Looks like all that drama and work actually paid off! After failing the first time, New York just secured itself about $700 million in public school funding as a part of the Race to the Top program. Mayor Bloomberg said in a statement, "New York State's selection is a testament to what we've accomplished in our City's schools over the last eight years. Our students have shown tremendous improvement and now—as a Race to the Top participant —we will work with our teachers and school administrators to raise the bar once again." more ›

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner allegedly told Mayor Bloomberg in a meeting that the Obama Administration is going ahead with its Wall Street reform package, and that the new reforms would be good for the city. One official told the Daily News, "People are angry and until those people, including New Yorkers, see real reforms, they are going to stay angry." more ›

"A free market was never meant to be a free license to take whatever you can get, however you can get it," President Obama will declare in a speech at Cooper Union today, according to excerpts released last night. "That is what happened too often in the years leading up to the crisis. Some on Wall Street forgot that behind every dollar traded or leveraged, there is family looking to buy a house, pay for an education, open a business, or save for retirement." And so at this very moment, Tea Party protesters are mobilizing in NYC to drown out Obama's Commie message. more ›

“I’d want to run against Lazio,” said Norman Adler, a Democratic political consultant. “He’s got no resources, $600,000 in the bank and has raised no money recently,” but the new man in town, Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy, is another story. Experts think the state may see a real show-down between the mustachioed “bomb-thrower” and the former favorite, presumed Democratic candidate Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, both vying for the governor's seat. With each promising reform in Albany, voters are about to find out what happens when two mavericks collide. more ›

With the Democrats' 10-year, $938 billion health care bill poised to become law, there are differing opinions in New York about how it will impact the Empire State. Rep. Anthony Weiner, an impassioned advocate for reform, says, "Thousands and thousands of New Yorkers are going to have health insurance who didn't have it before, small businesses are going to get a tax incentive to provide insurance and simply put, the economy is going to have a chance to start getting jump-started." But gazillionaire Mayor Bloomberg predicts Weiner's jumper cables will short out New York's battery. more ›

After Gov. Paterson announced his plan to implement far-reaching ethics reforms in Albany, the state Senate released its own pared down ethics reform proposal yesterday. The lawmakers' plan would create a new office for investigating ethics violations in legislature and would require elected officials to disclose how much money they earn from outside jobs, according to NY1. But the proposal wouldn't institute statewide campaign finance reform or initiate term limits, like Paterson had suggested. more ›

In his second State of the State speech this afternoon, Gov. Paterson revealed his new agenda, The Reform Albany Act, a set of sweeping reforms that will attempt to "rebuild our State’s economy into a national model of ingenuity and strength." All right, let's do this! Here's what David "Downer" Paterson's planning. more ›

Today, the House of Representatives "approved the most sweeping overhaul of the nation's financial regulatory system since the Great Depression," according to the Washington Post. The NY Times reports the vote, which was 223-202, created the Consumer Financial Protection Agency which would oversee lending, "establishes new rules for transactions that contributed to the meltdown, and seeks to reduce the threat that one or two huge companies on the verge of collapse could bring down the economy." more ›

Today, the NY Times launched announced its new editorial series on the incompetence of the NY State government, called "Failed State." A year away from state elections, a fired-up Times rails against the "inbred system [which] allows so many lawmakers to abuse the public trust," summarizing some of the more egregious abuses of the past couple years and some of the major grievances which they plan to address in the series. Warning—if you don't already want to head up to Albany with a pitchfork, you will now: more ›

Today is the day that the hard-fought changes to the Rockefeller-era Drug Laws go into effect, and lawyers for hundreds of low-level drug offenders in New York prisons are preparing petitions for shortened sentences or release. Once among the harshest in the nation, the laws were enacted more than 30 years ago under Governor Nelson Rockefeller, and required mandatory prison terms for a variety of drug crimes. more ›

