Governor Paterson Indicates Personal Disclosures at an End
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Governor Paterson is signaling that he no longer wants to answer questions about his private life, saying yesterday that his personal affairs have come under a level of scrutiny that no other politician in America or any other country has faced.
At a press conference in Schenectady, where he discussed his proposed budget cuts with Mayor Brian Stratton, Mr. Paterson was asked about instances in November and January when he campaigned on behalf of Senator Clinton in South Carolina and Iowa, traveling with a state employee with whom had had an extramarital affair.
“I think that, more than any elected official on this planet and probably in outer space, I have discussed my personal situation over the last week,” Mr. Paterson, who was Eliot Spitzer’s lieutenant governor, said. “And the reason why I did it, since I was not vetted as a governor, I didn’t get here actually by desire. I ran for lieutenant governor. A number of things I have discussed then were not publicized.”
Since last week, when Mr. Paterson voluntarily disclosed that he and his wife had been unfaithful to each other, New York’s governor has battled mounting questions about whether he supported his affairs with campaign and taxpayer funds.
On Monday, he disclosed that he had used cocaine and marijuana as a young adult in the 1970s.
Advisers to Mr. Paterson are now urging him to refuse to answer press questions about his infidelities or other personal matters.
Meanwhile, the top Democrat in the Assembly told lawmakers yesterday that Mr. Paterson was not going to support Assembly Democrats’ proposal to raise income taxes by 12% on residents who earn more than $1 million a year. Speaker Sheldon Silver, talking to his Democratic members at a private meeting, said Mr. Paterson told him that he didn’t want raising taxes “to be one of the first things he did” as New York’s top official, according to a lawmaker. Lawmakers interviewed said it was increasingly unlikely that the Legislature and the Paterson administration would agree on a budget deal before the constitutional deadline of April 1.
