[NYAPRS Enews] Nation, NY Times Profile New NYS Governor Paterson

Mon Mar 17 06:09:28 EDT 2008

Progressive Paterson To Be N.Y. Gov.

by John Nichols  The Nation  March 16, 2008

In 1999, when New York City activists organized civil disobedience to
protest the police shooting of African-immigrant Amadou Diallo, one of
New York state's most prominent legislators arrived at police
headquarters in Manhattan to be arrested as part of the a remarkable
civil rights protest. 

The veteran state senator who was rising to a leadership role in
Democratic circles took a place symbolically blocking an entrance to One
Police Place and held his wrists out. Police officers attached plastic
handcuffs and led the distinguished gentleman away to be charged with
disorderly conduct. 

The legislator's name was David Paterson. 

On Monday, he will become the 55th governor of New York state. 

Little known outside New York until now, Paterson becomes an instant
political celebrity as he prepares to replace scandal-plagued Governor
Eliot Spitzer, whose career was ruined by his association with a
money-for-sex scandal. 

Paterson is a radically different political player than Spitzer, a
wealthy lawyer who grabbed headlines for battling Wall Street insiders
but who always acted a little more like the bankers and brokers he
challenged than the victims of corporate excess. 

There was nothing grassroots, neighborhood-level or community-based
about Eliot Spitzer's activism. As New York's Attorney General, he would
as an outgrowth of the controversy surrounding Diallo's death, announce
plans to conduct inquiries into police practices. 

But Spitzer did not get his hands dirty in that fight or many others,
and he did not hold them out to be handcuffed. 

That's why, when Spitzer prepared to seek the governorship, he asked
Paterson to run with him. Spitzer recognized that he needed the state
senator's credibility with community activists and progressives, even if
the gubernatorial candidate never quite embraced his running-mate as a
full partner. 

As is often the case with lieutenant governors, the No. 2 man in New
York was not always treated fairly by the No. 1 man. They clashed a bit
during the 2006 campaign, and no one was surprised when Spitzer grabbed
all the headlines once the team took office. 

But Paterson's decision to accept the second position on Spitzer's
ticket in the first weeks of 2006, which many questioned at the time,
has two years after the fact made him the man of the moment. 

Paterson has been handed a remarkable opportunity to be not just a state
officials but a national leader. And his long experience makes it likely
that he will handle the spotlight and the job with aplomb. 

Democrats like Paterson's ex-boss, former New York Mayor David Dinkins,
say he will be a "superb governor," and even Republican partisans like
New York Congressman Peter King describe the veteran pol as "a class
act." 

That will distinguish Paterson from Spitzer, and may well be the key to
his success in a role that no one expected him to be taking at this
point but that most serious observers of New York politics say Paterson
is uniquely prepared to fill as an experienced and capable progressive
leader. 

Spitzer, egotistical in the extreme and never much of a team player,
personally picked Paterson to run with him. The move was a political
one, designed to strengthen Spitzer's hand as he grabbed for New York's
top job after a brief but high-profile tenure as state Attorney General.

There were predictable turf wars between Paterson and Spitzer during the
campaign and in its aftermath, particularly with regard to questions
about staffing and the role Paterson would have in the new
administration. 

More significantly, there were policy differences, including one related
to the Diallo case. 

Paterson had sponsored legislation to establish reasonable restrictions
on the use of deadly force by police officers, but Spitzer publicly
disavowed the bill during the campaign. 

Such incidents put distance between the candidates. But both men were
smart about their circumstance; they didn't let things get too ugly or
too public. And they won in November by a landslide. 

Paterson - who, while his ambition may not rival that of Spitzer, has
always kept a politician's eye on the ladder to higher positions -
wanted the lieutenant governorship. 

And Spitzer wanted Paterson on his team. 

Paterson's strength was not so much that he was a prominent
African-American official, although that certainly didn't hurt his
prospects in a state with a large and politically-active
African-American voting bloc. What really mattered was that, while
Spitzer seemed like a man who was pushing everyone else aside in his
rush to the governorship, Paterson was a Democrat with deep roots in the
party, a long record of public service and a good measure of activist
credibility. 

David Paterson is a member of a great New York political family who grew
up in and around the state's public life. His father, Basil, was New
York's secretary of state, the Democratic nominee for lieutenant
governor in 1970 and the first African-American vice chair of the
Democratic National Committee. Basil Paterson, a long-time hero of urban
liberals, remains a well-regarded labor lawyer and outspoken progressive
- as well as his son's closest counselor. 

More than two decades ago, David Paterson won his father's old state
senate seat and began a rise that would take him to the top post in the
chamber's Democratic caucus, that of minority leader. 

Paterson has always had better ties to progressives than Spitzer. 

Paterson has, as well, a particularly strong track record of taking bold
positions on civil rights issues - especially gay rights. "David
Paterson is a terrific, progressive guy - extremely LGBT-friendly," says
Ethan Geto, a Democratic strategist with a history of activism on behalf
of New York's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. Indeed,
Geto told The Advocate magazine that was thought Paterson would be a
champion in the struggle for to advance same-sex marriage initiatives in
the state. 

Paterson will, as well, emerge as a national leader on issues of concern
to people with disabilities - both as a passionate advocate and someone
who can speak from experience. 

Paterson is legally blind - he suffers from optic atrophy, a
degeneration of the fibers of the optic nerve - but the condition has
rarely seemed too much of a burden for this graduate of Columbia
University in 1977 and Hofstra Law School. 

As it happens, Paterson will be the first legally blind governor and
only the fourth African-American governor in the nation's history. 

He will, as well, become Hillary Clinton's highest profile
African-American backer. 

Paterson has worked hard to elect Clinton, earning high marks for his
campaigning on behalf of the senator's presidential run in Iowa and
other states. 

The speculation was that, if Clinton won the presidency, Paterson would
be Spitzer's choice to succeed the senator. And Paterson would have been
an able senator. Now, he will be an able governor. 

Paterson has to handle the transition smartly, which will be tough
because of the usually rapid decline in Spitzer's fortunes - and because
the outgoing governor did not always keep his lieutenant governor in the
loop. 

But Paterson, because of his background as a senator, is likely to work
better and smarter with the legislature than did his edgy - often
confrontational - predecessor. 

And in a year that is likely to see Democrats do very well in New York's
fall elections for legislative seats - whether Hillary Clinton or Barack
Obama heads the national ticket, and especially if they are both on it -
Paterson is likely to go from strength to strength. 

-------------------

Studying the Footprints of a Governor-to-Be 

By Michael Cooper And Mike McIntire   New York Times  March 16, 2008

On Monday, through a twist that few could have foreseen, Lt. Gov. David
A. Paterson will be sworn in as the 55th governor of New York - an
accidental governor thrust into a position of extraordinary power by the
sudden, gaudy downfall of his former running mate, Eliot Spitzer. 

His rise from relative obscurity to center stage has come with
astonishing speed, and with it, Mr. Paterson is about to face something
new: serious scrutiny of his legislative record, political connections
and handling of government money over two decades. 

A review of Mr. Paterson's time in office reveals many of the typical
footprints of a long legislative career. But it also shows that at times
he supported controversial policies, made strikingly candid comments and
took actions that might have raised questions about conflicts of
interest. By and large, his record escaped notice. 

As a state senator, for instance, Mr. Paterson helped direct hundreds of
thousands of dollars to a hospital in his Harlem district that for a
time employed his wife, including for two years as its paid lobbyist in
Albany. 

He sponsored legislation that would have made it legal for noncitizens
to vote in state and local elections and another bill that would have
made it legal to use force against a police officer while resisting a
wrongful arrest - a proposal that was blasted by police unions and went
nowhere. And his father, Basil A. Paterson, is a top lawyer for some of
the state's most powerful unions, whose money has long influenced
policymaking in Albany.

Within the confines of the Harlem district that he represented for 23
years, Mr. Paterson is a well-known commodity, a scion of a legendary
club that included his father, who is a former New York secretary of
state, deputy mayor and state senator; David N. Dinkins, New York City's
first black mayor; Representative Charles B. Rangel; and Percy E.
Sutton, a former Manhattan borough president - although he sometimes
bucked their wishes.

But to the rest of the state, he is a virtual unknown, having received
little attention and even less scrutiny. For most of his two decades in
office, Mr. Paterson was a member, and then leader, of one of the least
relevant, and least noticed, groups in the Legislature, the Democratic
minority of the State Senate. 

