Cuomo Goes After de Blasio's Arm of Campaign Consultants and His Left Supporters ddd

What Does Cuomo Do When He is Cut Off From His Real Estate Campaign Money?

Bundled in blankets and enduring the frigid temperatures that arrived in New York City this week, homeless people said Cuomo was missing the point with his executive order, insisting what they need is housing, not someone telling them where to sleep and eat on a temporary basis. * Cuomo took another swipe at NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio’s handling of the homeless, charging that people live in the streets because they’re afraid of the city’s “dangerous” shelters.* “I don’t see it changes anything in what we actually do or what we have done for 20 years,” NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton said of Cuomo’s order.*  Speaking with reporters after an unrelated event in Manhattan, Cuomo did not tip his handas to what exactly he will propose in his Jan. 13 State of the State/executive budget address that adds to his executive order to address homelessness. But he did acknowledge the need for more supportive and affordable housing options.* In Manhattan real estate, 2015 was a year for the record books, with the median price for co-ops and condos hitting a new high of $1.15 million in the final months of the year,according to reports by major real estate firms that will be released today.* How Cuomo shifted the conversation on income inequality (PoliticoNY) .@CommissBratton on removing homeless people from streets: "I’m not going to be violating the Constitution."* Cops clear dozens of homeless people off streetsas cold sets in (NYP)


Cuomo is Lucky the Left in NY is So Dumb and Easy to Buy

You didn’t think it was an accident that the Cuomo-created Women’s Equality Party [WEP] might be mistaken for the WFP on 2014 election day, now did you? Which is not setting well with true-believing, leftward-tilting Democrats like Teachout and activist Bill Samuels, who flirted with a primary run of his own last spring. Teachout, still an enrolled Democrat, is refusing to endorse the party ticket while Samuels complains bitterly about the governor to anybody who’ll listen: “[Cuomo’s] politically reckless behavior is endangering Senate Democrats” — which, in the end, seems rather to be the point.  * Mayor de Blasio was key in scoring WFP nomination for Gov.Cuomo (NYDN) The mayor brokered a deal with the Working Families Party in which Cuomo got the nomination after publicly committing to push for Democratic control of the state Senate and a host of liberal goals. Meanwhile, Senate insiders say Cuomo will have a rough time pushing anything through the Senate this year after he called for a takeover by Dems. A self-described progressive and the first Democrat to run New York City in 20years, de Blasio persuaded the union-backed Working Families Party to support Cuomo, a centrist governor running for re-election.

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How Blacks the Poorand the Middle Class are Being Push Out of Brooklyn Because of Albany's TaxBreaks for Luxury Developers

Real EstateDevelopers, Tax Breakes and Politics

Increased Homelessness

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Cuomo Runs Against Himself, His First 6 Years of Governing  

In A Political Effort to Cut Himself A Piece of de Blasio's Left

STATE OF THE STATE PREVIEW - Cuomo phones NY1: "Top of my agenda is going to be ethics reform. We have done a lot in Albany, but we haven't done enough. And I'm going to push the legislature very hard to adopt more aggressive ethics legislation, more disclosure, more enforcement, etc. That's going to be right up at the top of the agenda. Economic development, which in Upstate New York means basically restoring the economy, and in downstate New York it means growing the future economy - the high tech economy, having the transportation infrastructure to do that - and making sure the economy is working for everyone, right? Back to social justice: we have very high unemployment among young minority males, black and brown, and it's just unacceptable. We have to make special economic initiatives there. "On education, we have failing schools in this state, today, where we have over 100,000 students in schools that we call "failing" schools. Failing schools are schools that don't reach the basic minimum requirement by SED, the State Education Department, and many of these failing schools have been failing for over 10 years, believe it or not. And the system, the bureaucracy, has been too tolerant, in my opinion. And we are - we're going to be focusing on the closing schools, we're going to be investing in the school system to make sure we're doing everything we can on the state side. So we're going to have a very robust agenda and then the progressive government side that is very important to me."

