Paterson Speaks

Ah, ask and thee shall receive: thanks to these posters (sorry about the mole remark...) for chiming in with what they know about the highly secretive proceedings on deciding on the operator for the Aqueduct racino. And I certainly agree that a re-selection of Delaware North would be such an obvious case of lobbyist influence and favorite-playing as to spark outrage (and lawsuits) across the board.

Governor Paterson will address the state on the Senate stalemate at 5 PM today; you can watch it here (with the proper media software). The address comes amidst conflicting reports of progress in the negotiations (or not), threats from Senator Espada and his three amigos to impose their own solution by tomorrow, and acrimony along racial lines. This is nasty stuff.

There are rumors circulating that Paterson will either announce a selection of a lieutenant governor to break the stalemate or threaten to do so. As I mentioned the other day, it's constitutionally unclear if he can legally do so, and Attorney General Andrew Cuomo fired a shot across the governor's bow in that regard the other day.

Such an announcement would be the first partisan move on the governor's part since the turmoil began....assuming, as I will, that he will pick a Democrat. Senator Dean Skelos said that such a move would be a "desperate, and frankly sad, action." Skelos should know. The June 8 coup was, sadly, borne out of just such desperation to escape the minority status that the GOP was relegated to by the electorate last fall, and to avoid the treatment that his party subjected the Democrats to for the last 40 years.