He received only marginally more attention in 2006 when he was elected,
with no real opposition, to another post with little real influence:
lieutenant governor. (Consider that when his predecessor was in office,
a statewide poll found that only 4 percent of New Yorkers could name
their lieutenant governor. Stumped? It was Mary O. Donohue.)

"He is a governor who has only been, quote unquote, vetted, by the
constituents in his State Senate district in Manhattan," said Douglas A.
Muzzio, a political scientist at Baruch College. "He has never gotten
the statewide scrutiny that a gubernatorial candidate would expect."

In a statement on Saturday, Christine Anderson, a spokeswoman for Mr.
Paterson, said his legislative record was "thoroughly reviewed when he
was chosen to join the ticket with Attorney General Spitzer."

Mr. Paterson, 53, was first elected in 1985, at the age of 31, to the
Senate seat in Harlem that his father once held. He gained a reputation
as a smart, engaging, funny, consensus-driven leader who pushed for
reform in a state government that had become famous for dysfunction.

Senate Power Play

In 2002, he mounted a successful coup against the Senate minority leader
- and then helped Democrats to win seats that began to close the gap
with the Republicans.

As minority leader, Mr. Paterson did not hesitate to attack the
leadership of the majorities in both chambers on the issue of
accountability, accusing them of trying to hide details of how they used
hundreds of millions of dollars in "member items," the discretionary
spending doled out by legislators. 

He announced in April 2006 that he was making public the Senate
Democrats' member items, and said in a press release that he had issued
guidelines two years earlier warning senators not to steer state money
to organizations with which they or their immediate family members were
affiliated. Senators should "strive to avoid the appearance of
impropriety at all times in their considerations and submission of any
member item request," the guidelines said.

But Mr. Paterson appears to have been testing the limits of his own
policy by helping North General Hospital, a small, private hospital in
his district that had struggled financially. His wife, Michelle Paige
Paterson, worked as North General's director of government affairs from
2002 to 2005.

Ms. Paterson became the authorized lobbyist for the hospital in August
2003, about eight months after her husband was named the Democratic
leader in the Senate. According to a report that North General filed
with the state lobbying commission, Ms. Paterson lobbied the Legislature
on budget issues in 2004. She left the hospital in January 2005.

The hospital's president, Dr. Samuel J. Daniel, has said that he
recruited Ms. Paterson in early 2002 to help get critical legislation
passed that year that allowed North General to refinance more than $100
million in debt. He told Newsday last week that "Michelle was
instrumental in getting me before the Legislature."

An aide to Mr. Paterson said on Saturday that Mr. Paterson also helped
North General arrange a meeting with Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a
fellow Democrat. Michelle Paterson attended that meeting, at which the
hospital's financial problems were apparently discussed, the aide said.
But the aide could not recall precisely when the meeting occurred,
saying only that it was before 2005. Mr. Paterson did not sponsor or
negotiate any legislation to help the hospital, the aide added. 

In 2005, The Daily News said Mr. Paterson described his actions in
setting up the meeting "as something he now recognizes as inappropriate"
because his wife had worked there.

Mr. Paterson's assistance to North General was not limited to arranging
meetings with key people. State budget records show that Mr. Paterson
sponsored a $100,000 grant for North General that was financed through
the 2004 Community Capital Assistance Program, which benefits local
projects. Mr. Paterson also sponsored a separate $150,000 member item
for the hospital in 2006, when his wife no longer worked at North
General. (Even the minority parties receive some member items in the
budget, though far fewer than the majorities.)

Ms. Paterson, who has a graduate degree in health services policy, now
works on charitable activities at the Health Insurance Plan of New York,
which is seeking state approval to become a profit-making company. 

Ms. Anderson said North General was "a worthy recipient of state funds,
providing critical health care and services to the Harlem community."
She also pointed out that Mr. Paterson had ordered the Senate Democrats
to make their member items public.

Michelle Stent, a spokeswoman for North General, said on Friday that Dr.
Daniel was traveling and not available for comment. She said only that
both Mr. Paterson and Ms. Paterson had been helpful to the hospital.

A Father's Influence

Mr. Paterson's father, Basil, raises another set of questions about
potential conflicts of interest.

David Paterson has spoken of sometimes being helped by, and other times
intimidated by, his father, whom he considers a valued adviser. But
Basil Paterson, 81, has also served for years as wise man and eminence
grise for many of New York's biggest and most powerful unions in their
contract negotiations.