Cuomo’s Erratic Governing Behavior is Noticed by the Media and Dems

And the governor, the sources said, has begun displaying what many of his own staffers see as “peculiar’’ bursts of energy, in which he abruptly shifts gears on key public-policy positions in hopes of increasing his popularity: first battling and then embracing the teachers unions, opposing and then backing a $15-an-hour minimum wage, and refusing and then granting pardons to thousands of convicted criminals.  “Today, we are a state that is transformed and once again the progressive capital of the world,’’ Cuomo continued, failing to mention the convictions on corruption charges of the former leaders of the “progressive’’ capital’s Legislature, the state’s bottom-of-the-barrel rating as a place to do business, and the state’s massive population losses — more than 500,000 people since he took office. Quipped a prominent Democrat,: “Why’d he stop with ‘capital of the world?’ Why not the ‘progressive capital of all the galaxies?’ ”Some Democrats used words like “weird’’ and “embarrassing’’ to describe Cuomo’s relatively recent policy of issuing press releases urging the public to be careful as a routine snowstorm or other seasonally inclement weather is forecast.* Cuomo and some of the state’s most powerful unions will kick off the new year with a massive rally today to push for a $15-an-hour statewide minimum wage.* Cuomo Plans Ethics And Economic Improvement Platform (YNN) -- Cuomo aides met with advocates in December to discuss paid family leave, a sign that the governor may be pursuing the issue this legislative session.* Cuomo extends $15 minimum wage to SUNY employees (NYP)* Continuing a push for the payment of higher wages for public-sector jobs, Cuomo announced a plan to raise the minimum wage for state university workers to $15. The plan will affect a larger number of state employees — about 28,000, most of whom are upstate — and is designed to include students who use work-study jobs to pay tuition and bills while attending classes. Cuomo’s goal now is to get lawmakers in Albany to sign on to a statewide minimum of $15. To assist in that effort, he also announced at a labor union rally the launch of the Mario Cuomo Campaign for Economic Justice, named after his late father, who served as governor for three terms. CUNY workers were excluded from Cuomo’s order. CUNY chancellor James B. Milliken said the university “supports Governor Cuomo’s initiative on increasing the minimum wage for public employees. We look forward to working with the administration and the Board of Trustees to ensure that CUNY’s employees receive a fair minimum wage.”

More About Cuomo

Nassau With Two Growing Federal Investigations is Ground Zero for the War to Control the State Senate, Maybe More

Nassau County Democrats, increasingly confident they’ll win an upcoming special state Senate election, dropped plans to urge Cuomo to hold off on setting April 19 — presidential primary day — as the date to fill the now-vacant Skelos seat. The Democrats had initially feared an expected heavy turnout of Republicans in the presidential primary — in contrast to the predicted light turnout for the Democratic primary, which Hillary Clinton will likely win easily — would favor the GOP candidate for the Senate. But “we’re no longer concerned about the date because we now expect that this campaign will be very well-funded and that we will win,’’ a senior Nassau Democrat told The Post. Nervous Republicans, tainted by the Skelos corruption scandal and what many believe are two widening corruption probes involving other Nassau County officials, had hoped to field Assemblyman Brian Curran, but GOP sources say he’s reluctant to enter the race.

Republicans hold a bare one-vote majority in the Senate, and a Democratic victory in Skelos’ long-under-GOP-control district would be seen as signaling a looming Democratic takeover   State BOE Fed Investigation Also While Bharara has ongoing investigations, state Board of Elections Chief Enforcement Officer Risa Sugarman has also referred a number of cases for criminal prosecution to state and local prosecutors, the Daily News’writes: * NEW YEAR, NEW ARRESTS: Board of Elections boss expects more pols to be hit with criminal charges in 2016 (NYDN)  * Former Republican U.S. Sen. Alfonse D’Amato praised Democratic Assemblyman Todd Kaminsky, who may run to replace the seat left vacant by Dean Skelos, but added he still wanted a Republican-controlled state Senate, the Daily News reports: * Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota asked to meet with then-U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch in 2014 to alert her that a Suffolk detective whom the government hoped to use as a witness was leaking information, Newsdaywrites:  * The tabloid-ready case against a former Suffolk County police chief comes at the same time as a broader federal investigation of the Suffolk County political machine and its hold over the local criminal justice system, the Times writes:  * Nassau Dem Leader Expects Cuomo To Help Win Skelos Seat (YNN)

