Senate majority has posted (on the day before Thanksgiving, no less) its Community Projects Fund Grants, (AKA Pork), on the Web.
Go to www.senate.state.ny.us. There you can look up projects from 2003-04 and 2004-05 that senators obtained funding for, be it Little League ballfield improvements, road projects etc.
Each project has a form which is signed by the requesting senator.
The information is listed under the Senate Reports link.
A note: The Times Union, joined by other media outlets, recently won a court fight to get details on these spending items.
The Senate stresses in a news release that the information has long been available through various state agencies, but reporters wanted to be able to trace spending items to individual lawmakers. Until now, that was no easy task.
Spending items for more recent years should be up soon, according to the Senate.
One warning, the listing is VERY big and will take your computer a long time to open, if it can open it all. Also, because it was scanned, it isn’t really searchable and requires patient scrolling to find the item, senator or dollar amount you may be seeking.
Three Democratic strategists involved in local campaigns are setting up shop as political consultants to Democratic candidates and “progressive advocacy organizations.”
The official launch of Morey, Ryan & Epstein, LLC is planned for Tuesday in downtown Peekskill.
Mike Morey managed Democratic Westchester County Legislator Mike Kaplowitz’s race against long-time Republican incumbent Vincent Leibell. Leibell won. Morey is chairman of the Northern Westchester Democratic Coalition and the City of Peekskill’s Democratic Party.
Kevin Ryan previously served as Westchester County Executive Andy Spano’s deputy campaign manager and political director for his 2005 race. During this election cycle, Ryan worked as the Westchester co-coordinator for the Spitzer campaign.
Allison Epstein managed Darren Rigger’s campaign during the Democratic primary for the 19th Congressional District nomination.
The new firm’s goal is “to support a progressive agenda for the region,” Epstein said.
Despite the recent stock market boom, the number of city residents who lack sufficient food, as well as the number forced to use charitable soup kitchens and food pantries, continued to soar, according to a new report by the New York City Coalition Against Hunger (NYCCAH).
During the most recent three year time period (2003-2005), 1,256,000 of the city's residents -- one in six -- lived in households that could not afford to purchase an adequate supply of food, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data analyzed by NYCCAH. During this time, 15.4% of city residents lived in those food insecure households, representing an approximately 112,000-person increase over the 2000-2003 time period, when 14.0% of New Yorkers lived in such households.
Statewide in New York during that same time, the number of people living in food insecurity climbed from 9.4 % to 10.4%, representing a roughly 80,000-person increase. In 2005, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, New York was the only state in the nation in which both poverty and overall earnings income increased, making the state a leader in inequality of wealth.
The number of people served by the city’s charitable food pantries and soup kitchens rose by an estimated 11% in 2006, on top of an estimated 6% increase from 2004-2005, according to the Coalition's annual survey of these agencies. Because the agencies were unable to obtain enough food, money, staff, and volunteers to meet their growing need, nearly half (46%) were forced to ration food by turning people away, reducing portion sizes, and/or limiting hours of operations.
“In a year when the stock market went through the roof -- and the number of billionaires in the city nearly doubled -- it is unconscionable that 1.3 million New Yorkers, including many children, did not have enough to eat,” said Joel Berg, executive director of the Coalition, an umbrella group for the city's more than 1,200 pantries and kitchens. “When the number of people forced to obtain food from charities continues to skyrocket, we know it’s time to rapidly reverse the failing public policies and harmful economic trends that cause this increasing hunger.”
The Coalition Against Hunger’s survey report (available at www.nyccah.org), entitled “Hunger Hangs on: Despite Stock Market Boom, New York City's Food Pantries and Soup Kitchens Are Still Overwhelmed,” also concludes that hunger and poverty are increasing because low-wage workers are facing declining wages at the same time costs for housing, food, and other basic necessities are rapidly increasing, while the government safety net has failed to keep up with rising needs.
• 83% of responding agencies reported feeding an increased number of people in the last 12 months. 45% said this number increased “greatly.”
• Of the populations that increased “greatly” at responding agencies, the fastest growth was seen among families with children, senior citizens and immigrants.
