ALBANY – Gov. Spitzer yesterday played vicious hardball with his chief opponent in the battle over driver’s licenses for illegal aliens – canceling $300,000 in state-funded health-care and education projects in Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco’s district, The Post has learned.
“It’s governance by vengeance. He doesn’t care who he hurts,” a furious Tedisco (R-Schenectady) told The Post.
“You disagree with him and he tries to steamroller you,” said Tedisco, a Republican.
The Democratic governor made his infamous “I’m a f- – -ing steamroller” remark to Tedisco earlier this year.
Tedisco, who has pledged to sue Spitzer to block the driver’s license plan, said he received word of the blocked programs from Spitzer’s budget director, Paul Francis.
“He wouldn’t say why, but I have no doubt it’s a direct result of my opposition to the governor’s plan to give licenses to illegal aliens,” said Tedisco.
Tedisco said he was especially outraged that Spitzer blocked $100,000 in funding for a Schenectady clinic where volunteer doctors provide free health care to the uninsured.
“Here’s another dirty trick from this governor. And you know who he is playing the dirty trick on? He’s playing it on the poor people of Schenectady.
“He’s out there bashing President Bush for not signing a health-care program for kids and he’s going to close down a health-care program for the poor in my district and these people will now be at the doorstep of hospital emergency rooms at 10 times the cost,” Tedisco continued.
Tedisco, who regularly refers to Spitzer as “illegal Eliot” because of the governor’s license plan, said the governor’s actions would stiffen his resolve to fight the ID proposal.
Spitzer spokeswoman Christine Anderson insisted the governor wasn’t retaliating against Tedisco but was only “trying to get state budget spending under control.”
She said the funds claimed by Tedisco were in the 2005 and 2006 budgets in a special account created by Republican then-Gov. George Pataki to provide local “member item” projects to GOP Assembly members.
Anderson said that while Spitzer had agreed to honor past commitments made by Pataki, the projects cited by Tedisco weren’t among them.
However, Tedisco’s chief of staff, William Sherman, said Spitzer’s action directly contradicts a promise. “We were assured by the governor’s budget division earlier this year that the money for all these projects would be there,” he said.
Spitzer took his unprecedented action against Tedisco six days before the Legislature was slated to hold a special session at which a measure blocking the driver’s license plan could come to a vote.
Earlier this month, Spitzer, who has come under increasing criticism for his harsh attacks on critics – including his effort last week to sic the Internal Revenue Service on Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno (R-Rensselaer) – insisted he respected those who disagreed with him.
“Reasonable people will have different points of view about public policy. I get that,” he said at Fordham University.