Metro

Silver shows his hand

Albany insiders are ridiculing Assembly Speaker’s Sheldon Silver’s latest issue, calling it, “The Lobbyist Protection Act of 2013.”

That’s because Silver is demanding that politically chosen lawmakers, and not Gov. Cuomo’s new Gaming Commission, make the decision on where to locate up to seven new gambling casinos in New York.

“This could be worth tens of millions of dollars in fees to lobbyists from gaming interests across the country, and it could make that much more money for many of Shelly’s friends,’’ said a source involved in preparing gambling legislation.

“Shelly knows that granting discretion to the Legislature to make judgments like this means opening the spigot to huge lobbying dollars to influence the decisions. And he knows, too, that where there are huge lobbying dollars, there are huge contributions to be made to political campaigns,’’ the source continued.

Cuomo last week slipped language into his proposed state budget that grants the new Gaming Commission, which comes into existence Feb. 1, authority to use objective standards to determine the location of future casinos, assuming a constitutional amendment green-lighting full-blown casinos is approved by state voters in November.

But Silver quickly sought to shoot down the plan, telling the Buffalo News that the Legislature, not the Cuomo-controlled commission, should do the selecting.

“We want a method by which the Legislature has input into the determination as to where the casinos will be, what the timing will be on it,’’ Silver said.

Cuomo, however, is expected to fight to retain control over locations.

Legislative involvement in the establishment of a casino-like “racino’’ at Aqueduct in 2010 produced a massive corruption scandal that led to a scathing report by then-Inspector General Joseph Fisch that alleged potentially criminal conduct by high officials, a claim that is now being probed by federal authorities.

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Senate insiders are predicting that Republican Leader Dean Skelos, a longtime Nassau County lawmaker, will leave office at the end of next year if the GOP fails to regain control in 2014 elections.

Earlier this month, he presided over the historic breakup of Republican Conference unity, when he led the entire Long Island GOP delegation in voting for Cuomo’s tough new anti-gun law — even as all but one upstate Republican opposed the measure.

Insiders say Skelos, in the Legislature since 1981, is now largely focused on running up additional time in the pension system, keeping a set of politically ineffective cronies on the state payroll, and enjoying the perks of his office.

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Five months after Cuomo promised struggling upstate dairy farmers he’d relax some regulations so they could produce more milk for the growing yogurt industry, no changes have been made.

Cuomo’s proposal would allow small dairies to increase their number of cows from 200 to 300 before being covered by highly restrictive CAFO — or concentrated animal feeding operations — regulations that can cost $2,400 per cow.

A spokesperson for the Department of Enivornmental Conservation said, “We expect to release the final regulations in spring 2013.’’

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Cuomo’s tensions with his own Catholic Church over his proposed “Women’s Equality Act’’ — which critics say could force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions — may worsen later this year when Albany Bishop Howard Hubbard reaches the mandatory retirement age of 75.

Hubbard, a onetime liberal “street priest” who conspicuously refrained from criticizing Gov. Mario Cuomo during his highly publicized clashes with the Church over abortion, must submit his resignation to the Vatican in October and Church authorities expect that Cardinal Dolan will be authorized to find a replacement.

“This may well mean a much more conservative bishop for Albany who won’t be hesitant, as Bishop Hubbard was, to take on Gov. Cuomo,’’ said a source.

fdicker@nypost.com