Tomorrow’s special leg islative session will be an all but certain flop because nervous Democrats, eyeing last Tuesday’s suburban voter revolt, are refusing to back Gov. Paterson’s plan to slash school and health-care spending.
“If Paterson had a chance of getting the cuts he wanted, that chance ended last Tuesday,” said a prominent Senate Democrat, adding that there is now “widespread fear of defeat next year” among many Democrats in the wake of the stunning election results.
Paterson, citing a looming $3 billion-plus current-fiscal-year deficit and a continuing grim financial outlook, wants lawmakers to slash nearly $1 billion in already committed aid to local school districts and hospitals, two of the most politically popular programs in the state.
Republicans contend that 40 percent of the governor’s school cuts would hit suburban Long Island districts, which have just 18 percent of the state’s school population.
“If any of our ‘marginals’ voted for those school cuts they would be dead next November,” said the Senate Democrat, referring to a half-dozen “marginal” Democrats, including two on Long Island, who have been targeted for defeat by Republicans.
While Assembly Democrats, unlike their Senate counterparts, have been publicly supportive of Paterson’s efforts, they privately tell a different story.
Insiders said Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) is “unwilling” to go along with the size, scope and distribution of Paterson’s proposed school-aid and health-care cuts because he considers them to be too sweeping and out of fear of their impact on suburban Democrats.
While Republicans won many local elections last week, none was more important than their unexpected landslide defeat of Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano and their strong and still possibly successful run against Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi, who planned to seek statewide office next year.
“Spano’s loss and Suozzi’s near-death has stunned everyone, Democrats and Republicans, because they show how angry voters, and especially suburban voters, are,” said a prominent Democrat.
Paterson is expected to receive a cool reception this afternoon when he delivers a rare address on the state’s fiscal problems to a joint session of the Legislature.
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Paterson’s new, $500,000-a-week TV-campaign blitz is a “final ‘Hail Mary’ pass unlikely to change his rock-bottom public-approval ratings.”
That’s the assessment of one of the state’s best-known Democrats, who has been supportive of Paterson but who has come to believe the unelected governor won’t be his party’s nominee next year.
“People have concluded that the governor isn’t competent, isn’t up to the job, and a couple of 30-second commercials claiming achievements nobody believes isn’t going to change that,” the senior Democrat said.