Gov. David Paterson, who is participating in a meeting with legislative leaders in New York City, said he wants to release  the proposed 2009-1010 budget Dec. 16 rather than in January and potentially start the new budget year earlier than April 1. The reason is the state’s credit rating could be downgraded because of the state’s financial crisis, he said.  

   The governor announced that he is calling a Nov. 18 special legislative session for lawmakers to work on further cuts to the current year’s budget. The state is facing a further $1.2 billion budget shortfall because of what has been happening on Wall Street. The session is necessary so the state can meet its statutory responsibility of balancing the budget, Paterson said. This will be the third round of cuts this year.

     The state has sprung another $1.2 billion leak in its budget because of the downturn on Wall Street, state budget officials said today.

” A series of unprecedented economic shocks in September have further worsened the state’s fiscal outlook,’’ according to a report from the state Budget Division, leaving revenues $1.2 billion below what’s needed to balance the budget for this fiscal year, which ends next March 31.

Gov. David Paterson and legislative leaders, who agreed in August to cut spending by $427 million, are meeting this morning to deal with the latest bad financial news.

Getting away from his attacks on Republican Sen. Joseph Robach, Democratic foe Rick Dollinger released his economic platform this afternoon, which he said would increase jobs and come up with “innovative ways” to strengthen upstate’s sluggish economy.

“We’ve had decades of job declines but fewer and fewer good ideas coming out of Albany,” said Dollinger, who is a former Democratic state senator. “It is time for us to present new ideas in addition to reforming the abysmal failures of several state programs. This plan promises to bring jobs, innovation, and investment to a region the Republican majority has hitherto ignored.”

Dollinger offered to start a Green Jobs Investment Fund, saying that Rochester could become the “Silicon Valley of renewable energy.” He said the fund would include private and public dollars.

He also wants to start an Emerging Technologies Research Institute, form a New York “PRIDE” Authority for state infrastructure projects and prohibit tax breaks to companies that outsource jobs (something he noted in his recent ad.)

Here’s a clip from the event his campaign sent out.

In other campaign news, here’s another ad that Robach is running in the district, which runs through the city of Rochester and into Greece and Brighton.

It’s similar to Robach’s first ad, which touts his experience in the district and his ability to work with various groups and agencies and unions (including union boss Dan Conte, who is in both ads.)

The ad ends with Robach saying “I’m asking for your support” and a crowd yelling “Way to go Joe!”robach_monroe_v7.wmv

Campaign finance reports are slowing coming in this afternoon on state Senate races, and NYPIRG guru Bill Mahoney is keeping tabs.

So far, it looks like Republicans are raising big bucks in their bid to retain the Senate.

Republican candidate Liz Feld, Larchmont’s mayor, brought in $308,490, with almost half coming from the Senate Republican Committee—showing how the race against Democratic Sen. Suzi Oppenheimer, D-Mamaroneck, Westchester County, is becoming a top-tier race.

As for Oppenheimer, she only brought in $22,422, and had just $75,139, on hand.

Both candidates have not filed in most races, but here’s some other candidates who have:
—Republican Sen. Jim Alesi, R-Perinton, raised $325,563, spent $127,093 and had $706,514 on hand.
—Republican Sen. Joseph Robach, R-Greece, raised $326,486, spent $427,125 and had $169,409 on hand.—Republican candidate Dennis Delano in Buffalo, raised $257,136, spent $228,609 and had $32,801 on hand. ($120,000 came from Senate Republican committee)—Republican Majority Leader Dean Skelos raised $405,031, spent $295,605 and had $1,483,237 on hand.—Democratic Sen. Darrel Aubertine, Cape Vincent, Jefferson County, raised $126,319, spent $126,564 and had $45,084 on hand.

   Since June, Gov. David Paterson has vetoed 171 bills this year that were passed by the Legislature. He just announced this in a statement, adding that by saying no to the legislation, he has saved taxpayers $531.7 million over the next two years.

“These tough fiscal times call for tough decisions,” he said. “While I have signed hundreds of bills into law that will help improve the lives of our citizens in the areas of education, health care and public safety, I felt it was absolutely critical to vteo bills that increased taxpayer costs beyond what we can afford in these challenging times.”