• 78% of responding agencies reported feeding an increased number of families with children over the last 12 months (versus 6% reporting a decrease, and 11% reporting no change).
• 75% of responding agencies reported feeding an increased number of seniors over the last 12 months (versus 7% reporting a decrease, and 13% reporting no change).
• 46% of responding agencies reported feeding an increased number of working people over the last 12 months (versus 7% reporting a decrease, and 21% reporting no change).
• 84% of responding agencies believe that their need will continue to increase in the next six months. 36% of responding agencies believe it will increase “greatly.”
• 40% of responding agencies reported receiving less government food and money in the last 12 months (vs. 19% reporting no change, and 35% reporting an increase).
• 41% of responding agencies reported receiving less overall food and money in the last 12 months (vs. 19% reporting no change, and 35% reporting an increase).
• Nearly half of respondents report being unable to distribute enough food to meet current demands (48%).
• 46% of responding agencies reported having to turn away hungry New Yorkers, cut portion sizes and/or cut hours of operation in 2006, vs. 41% of the same agencies in 2005.
• 27% of respondents reported using their own personal money “often” or “always” to support their feeding programs (57% do this “sometimes,” “often” or “always”).
As Eliot Spitzer prepares to ride into Albany as its conqueror, his lobbyist supporters are looking to rent office space up there, too. One of Spitzer’s longtime campaign consultants, Roberto Ramirez, the Bronx political macher and lobbyist, says he will be expanding his city-based MirRam Group and opening an Albany office, but he won’t disclose any details about who will run it and which new clients he’ll rep. “The soup,” Ramirez says, “is not ready.” Sources say the city’s top-grossing lobbyist and one of Spitzer’s fund-raisers, Suri Kasirer, has plans to expand her city operations by opening an Albany outpost. Scott Levenson, a lobbyist who raised money for Spitzer, is also checking out new office space in Albany to “steer clients towards drawing down” on the expected surge of Dem-sponsored capital. Spitzer has made reforming Albany his top priority, and lobbyists wonder what restrictions, if any, he will put in place to curb conflicts of interest. Says one Dem lobbyist, “From day one, Eliot has vowed to kill the pay-to-play system. Now everyone has paid, and they want to play.”
While much of the national political landscape is changing, there is one constant: The power and the people in the state Legislature will remain almost entirely the same.
And so goes the power of incumbency in a state Legislature that has a 98 percent re-election rate. The same trend held true this year, despite a national climate that produced a shift of power in Congress from Republicans to Democrats.
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But none of the legislative races in the Rochester area was close. The tightest was in the 130th Assembly District, a regional seat that runs across Monroe, Livingston and Ontario counties. Assemblyman Joseph Errigo, R-Conesus, Livingston County, won with 56 percent of the vote to 44 percent for Democrat Daniel West.
"Clearly, the sea wall that has been constructed to protect incumbents works very well in even the most dangerous political tsunami," said Blair Horner, legislative director for the New York Public Interest Research Group.
Watchdog groups have claimed that the incumbency protections of the state Legislature discourage competitive elections, hurt the democratic process and turn technically part-time positions into lifelong careers.
To change the system, groups have urged tougher campaign finance laws and an independent redistricting process, so election district lines aren't drawn with the intention of keeping one party in power. Democratic Gov.-elect Eliot Spitzer has called for similar reforms.
In a report Wednesday, NYPIRG said that only 35 incumbents have lost in general elections since 1982. The largest number of incumbents defeated at once was six, in 1984. Two years ago, four incumbents lost.
The report also showed that incumbents raise far more money than their opponents, allowing them to fill the airwaves and mailboxes with campaign messages. As of two weeks before the election, the average Assembly incumbent raised about 10 times as much as an opponent — $127,858 to $21,356.
In some Rochester races, the disparity was even greater. State Sen. Joseph Robach, R-Greece, and groups on his behalf will have spent more than $1 million on his re-election; Democratic opponent Willa Powell had spent less than $5,000.
He easily won re-election with 66 percent of the vote.
