Morning briefing
-
- September
- 24
All eyes are again on Albany today as the Senate Investigations Committee holds its third meeting on the Troopergate scandal, in which aides to Gov. Eliot Spitzer released information aimed at discrediting the political reputation of Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, a Rensselaer County Republican. Acting State Police Superintendent Preston Felton, whose agency helped Spitzer aides gather information about Bruno’s flights on state aircraft, is not going to appear at the meeting, and senators will vote on whether to subpoena him.
This is comes in the wake of Albany County District Attorney David Soares’ report Friday that found Spitzer staffers did not break any laws in Troopergate.
Spitzer announced Friday that the state Department of Motor Vehicles no longer would require Social Security numbers as a required form of identification to get a driver’s license. This was hailed by advocates for immigrants’ rights and decried by people who think giving licenses to illegal aliens is a threat to homeland security.
The Senate said Friday it would hold public hearings on two of three nominees for the State University of New York Board. New members, who were nominated by the governor in June, can’t start serving until they are confirmed by the Senate.
The governor on Friday announced appointments to the new state Commission on Public Integrity, which replaces the Ethics and Lobbying commissions. The Ethics and Lobbying panels officially went out of business on Friday.
State Sen. Dean Skelos, R-Suffolk County, unveiled a proposal to make all public-school teachers state employees as a means to control skyrocketing property taxes.
Bomb threats have been taking a toll on school budgets.
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on Monday, September 24th, 2007 at 10:55 am by Cara Matthews.
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Jay Gallagher has covered Albany for Gannett News Service since 1984 and has been Albany Bureau chief since 1989. He`s a native of the Boston area and likes to point out that in this millennium, the score is Red Sox 1 championship, the Yankees 0. 
Cara Matthews has been a statehouse correspondent in the Albany Bureau since August 2005. Prior to that, she covered Putnam County government and politics at The Journal News for nearly five years. Before that, she worked at newspapers in Connecticut and covered the state Legislature for one of them. 
