With Senate Democrats Or Not, Paterson Calls Special Session
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- November
- 5
Even as Senate Democrats say they won’t return to Albany until they have a budget deal, Gov. David Paterson is ordering them back on Tuesday for a special session.
And, as he’s promised, he’s put out a long list of key priorities of his administration for lawmakers to consider adopting.
He wants them to close the $3.2 billion budget gap; establish a cap on government spending, adopt a circuit breaker that would tie taxes to household incomes, and pass a same-sex marriage bill.
Other measures he put on the agenda include: enhancing penalties for operating a motor vehicle while impaired and expanding court-ordered use of ignition interlock devices; and creating the Tier V pension benefits that would lower pension benefits for new employees.
“The time to act is now, ” Paterson said.
The Empire State Pride Agenda was quick to put out with a news release praising Paterson for putting same-sex marriage on the agenda.
“”Marriage equality has been an issue Governor Paterson has long championed and we are thrilled he has called the State Senate back to Albany next Tuesday and put the marriage equality bill on the agenda,” said the group’s executive director Alan Van Capelle. “We now expect that we will get the respectful debate and vote that we’ve been waiting for since June.”
The authority reform bill has been under discussion by Paterson and legislators for months after Paterson had expressed concerns about portions of the bill.
Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, D-Greenburgh, Westchester County, said they are “very close” to have the agreement between the sides completed.
“We’ve very pleased that after seven years of struggle to reform these institutions, it looks like it’s going to happen,” said Brodsky, who has been a chief critic of the scandal-scarred public authorities.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 3:56 pm by Joseph Spector.
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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. 
