ALBANY — The breath taking coup that ap pears to have ousted Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith could claim what remains of Gov. Paterson’s political career.
Not only is Paterson’s record-high, tax-and-spend budget being blamed for pushing two Senate Democrats into the ranks of the Republicans, his claims to be a fiscally prudent government reformer are about to be put to the test in a way that could not have been imagined just a few days ago.
SENATE SHUT AMID ‘COUNTERCOUP’ BID
The new Republican/Democratic alliance that voted Monday to remove Smith is preparing to vote over the next two weeks on a range of conservative-oriented reforms, including a cap on state spending, a cap on local school property taxes, and the re-establishment of the popular STAR property tax rebates, which were abolished by Paterson’s budget.
The problem for the unelected Paterson, who polls show is the most unpopular governor in the nation, is that he’s proposed and supported both tax caps — but he did so at a time when he was certain that neither would pass a Democratic-controlled Legislature.
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver remains adamantly opposed to both caps. So what is Paterson going to do if the caps pass a newly reorganized Senate — side with the Republican insurgents over the Assembly Democrats’ objections?
Paterson has also claimed that he supports sweeping changes in the Legislature’s notoriously dysfunctional and anti-democratic procedures.
So how can Paterson now oppose the most sweeping set of reforms ever adopted in the Legislature, passed by the Senate insurgents?
GOLISANO WAS POWER BEHIND PUSH
“These are certainly steps in the right direction, and the equal distribution of [pork-barrel] ‘member items’ is a big one,” declared New York Public Interest Group Legislative Director Blair Horner, the Capitol’s leading reform advocate, after a preliminary review of the new reforms.
“This is a disaster for the governor,” said a prominent Democrat.
“He’s contributed to Malcolm’s apparent ouster, he’s facing a Republican-controlled Senate for the next year and a half, which will be passing bills he claims to support that will be rejected by the Assembly,” the source continued.
EDITORIAL: END THE CIRCUS, NOW
Many people wondered why Paterson’s threw such an angry hissy fit Monday night as he bizarrely denounced a majority vote to oust a Senate leader as anti-democratic and vowed to stop it, only to concede minutes later that he didn’t have the power to do so.
Now you know the answer.