The Civilian Complaint Review Board might as well change its name to the Civilian Complaint Review Ignored. Complaints about police misconduct will hit a record high this year, but the CCRB's budget has been slashed. 26 investigators are being cut from the payroll, so half of the cases will be dropped because investigators can't meet the 18-month statute of limitations. It gets worse... more ›

In a couple hours, President Obama will release his plans to reshape—and, he hopes, improve— financial market regulation. According to the NY Times, it "is the product of weeks of meetings among government officials, financial experts, lawmakers, industry executives and lobbyists, many of whom were invited to help the White House draft the proposal." You can read the draft here; the proposal says, "We need to be sure that the government has the tools it needs to manage crises, if and when they arise, so that we are not left with untenable choices between bailouts and financial collapse." CNBC says that it's drawing mixed reviews so far, but Obama told Bloomberg News, "Wall Street seems to maybe have a shorter memory about how close we were to the abyss than I would have expected." He did say, "You’re starting to see the engines of the economy turn," but admitted, "It’s going to take a long time" and expects 10% unemployment. more ›

State Senator Hiram makes it two days in the row on the cover of the Daily News: After his Mets-Yankees game appearance with fellow dissident Democrat Senator Pedro Espada Jr., now Monserrate is making waves by telling the News he's going to vote with the Democrats, just one week after he and Espada helped Republicans take control of the Senate. The lawmaker from Queens broke the news to Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez, saying, "I'm coming home." more ›

The state District Attorneys Association, having failed to convince Albany that reforming the Rockefeller Drug Laws was a bad idea, is employing a novel tactic in their attempt to keep upstate prisons stocked with convicts: Let the real experts on incarceration speak! They've released an audio recording (below) of a prison inmate with "a 27 page long rap sheet" talking about the reforms on the phone. The DAs think the recording will prove that offering drug treatment instead of prison will be exploited by criminals like this unidentified man, who derides the new reforms as the "Drug Dealers Protection Law... They just gave me the free for all. You know what that means? I'm burning the streets when I go home." more ›

For years now, tenant activists have dreamed of a State Senate controlled by Democrats, because then they'd finally get changes to the rent regulation laws that the Republican majority had so consistently blocked. But advocates for rent reform are now dismayed to find that Democratic Senators are as beholden to landlord campaign donations as the GOP. Albany watchdog group NYPIRG reports that since January 2007, Democratic lawmakers have accepted more than $1 million in donations from landlords, about $500,000 less than Republicans raked in. more ›

State Senate Republicans are voicing outrage today following Governor Paterson's morning press conference announcing an agreement among Democrats to repeal most of the Rockefeller-era drug laws. Republican State Senator Martin Golden, whose district stretches from Bay Ridge to Gerritsen Beach, tells the Times Union the reform will "coddle the criminals and put them back on the streets." Others derided the repeal's treatment programs as a "Get out of Jail Free Card." And Senate Minority Leader Dean Skelos is threatening to keep his members out of the chamber unless Republicans get "a sufficient amount of time" to study the bill. more ›

As part of a push to repeal the mandatory sentencing laws known as the Rockefeller Drug Laws, Governor Paterson will propose a compromise bill intended to woo State Senate Republicans, who largely represent rural areas upstate where prisons are major sources of jobs. According to the Times, the bill, which is still being drafted, will be proposed as part of the package of budget bills that lawmakers must approve by April 1st, and will call for spending roughly $50 million to finance treatment programs and additional drug courts. more ›

A state commission has recommended revising New York's drug laws to favor rehab for low-level offenders and give judges more discretion in sentencing convicts, but many lawmakers say the commission's report falls short. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver called it a "missed opportunity" in a letter to commission Chairwoman Denise O’Donnell:

The Commission held in its hands a unique opportunity to help undo thirty-five years of failed drug policy and set New York on the path to establishing a more just, more humane and more effective approach to combat drug crime and drug abuse. I am saddened that it failed to do so. more ›