But Robach defended incumbency advantages, saying his greatest benefit is being able to discuss his strong record of accomplishments. And Robach doesn't enjoy an enrollment edge in his district: Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly 30,000 voters.
"In my district, people are voting for me for my performance, my delivery of resources and my personal connection with them," said Robach, a former Democratic assemblyman who switched parties in 2002 to run for the Senate.
Sen. James Alesi, R-Perinton, said the power of incumbency needs to be earned. If an incumbent doesn't work hard, he said, the public will notice and vote out an official, regardless of the system that benefits incumbents.
"You have an advantage as a incumbent, but you have a tremendous amount of responsibility to live up to the incumbency requirements," he said.
ALBANY, N.Y. -- While Democrats easily swept every statewide office at stake in New York on Election Day and took three congressional seats away from Republicans, things were not nearly as rosy for Democrats in state Senate races.
Things might have been a whole lot better for Senate Democrats and much worse for the Senate GOP if a bit more money and attention had been focused on the races. Instead, the GOP lost just one seat and is expected to hold a comfortable 34-28 seat majority in the new Senate.
"It was clearly not the No. 1 priority for Democrats," said state Sen. Liz Krueger, a Manhattan Democrat who headed up the Senate's Democratic Campaign Committee.
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Krueger said the Senate GOP was helped by polls showing Spitzer, Clinton and other statewide Democrats far ahead. That meant Republican donors pumped money into state Senate races, hoping to keep at least a toehold in New York where Democrats also control the state Assembly.
It is not that there weren't other opportunities for the state Senate Democrats.
In Queens, veteran Republican state Sen. Serphin Maltese barely won re-election with 51 percent of the vote against Albert Baldeo, a Democrat who not only didn't get help from the Senate Democrats' central campaign committee, but was largely ignored by the Queens Democratic organization.
"In 20-20 hindsight, I'm sorry I had no data showing that was a race," said Krueger. "That was not on our radar screen."
Writing about the Queens race in the weekly Village Voice newspaper, Wayne Barrett suggested Baldeo's lack of help might have more than a little to do with the close relations that had developed over the years between Maltese, the Queens County GOP chairman and a former state Conservative Party state chairman, and the county's Democratic leadership. Maltese has held the Senate seat since 1988.
Early this year it appeared that Maltese might be in real trouble when Republican New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg let it be known that he might support a possible challenge for the Senate seat being contemplated by Democratic city Councilman Joseph Addabbo Jr. Bloomberg and the Queens GOP had been at odds during his successful re-election bid in 2001 and the mayor was also complaining the state Senate GOP wasn't being generous enough to the city. The possible Addabbo challenge quickly disappeared after Bloomberg and state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno made peace.
Meanwhile, on Long Island, Republican Caesar Trunzo, in the Senate since 1972, won re-election with just 53 percent of the vote against a Democrat given little help by the Senate minority. State Senate Democrats also did little to help candidates running for open seats on Staten Island and in the Utica area. On Staten Island, Democrats even had an advantage in enrollment for the seat being vacated by Republican John Marchi.
Part of the problem for Senate Democrats was that Minority Leader David Paterson had let it be known more than a year ago that he did not believe Democrats could take the Senate in 2006 and that the real target was 2008. Such statements did little to encourage fundraising.
"We were dramatically outgunned with money," Krueger told The Associated Press on Thursday. She estimated the GOP spent more than $7 million while she was able to muster less than $2.5 million.
Then, Paterson got tapped to become Spitzer's running mate, leaving Senate Democrats with a lame-duck leader through the election cycle. While Spitzer and Paterson did lend a hand in some Senate races, their attention was obviously elsewhere.
Senate Democrats were helped in 2004 by the larger turnout that accompanies presidential elections, especially in a state as blue as New York. More than 7.4 million voters trooped to the polls in 2004 while just over 4.2 million turned out in 2006 in a state where there are more than 5 million Democrats and just 3 million Republicans.
The problem now faced by Democrats is that they have now given the GOP a roadmap of the potential targets for 2008. In politics, as in much of life, forewarned is forearmed.
What isn't dealt with here is the effect on:
1. candidate recruitment
2. not only squandering the opportunity for a stealth takeover by now
allowing lots of time for the R's to get their act together, but I
predict every seat will have to face serious primary challenges the
next time, so its going to cost even more money.
3. apparently, one of the dem "strategies" as articulated by (name omitted -ed) to
me was one of, well the Senate will flip because all the R's are
getting old and will die, and the D numbers are increasing. I pointed
out that that political strategy would have us waiting for Sue Kelly's
natural demise instead of doing the right thing and running to win
elections.
Upstate Conservatives Coalition Calls for the Ouster of Joe Bruno
Senate Majority Leader Is One Man LegislatureUpstate Conservatives has formed to restore conservative ideals in New York State government. The same coalition that launched the website www.dumpjeffbrown.com is now calling for the resignation of Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno. Upstate Conservatives is presently headed by former New York State Conservative Party Vice-Chairman Jim Brewster and includes a cross section of bipartisan political leaders and citizens. During the past election season members of Upstate Conservatives played a role in defeating Senator Bruno and Assemblyman Jeff Brown in their attempt to purchase the 49th New York Senate District for 1.5 million dollars.
In his tenure as majority leader Bruno has created a dictatorship in the New York State Senate that goes against the most basic principles of democracy.
Only after being sued by journalists has Joe Bruno agreed to release detailed information about millions of dollars of public funds spent under his direction. Each year Bruno alone distributes these funds to senators with no public oversight and no accountability. Citizens who live in minority districts receive millions less in tax dollars than those represented by members of Bruno’s Republican majority many of who use vast amounts of public funds to support pet projects and clandestinely reward political supporters.
Joe Bruno has continually courted the support of the New York State Conservative Party, but at the same time has supported legislation that is in direct opposition to the party’s platform i.e. SONDA etc.
Working with his assembly counterpart, Speaker Sheldon Silver, Bruno has been able to effectively stop true legislative reform in Albany; gerrymander legislative districts to ensure election outcomes, and create an overload of bureaucrats on the public payroll. (Silver must go too, but that is a job for the Democrats to try again.)“The Republican Party is on life support under Joe Bruno,” said Jim Brewster. “As indicated by Dave Valesky’s victory, the voters have clearly rejected Bruno politics. The time has come for Joe Bruno to go.”
Upstate Conservatives will be launching a variety of initiatives during the upcoming legislative session to excite public interest in Bruno's resignation. We will be reaching out to potential Conservative replacements for Senator Bruno to ensure they have the necessary support to challenge him. Upstate Conservatives firmly believes that by freeing the senate to function in an honest and open fashion, true legislative reform can begin in New York.
Also, all state senators in the region (John Bonacic, R-C-Mount Hope; Bill Larkin, R-C-Cornwall-on-Hudson; and Tom Morahan, R-C-New City) are members of the state Senate's ruling Republican Party. Considering Bonacic's tap into the gravy train before, imagine now what leadership will do to fend off future challenges.
Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno said yesterday that GOP senators will be well protected over the next two years and can count on significant pork and legislative say-so. "They are going to do extremely well on behalf of their constituency," Bruno said of state Senate Republicans.
The Republicans will control the New York state Senate for one reason only, and for the reason they have in the past, because New York Democratic politicians want them too. There was enough of a Democratic wave this year that the Dem- Senate leader elect had to all but announced this. This stuff is getting blatant enough that the usually incumbent friendly NY Times called on voters to vote for Republicans for the State Assembly and for Democrats for the State Senate.
A Republican state Senate gives the Democrats a good enough excuse to continue business as usual in New York. The problem is, this isn't 1913 (when the legislature impeached and removed a reform-minded governor) when this was one of the wealthiest jurisdictions in the world and could tolerate some graft. Modern day New York is a combination of a city no one can afford to live in and an upstate where no one can find jobs.
We are probably four years away from a collapse of the state tax base. Until then, we pretty much got the State Senate the Dem NY establishment wanted. Its a contrast from the federal House where enough progressive and populists got swept in to at least make things interesting for the next two years.
State Sen. Nicholas Spano has not yet conceded to Democrat Andrea Stewart-Cousins, but local Republicans are already pointing fingers at Joe Bruno and the Republican leaders in the state Senate for his expected loss.
At the heart of their anger is the redistricting plan adopted after the 2000 census, which, despite Spano’s objections, took the Republican friendly town of Eastchester away from him and put it in the district of then-state Sen. Guy Velella of the Bronx.
What makes local GOP officials even more incredulous is the fact that Velella, at the time, was already under indictment on bribery charges. He later pleaded guilty and resigned his seat.
“There is no question that the major reason it looks like Nick Spano lost this race is because the Republicans in the state Senate damaged his district in redistricting to the point that it made him vulnerable,” said Westchester Legislator James Maisano, a Republican from New Rochelle.
Does anyone know more about the Working Familes Party and their role in re-electing Spano? I heard that they 'realpolitiked' him into re-election last time around by endorsing him on the ballot in order to get the minimum wage hike. In my experience, at least where I live, 1199 IS essentially the WFP. I have experience with the WFP, but I'm wondering what you all think about it, especially their role in taking back the state senate.
Eliot Spitzer, who made a name for himself attacking wrongdoing on Wall Street, now faces a more formidable task as governor: overhauling a moribund state government that has been called the most dysfunctional in the nation.
Mr. Spitzer, a Democrat, is about to learn that his campaign promise — “Day 1, everything changes” — may not be so easy to fulfill when he is faced with a famously intransigent State Legislature and entrenched interests that have long grown used to getting their own ways in Albany. Given the realities of Albany, changing things much in his first 100 days, or first year, or first term could be a tall order.
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To accomplish much of what he wants to do, Mr. Spitzer will not only have to take on the lobbyists and the powerful special interests who showered money on his campaign, but he will also need to win over a politically divided Legislature that will probably be under the same leaders who were responsible for the infamous gridlock under three terms of Gov. George E. Pataki.
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Complicating matters for Mr. Spitzer is the reality that the Legislature has proved extremely adept at insulating itself from accountability to the voters, whether through laws that let incumbent lawmakers draw their own district lines to virtually ensure re-election, or through lax campaign- finance laws that allow large donations, and that make it easy for political parties to funnel huge sums of money to aid the rare endangered incumbent.
Mr. Spitzer has roundly denounced these practices. But if he takes aim at them right away, he risks souring his honeymoon period and endangering parts of his agenda. If he does not, though, he risks finding himself where many a governor has found himself before: frustrated again and again by lawmakers who risk no retribution at the polls.
Michael Waldman, the executive director of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, which branded New York State’s Legislaturethe most dysfunctional in the nation, said Mr. Spitzer has his work cut out.
“This is potentially a reform moment that comes along once every generation or two, where people broadly are fed up, where candidates get elected with specific mandates,” he said. “But reform moments don’t always turn into reform. Spitzer has a big agenda, and it won’t be easy. “He’s been very gutsy in laying out an agenda that was much more specific than it had to be, and he can claim a mandate for it. But the Legislature is still the same Legislature. And governors and presidents with big electoral mandates don’t always get the deference from Legislatures that they want.” No relationships in Albany are more complicated, or more important, than those among the three men who actually run the state: the governor, the Assembly speaker, and the majority leader of the State Senate. Agendas can live or die based on those relationships.
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And it is hard to know what Senator Joseph L. Bruno, the majority leader in the Republican-controlled Senate, will be like in his new role as the odd Republican out. Mr. Bruno has long espoused a get-it-done philosophy, and has shown himself to be ideologically flexible. But he has been unhappy with Mr. Spitzer in recent weeks as Mr. Spitzer has campaigned with gusto against some of the Republican senators Mr. Bruno needs to maintain his slim majority.
Welcome to Westchester County, the Deep South of New York State.
That's the message supporters of powerful Republican State Sen. Nick Spano gave to hundreds of black and Hispanic Westchester residents on Election Day with an ugly campaign of voter intimidation at several polling sites.
"For most of the day, it felt like I was in the South," said one Democratic Party lawyer.
....
