In Last Debate, Faso Attacks On Ethics

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The New York Sun

The Democratic candidate for governor, Eliot Spitzer, heads into the homestretch of the governor’s race with his underdog opponent, Republican John Faso, signaling with a feisty debate performance that he’s not going down without a fight.

Mr. Faso, the Republican nominee for governor, has struggled for months to rouse significant interest among donors and voters. Last night, he went on the offensive against Mr. Spitzer in the second and final debate in the race.

He repeatedly questioned Mr. Spitzer’s ethics and tried to turn his reputation as a bare-knuckles prosecutor of white-collar crime on its head, insisting that Mr. Spitzer is really a “timid” politician unwilling to stand up to entrenched Albany leaders and special interests.

After each attack Mr. Faso leveled, Mr. Spitzer appeared taken aback and several times he denounced what he said was his opponent’s “angry extreme rhetoric.” He noted that he’s been called many names in his contentious political career but never timid.

Over and again, Mr. Faso accused Mr. Spitzer of going easy on state comptroller Alan Hevesi, who last month acknowledged that he used a state employee as a chauffeur for his wife for a period of more than three years and owed the state more than $80,000.

Mr. Faso pressed Mr. Spitzer to call on the comptroller to step down, accusing him of applying a double standard to his friends and Democratic officials. The attorney general, he said, “calls him an honest and stupendous public official. He should call on him to resign because he abused his office.”

Mr. Spitzer, 47, responded: “I have said very clearly with respect to Mr. Hevesi’s situation, if there is a referral we will pursue it ….But usually we put people in jail after they are convicted, not before.”

In their previous debate three weeks ago, Mr. Spitzer described Mr. Hevesi as an “honest” public servant, but said if “anybody on my watch did that, trust me, there would be very serious consequences.”

The ethics commission, which had told Mr. Hevesi that he had to pay for a chauffeur out of his own pocket unless there was a legitimate security concern, is investigating the comptroller’s actions and could refer the case to the attorney general’s office.

Mr. Spitzer insisted that his office did not give anybody favorable treatment for political reasons. “We have thrown Democrats out of office, we have indicted individuals regardless of who they are, how powerful they are, or how weak they are,” he said.

Mr. Faso, 53, a former Republican leader in the Assembly, also sought to direct attention to Mr. Spitzer’s association with a prominent casino developer, