I wrote this the other day regarding New York's new governor, David Paterson.

Oh, one last comment -- good luck to the people of New York and their new governor. Here's hoping that this story dies the death that it deserves -- because as I said above, an extramarital affair alone should not be fodder for the press or grounds for disqualification from office.

Man, I really hoped that my observation would be the last about his extramarital affairs, and those of his wife. After all, it appeared that they truly belonged in that personal zone of privacy that we ought to, but rarely do, afford politicians.

Unfortunately, there appears to be a little something more to this story that may mean it won't go away.

Concern is growing in Albany over the prospect that, even as Governor Paterson races to get on top of the budget crisis, the disclosures of his private sexual affairs have damaged — perhaps irreparably — his capacity to execute the state's highest office.

Dogged by suspicions that his campaign expenditures and his extramarital relationships were improperly entangled, Mr. Paterson heads into his second week on the job no longer the fresh face who symbolized a return to civility, but a weakened politician.

"Paterson's persona has been really damaged," a politics professor at Baruch College, Doug Muzzio, said. "On Monday, he was sitting on top of the world. It was, 'I am David Paterson and I am governor of New York.' It now becomes, 'I am David Paterson and I am this philandering, pay-for-it-with-other-people's-money type of guy,'"

For the third consecutive day, Mr. Paterson struggled to account for a 2002 payment, billed to the credit card of his campaign committee, for an Upper West Side hotel room where Mr. Paterson had a sexual liaison.

The governor, who served as lieutenant governor under Eliot Spitzer, has also been unable to explain the circumstances behind a $500 campaign payment to a woman with whom he was romantically involved.

Meanwhile, Paterson officials sought to provide details about more than $11,000 in payments that his campaign committee made between 2002 and 2007 to a 45-year-old woman, April Robbins-Bobyn, whose connection to Mr. Paterson is not clear.

Please tell me that he didn't expense the hotel room and sugar-daddy payments to his hot little honey. Please tell me that he didn't use funds that are regulated by ethics laws to pay for his affair.

But if he did, it looks like he has a major problem on his hands.

Tell me -- who is next in line of succession for the office of Governor of New York?

UPDATE: I just found the answer to the question.

One consequence of Mr. Paterson's elevation is that the next in line to be governor is the temporary president of the state Senate, Joseph Bruno, who has held that position since 1995, when newly-elected Governor Pataki and Senator D'Amato secured it for him.

Senator Bruno has repeatedly been described in the press as facing indictment for a variety of allegedly corrupt transactions, but so far he has escaped prosecution, and it is possible that he will never be charged.

If, however, Mr. Bruno became governor, and were subsequently forced to leave the office, whether for legal entanglements or for reasons of health — he was born in April 1929 — the next in line to be New York State's chief executive is Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who has held that position since 1994 with increasing authority. In 2000, Mr. Silver crushed a revolt, punished the plotters, and solidified his power.

The denouement of this series of untimely events could be the accession of Shelly Silver as the 57th governor of New York State. A strong governor might control a dysfunctional legislature.

A Silver regime may cure the paralysis which has affected state government through decades of split responsibility and partisan conflict. However, it raises the issue of whether the taxpayers and voters of the state of New York would be better off with a divided, enfeebled legislature and governor than with officials who could really injure the people by their devotion to the special interests, labor, and business, and their persistent lobbyists, who in fact constitute the permanent government of the Empire State.

Posted by: Greg at 07:47 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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