Stewart-Cousins, Westchester's best-known black leader, was ahead by more than 2,100 votes. Spano, however, has refused to concede. He is clinging to the hope that a tally of absentee and affidavit ballots will erase his opponent's lead - one that withstood questionable tactics on Election Day.
The worst example was seen at the Police Athletic League gymnasium on North Broadway in Yonkers, a largely minority neighborhood.
A large throng of Republican volunteers, many of them wearing Yonkers Fire Department shirts and union caps, gathered inside the polling place and repeatedly challenged the signatures of many of those coming in to vote, said Frank Streng, a White Plains attorney who visited the North Broadway site in the late afternoon as a Democratic Party legal monitor.
The widespread challenges led to long lines of angry black voters. Eventually, Streng convinced police and county election officials to show up and reduce the number of Republican poll-watchers. The law allows only three per election district.
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Ironically, it was the Spano campaign, not Stewart-Cousins, that benefitted from significant Election Day help from New York City outsiders.
That help came from Local 1199/SEIU, the powerful hospital workers union headed by Dennis Rivera. Rivera dispatched scores of his members to work the polls for Spano and threw his union's enormous resources behind him.
This was all done to help Rivera's close friend, Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno, the main politician in Albany who makes sure every year when the state budget is approved that the needs of 1199 and the city's hospital executives are met.
The Spano campaign has become the clearest example of how far 1199 has wandered from its rich legacy of championing civil rights.
The favorite union of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. has gradually turned into just another deal-cutting political machine. Its charismatic leader, once the shining prince of this city's labor movement, has turned into just another political boss.
And this week came the lowest point of all.
The leaders of this union of mostly black and Hispanic workers did everything they could to defeat a progressive black woman Democratic candidate in Westchester. They did so even as their Republican allies in that race were intimidating black voters.
And despite all that, Stewart-Cousins was still leading in the count in the Deep South of Westchester.
The Republicans, who hold a 35-27 majority over the Democrats, said last night that Mr. Spano was the only endangered incumbent, despite the Democratic sweep of statewide offices with a ticket led by Eliot Spitzer and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
“This is working a miracle, if you think about what happened here in this state,” said Senator Joseph L. Bruno, the majority leader. “We’re going to have representative government, checks and balances, and a two-party system,” he said.
For Democrats who have long sought to take control of a Senate in New York that has seemed stubbornly out of reach even though the state has 5.5 million registered Democrats and only 3.1 million registered Republicans, 2006 proved to be a squandered opportunity.
Some Democrats believed that too little was done on Senate races to take advantage of a year when their party got almost all the breaks on the rest of the statewide ticket. Republicans, by contrast, worked feverishly to protect their majority. For the Republicans, it was a critical fight: since many of them had already written off the governor’s race, they concentrated on the Senate hoping to retain a power base in Albany.
Controlling even one house of the Legislature, they knew, would effectively give them veto power over much of what goes on in the state: they would have to approve all of Mr. Spitzer’s budgets, agree to his legislative proposals, and even give their approval to many important construction projects and grand plans around the state.
Given that prospect, the Democrats did relatively little to try to take the Senate. They put some of their star power behind their State Senate candidates — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Mr. Spitzer stumped for Ms. Stewart-Cousins — but did little to share the wealth that poured into the campaign coffers at the top of the ticket. Republicans, by contrast, raised money at a furious clip for their Senate candidates.
The New York State Senate Republican Campaign Committee raised more than $7 million this year, taking in more than $1 million in the past two weeks. The Democrats raised less than $2 million for their campaign committee this year, according to campaign finance reports filed with the State Board of Elections.
And Republican senators bombarded their constituents with mailings noting property-tax rebate checks that they made sure arrived this fall and all the pork they were able to dole out to their districts by virtue of controlling the majority.
Neither house in the State Legislature has changed hands in three decades. The odds are stacked against change, because of district lines drawn to protect incumbents and the huge fundraising advantage they enjoy.
But in a year that some knew would be a rising Democratic tide, relatively few resources were thrown at lifting the smallest boats: the state’s Democratic Senate candidates.