Before and during the 2005 transit strike, he was often at the side of
Roger Toussaint of Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union. He has also
counseled other heavyweight labor leaders, including Dennis Rivera of
1199 S.E.I.U. United Healthcare Workers East, Randi Weingarten of the
United Federation of Teachers, and Lillian Roberts of District Council
37. 

The transit union bargains with the Metropolitan Transportation
Authority, a state agency. And when 1199 negotiates with the city's
League of Voluntary Hospitals, it often looks to Albany to provide money
to help finance its agreements. Both unions lobby the state heavily to
increase spending on health care and mass transit.

Ms. Anderson said Mr. Paterson and his father "will take every
appropriate step necessary" to avoid any conflicts. She also said that
David Paterson had directed his counsel to contact the managing director
of Basil Paterson's law firm, Meyer, Suozzi, English & Klein, to "ensure
that the necessary safeguards are in place to preclude any potential or
actual conflict of interest." 

Basil Paterson said in an interview that he had never officially
discussed his labor negotiations with his son. "We've got to make sure
there isn't any conflict there," he said. "We'll try to do that."

His law firm has a powerhouse lobbying arm, but Basil Paterson is not a
registered lobbyist and he said that his law firm would try to arrange
matters so that earnings from lobbying the new governor would be
segregated from what he earns. "If anybody thinks that I will make a
call to my son on behalf of someone, I can't do that," he said. 

Legislative Record

As a state senator, David Paterson introduced dozens of bills each year,
virtually none of which had any chance of passing. Many of them staked
out an unabashedly liberal agenda on issues ranging from law enforcement
to taxes, often to the left of Mr. Spitzer. 

One bill would have made it a crime for police officers to shoot to kill
a suspect instead of shooting to merely stop the person. "There is no
justification for terminating another's life when a less extreme measure
may accomplish the same objective," the memo in support of the bill
said. "For example, an officer would have to try to shoot a suspect in
the arm or the leg."

The measure - which would have left police officers who shoot to kill
open to a charge of second-degree manslaughter - was roundly denounced
by police unions. Police officials have long said that officers are
trained to shoot to stop suspects who pose a deadly threat to themselves
or others. Because accurately shooting a suspect in the heat of the
moment is difficult, they are trained to aim at central body mass, not
limbs.

Another bill, which Mr. Paterson later withdrew, would have repealed the
law outlawing the use of force while resisting arrests, whether they
were authorized or not.

He also introduced bills that would have extended the right to vote to
noncitizens, extended a temporary income tax on wealthy New Yorkers to
pay for schools, and extended the time during which people could sue for
medical malpractice. 

Ms. Anderson said that Mr. Paterson viewed the bills involving police
officers as a way of "restoring confidence in law enforcement at a time
when confidence was very low." And she said that after Mr. Paterson
became minority leader, he did not actively support the legislation that
would have extended the right to vote to noncitizens. "He does not think
noncitizens should have the right to vote," she said.

In a news conference on Friday, his first since Mr. Spitzer's decision
to resign, Mr. Paterson did not address his legislative record. He said
he wanted to avoid raising taxes, but could not rule out doing so, given
the current economic downturn.

When asked about his political philosophy, he replied, "There are some
points of view I guess that I've changed over the years, but I'm pretty
much the same person."

At that news conference, Mr. Paterson displayed some of his well-honed
wit. When he was applauded loudly upon entering the ornate Red Room on
the second floor of the Capitol, he said: "Thank you. If most of you
weren't being paid, I'd be flattered by that."

Mr. Paterson is also known for a disarming frankness. At a news
conference in 2005, for example, he volunteered that he had once
under-reported his income to the Internal Revenue Service. Mr. Paterson
filed an amended return and paid the tax owed, amounting to a few
hundred dollars, an aide said.

To some lawmakers, Mr. Paterson's candor is a sign that he has yet to be
tested in the glare of the public spotlight. He seemed to acknowledge as
much in a radio interview on Friday when he responded, with both humor
and frankness, to a question about his breathtaking ascent to governor. 

"I kind of feel like the student who's getting ready for the final
exam," he said, "but they didn't attend any classes." 

Reporting was contributed by Nicholas Confessore, Steven Greenhouse,
Danny Hakim and Jonathan P. Hicks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/nyregion/16paterson.html?em&ex=1205726
400&en=fa0255d10f309c8d&ei=5087%0A 

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