Results tagged “assembly”

Bowing to pressure from families of drunk driving victims, state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has thrown his support behind a bill that would make it a felony to drive with a blood alcohol content of .08 while a passenger 15 years old or under is in the car. The legislation is named for 11-year-old Leandra Rosado, who recently died in a crash on the Henry Hudson Parkway while riding with her friend's allegedly drunk mother.

At least four Albany legislators are collecting sweet pensions on top of their annual salaries, including one Assemblyman who sponsored legislation last year to crack down on state workers for the same practice, known as "double dipping." Seventy-five-year-old Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg (D-Long Island) technically "retired" last year but continues to "work" at the state capital, where you're paying him $101,500 in salary plus a pension of about $72,000. Forget it Jake, it's Albany, where it's perfectly legal for veteran lawmakers to "retire" at 65 and start collecting pensions, but without actually leaving their jobs, giving up their salaries or even telling their constituents.

After some very public bickering with Mayor Bloomberg, the State Senate is expected to vote on approving mayoral control of the NYC public school system today. Mayoral control, which Mayor Blomberg claims has improved the state of the schools (the public approves, too), expired while the State Senate was feuding, prompting the city to reinstate the Board of Ed. Now, the Senate will pass mayoral control with additional amendments including ones giving parents some more say (more details here)—but the only question is whether Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver will be onboard, since the Assembly passed a version of mayoral control without the amendments.

Even though Mayor Bloomberg struck a deal with the State Senate over mayoral control of schools legislation, the high-fives might have to wait: Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said the amendments—which the Senate tacked onto the mayoral control bill the Assembly already passed— weren't a done deal. He told the Post, "The only guarantee that was given was that we will take them up with our conference and let them decide what they want to do with them, probably sometime in September. It's possible all will pass, possible none will pass, or some of them [will] pass with various amendments." According to the Daily News, "The Senate is expected to be back sometime next month to pass the Assembly bill. At that same time, the chamber was expected to separately pass the amendments agreed to with the city," but now that seems in jeopardy. State Sen. Shirley Huntley (D-Queens) said, "If the Assembly doesn't vote on our amendments, we're not bringing up the main bill... Why should we?" And it's a reminder again that Albany is a huge clusterf*ck.

Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio, who was indicted on fraud charges for basically selling his clout in Albany for $1 million, has resigned his seat in the 38th District in Queens. The Daily News reports that he will probably plead guilty to charges as early as tomorrow. Seminerio apparently decided to cut out the middle man after learning that people he did favors for were raking in cash; he said on a recording,"I was doing favors for these sons-of-bitches there, you know, they were, they were making thousands. 'Screw you, from now on, you know, I'm a consultant.'" had set up a shell company to funnel his "consulting" fees through. Seminerio, who served in the Assembly for 30 years, told PolitickerNY's Azi Paybarah in 2007, "The only thing that ever changes in Albany are the faces. The system stays intact." As for a successor, it could be a "free-for-all."

Yesterday the State Assembly passed legislation that would scale back increases on rent-regulated apartments statewide, returning to regulation tens of thousands of units that were converted to market rate in recent years. According to the Times, the bill would also lower to 10 percent, from 20 percent, the amount a landlord can raise the rent after an apartment's been vacated; limit the owner's ability to recover a rent-regulated apartment for personal use; and increase fines for landlords who harass their tenants to try and drive them away.

">accused by the feds of taking over $500,000 in bribes. Or, as Seminerio allegedly called it, "consulting" payments.

Clearing up a legal gray area, state lawmakers have passed a bill regulating the sale of frozen dessert products made with wine, permitting the sale of ice cream and sorbet to anyone over the age of 21. The bill limits the alcohol content to 5 percent by volume and requires warning labels – even though it would take two gallons of wine ice cream or one pint of wine sorbet to equal one glass of actual wine, according to upstate purveyor Jeff Kostic.

State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has kept a relatively low profile over the past several months, as Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno battled with Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who would go on to self-destruct in a highly public style. With Mayor Bloomberg's beloved congestion pricing plan past the City Council hurdle and with the support of our new Gov. Paterson, it now lays stalled in the Assembly, where whatever Silver says pretty much goes.

There have been several Free Tibet protests happening around town this month; one of them even featured city council member Tony Avella. While Tibetan protesters are routinely beaten, imprisoned and even killed by police in China, police brutality is something you might be surprised to see in New York City, unless of course you've attended demonstrations over the years and experienced it first hand. During a Free Tibet protest near the UN on March 14th, some NYPD officers were documented threatening, arresting and clubbing activists seemingly without provocation. In the below video it appears the protesters do nothing more than carry flags, walk on the sidewalk and chant. Yet officers identified as Leroy, Delgado and Serano, and others are depicted clubbing them even when they're down.

"With Spitzer, it seems like he’s walked into buzz saws of his own devising." - Richard Norton Smith, biographer of former Gov. Thomas E. Dewey, to the NY Times Today, Governor Spitzer dropped in on the State Assembly Democrats' annual meeting, which has been characterized as being "almost like a pre-game show to the session," held at the Marriott in downtown Brooklyn. According to video from Elizabeth Benjamin at the Daily Politics, an almost warm-and-...