Legislature Cruising Through to the End of Its Session

ALBANY — With a month left in the legislative session and unmatched conflict behind them and elections ahead of them, state lawmakers are quietly talking about putting off the remaining thorny issues until after the November elections.

Yesterday, Governor Paterson held his last in a series of closed-door meetings with legislative conferences. And as with the Senate's Republican majority, his meeting with the Assembly's Democratic majority was full of jokes and pledges to work together while putting the animus of the clashes with Governor Spitzer behind them.

There were no agreements on priorities or hashing out compromise, which many lawmakers said would seem fitting with four full weeks left in the six-month legislative session.

A member of the Assembly's Democratic majority said he's disappointed the rhythm of the session right now is not the mode of past years in which negotiations were in earnest to wrap up by the end of the June.

"Right now, it's sort of like a soft float out of here," said a member of the Senate's Republican majority.

They spoke on the condition of anonymity because legislative leaders insist they are pushing their agendas, although there is little negotiation under way.

Those who lobby the lawmakers also sense the 2008 priority has turned from policy to getting out of town.

"This is not a rhythm, it's a slow dance to nowhere," said Barbara Bartoletti of the League of Women Voters. "There has not been enough going on that I felt the necessity for me being here every day."

Among the issues seen by lobbyists and lawmakers as getting less than urgent attention are reform of industrial development agencies that dispense millions of dollars in tax breaks to companies promising jobs, strengthening "brownfield" legislation to clean up polluted industrial sites for redevelopment, and awarding a franchise to run video slot machines at Aqueduct race track.

Add to that more proposals that Mr. Paterson has mentioned: Further easing of the Rockefeller-era drug laws, collection of hundreds of millions of dollars in sales tax on cigarettes sold by Indian tribes, and a tax increase on state's richest New Yorkers.

All could be postponed to November or December, after the elections. That could mean another item might be added: Pay raises for lawmakers. In the past, that's how lawmakers have raised their salaries — after elections — because law prohibits the Legislature from raising its own pay. On January 1, a new Legislature gavels in a new two-year session, and could collect that raise.