« ACTION ALERT!:TAKE TWO MINUTES TO REMIND THE SENATE TO SAVE LIVES WITH ETHA | Main | PRIDE—AND HASA—FOR ALL »
June 29, 2007
ALBANY MARBLES GO HOME WITH BRUNO
 |
Bruno took his marbles and went home |
Dozens of legislative initiatives large and small were put on hold last Thursday evening in Albany when Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno shut down negotiations with Governor Spitzer and Assembly Speaker Silver on end-of-session priorities.
Caught in the shuffle: a mom-and-apple-pie bill to restore disability benefits to disabled children in about 1,000 households that are receiving the AIDS enhanced shelter allowance.
Spitzer and Bruno escalated their war of words this week, with Spitzer embarking on a statewide tour to press for Senate action on key priorities and Bruno hitting hard with hot rhetoric and petty personal slights about Spitzer's wealthy upbringing.
They're fighting about a bunch of things, but the key points are campaign finance reform and government economic development funding.
Bruno doesn't want to do much of anything to take money out of the Albany lobbying cesspool, and he certainly doesn't want to do the "Clean Money, Clean Elections" reforms Spitzer and backers like Citizen Action of New York are pushing.
And Spitzer has essential held up a half-billion-dollar economic development capital funding bill (which Bruno desperately wants to pass) in order to achieve his campaign-finance goals.
The fights and hot rhetoric are likely to continue over the next holiday week, but we wouldn't be surprised if a deal or partial deal is accomplished a little later in July. We're certainly hoping this will happen, and are working for passage of the AIDS SSI kids bill. We'll keep you posted on progress in next week's Update.