The poor economy and state’s fiscal crisis prompted the vetoes, the governor said. Many of the bills were “worthy projects with laudable goals.”

Among the vetoes: $11 million a year in payments in lieu of taxes to the City of Albany;

$3 million for not awarding medals for all armed-forces members who served in the Cold War era; $2 million by not exempting TV converter boxes from sales taxes; and $11 million for not converting the job of court officers into police officers.

Not only is Barack Obama up in the New York poll today, he’s also taken a lead in new national polls.

A Marist College poll today shows Obama leading Republican John McCain 47 percent to 43 percent among registered voters nationwide.

The Marist survey found that Friday’s debate did little to sway voters: last week its poll had Obama with a 49 percent to 44 percent lead.

It seems voters, though, like both candidates: 61 percent have a positive perception of Obama, and 60 percent for McCain.

Meanwhile, an Associated Press poll today had Obama with a seven-point lead over McCain with just one month to go before Election Day. A similar AP poll three weeks ago had McCain with a slight lead.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has a 22-percentage-point lead in New York over Republican challenger John McCain, Siena College poll today found.

The big lead comes after McCain shockingly cut Obama’s lead in New York to five percentage points in a Siena Poll just three weeks ago.

But more in line with New York’s heavily Democratic enrollment edge, Obama now has a 58 percent to 36 percent lead over McCain, according to 631 likely voters polled by Siena this week.

The poll also found that heading into the vice presidential debate tonight, Republican candidate Sarah Palin’s favorability dropped from 46 percent to 36 percent from last month’s poll. Democratic candidate Joe Biden’s favorability was at 54 percent compared to 46 percent last month.

And by a margin of 51 percent to 21 percent, voters in New York thought Obama won last Friday’s first debate. Seventy-nine percent of New York voters plan to watch the vice presidential debate tonight.

“New York appears to be flexing its ‘blue’ again,” said Steven Greenberg, spokesman for the Siena New York Poll.

“Whether it’s the state of the nation’s economy, the ebbing favorability of both McCain and Palin, or the fact that the majority of voters think that Obama won the first debate, New Yorkers have given the Democrats a huge lead.”

The poll was conducted Sunday through Tuesday and had a margin of error of 3.9 percentage points.

  Environmentalists who hope that their issues might fare better in the state Senate if Democrats seize control in November might have been taken aback today when a scorecard from an environmental group gave the Democratic Senate leader a relatively dismal rating.

Minority Leader Malcolm Smith of Queens got a mere 72 on the Environmental Advocates scorecard.  That was not only well below the average Senate score of 80, it was  four points lower than the grade Senate Republican Leader Dean Skelos got.

Smith ran afoul of the group by voting for a gas-tax holiday and for loosening restrictions on dam inspections and forest protections.

A Smith spokeswoman would say only that he “has consistently voted in favor of legislation aimed at meeting the environmental needs of all New Yorkers.’‘

Here’s the latest John McCain ad in which he tries to put partisan bickering aside to deal with the economy.

The script, which is read by McCain:

What a week.
Democrats blamed Republicans,
Republicans blamed Democrats.
We’re the United States of America.
It shouldn’t take a crisis to pull us together.
We need a President who can avert crisis.
Put people back to work.
Grow our economy.
And move people from surviving to thriving.
We need leadership without painful new taxes.
That will make our country strong again.
I’m John McCain and I approve this message.

New York’s Catholic bishops issued a message today urging Catholics to vote in November and emphasizing that “the protection of human life rises above all other issues.” The bishops provide a list of questions on issues Catholics should “consider as they inform their consciences in preparation for entering the voting booth.”   “The right to life is the right through which all others flow,” the bishops wrote. “To the extent candidates reject this fundamental right by supporting an objective evil, such as legal abortion, euthanasia or embryonic stem cell research, Catholics should consider them less acceptable for public office.”

   Catholics have an obligation not only to learn about presidential candidates’ positions, but those of all candidates, bishops said. Church officials do not endorse candidates for office.

   For another viewpoint on abortion issues and politics, visit NARAL Pro-Choice New York.