Paterson's Possibilities

Editorial of The New York Sun
March 13, 2008

The excitement in Albany is over the prospect that, in tone and collegiality and attitude, the accession of Lieutenant Governor Paterson to the governorship will be a marked departure from the self-proclaimed steamroller that was Governor Spitzer. But the news that, say, the Senate Majority Leader, Joseph Bruno, is celebrating that he will have in Governor Paterson a partner with whom he can get things done, and that the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, is describing Mr. Paterson as "the ideal leader" is not exactly designed to bring joy to New York taxpayers.

If Mr. Paterson gets on totally with both Messrs. Bruno and Silver, it will be a sign not merely that Mr. Paterson has a less sharp-edged personality than Mr. Spitzer does, but that Mr. Paterson is abandoning some of the principles on which the voters elected Mr. Spitzer. Mr. Bruno, after all, stands squarely opposed to the spending restraint that Mr. Spitzer has tried to impose on the state's vast health care empire. Mr. Silver, with his proposed tax increase on those earning one million dollars a year or more, stands opposed to Mr. Spitzer's campaign pledge not to raise taxes.

What will be needed from Mr. Paterson, in other words, is not only a certain comportment, which Mr. Spitzer lacked, in dealing with Messrs. Bruno and Silver, but a certain deference and humility toward the office of governor itself and to the terms on which the Democrats gained it from the Republicans. No one wants another Governor Spitzer, which is part of the reason for the relief felt in Albany and among many in the rest of the state yesterday. But no one who pays taxes in the state wants to give Messrs. Bruno and Silver free rein, either. So Mr. Paterson will have to move quickly to show that while he is no steamroller, he is also no pushover.

If he does this, he has the potential to claim as his own legacy some of the policy initiatives that Mr. Spitzer was cultivating. Where Mr. Spitzer was nursing a tuition tax deduction for parents of private school and parochial school students, Mr. Paterson is reportedly an advocate of school vouchers. Mr. Spitzer has been resisting both Mr. Bruno's health-care spending and Mr. Silver's tax increase, and Mr. Paterson, to be true to the mandate the voters gave Mr. Spitzer, will have to hold the line on both fronts.

Mr. Paterson could extend Mr. Spitzer's ethics reforms by asking his own lawyer father, Basil Paterson, to stop any work for three powerful unions with interests before the state — the health-care workers union, 1199/ SEIU; the United Federation of Teachers, and the Transport Workers Union that tried to paralyze New York City with an illegal strike in the holiday season. Other initiatives of Mr. Spitzer, such as an effort, opposed by the Catholic Church, to enshrine abortion in state law as a fundamental right, Mr. Paterson would be wise to drop, or at least revise. He has nothing to gain from forcing religious New Yorkers from going against the teachings in which they believe as a matter of religious principle.

The challenge for Mr. Paterson will in some sense be the same as that Mr. Spitzer faced when he took office — ratcheting back the state's high tax burdens and bloated health care spending to allow New York's private sector to create jobs, while cleaning up the legal and ethical morass that is Albany. Mr. Spitzer's focus was an upstate that looked like Appalachia; Mr. Paterson will face the added problem of potential job losses on Wall Street that could slow the New York City economy that has been paying so many of the bills in the state. High-profile public-private development projects are already facing delays because of the credit crunch and fears of a recession.

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Mr. Paterson has shown nothing so much as the character to overcome obstacles in life, and the accession of this remarkable politician is no small matter for any New Yorker. If Mr. Paterson succeeds, his future opportunities are limitless. Mr. Spitzer was said to hope to be the first Jewish president; if Mr. Paterson can make real improvements in New York, he could yet be the first black president (if Senator Obama doesn't beat him to it) or the first legally blind one. But first he will have to decide which portions of the Spitzer legacy to discard and which to claim for his own. He will want to be careful not to throw the good out with the bad. And he can know, as he prepares to accede, that Governor Paterson will have an enormous reservoir of goodwill upon which to draw.

Paterson's Possibilities

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