Lobbyists Al D'Amato and the Long Island Investigation

Cuomo Goes After Berlin Rosen and the Rest of de Blasio Team Who Run 1NY PAC and Campaigns  Don't Just Make Them Register As Lobbyists, Put Them In Jail for Fixing Elections 

New York'sethics rule could infringe on free speech, experts say (CrainsNY) Revised proposal would vastly broaden definition of lobbying, but watchdogs say the transparency is needed. Public relations firms challenged a proposal from the state’s ethics watchdog as too vague last month, but it backfired: The Joint Commission on Public Ethics has updated its advisory opinion to say that communication between public relations consultants and the press on public policy should count as lobbying. “A public relations consultant who contacts a reporter or editorial board in an attempt to get the media outlet to advance the client’s message would also be delivering a message,” the revision says.* An advisory opinion that would expand the scope of individuals regulated by JCOPE has gained support and inspired opposition from those already registered with the commission and those who might be.

Cuomo Wants de Blasio Campaign Consultants Army to Register As Lobbyists 

If a consultant has input into the content of such a message and helps to deliver it, that consultant would apparently be a lobbyist under the new rules.   The ethics commission's proposal in November sought to compel more consultants to register as lobbyists. Taken aback, four PR firms in the city had civil rights law firm Emery Celli write to JCOPE in December that the opinion was too vague and could be construed to apply to conversations with the press.  “We put the spotlight on this issue exactly and we basically said, 'You can’t possibly mean that talking to an editorial board or a reporter was lobbying, you can’t possibly mean that,' ” attorney Andrew Celli said. “So the staff looked at our letter and I believe they said, 'No, no, that’s exactly what we mean.' ”

de Blasio's Election Fixes

 The New York Civil Liberties Union agrees with the PR firms, saying that conversations with the press fall outside the legal definition of lobbying. “Writing an op-ed piece urging law reform cannot be regarded as lobbying, unless it further urges individuals to contact public officials,” NYCLU legal director Arthur Eisenberg said. “When we read most op-eds, we understand that that’s not lobbying, that’s public education and entitled to free speech protections of the First Amendment.” But the good-government group Citizens Union said that consultants use the media to influence lawmakers, and that such activity should be reported. 

The advisory opinion also includes provisions that would require consultants who connect clients with lawmakers to register as lobbyists. Celli’s letter called that move “good public policy.” Gov. Andrew Cuomo pushed for that reform in his State of the State address Wednesday, in a possible reaction to newspaper stories about the relationship between strategic communications firm BerlinRosen and the de Blasio administration. The firm has a slew of clients with business before City Hall. “Political consultants who advise elected officials while also representing clients before the government do not currently register as lobbyists either—and they should also,” Cuomo told state legislators. “I am going to send you that bill, and that’s a bill that you should sign.”

Berlin Rosen Interlocking-Directorates Helps Their Clients Get A City Pay Raise

@BilldeBlasio backs commission's recommendations to raise pay for pols - 23% for Council, 15% for mayor, at least 12% for everyone else * Mayor OKs recommended raise of $26G for City Council members, but he’ll pass on his own salary bump (NYDN) NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio gave his stamp of approval to a city commission’s plan to raise the salary of elected officials, and to make the City Council a full-time job with strict limits on outside income, but said he personally won’t accept a raise in his first term.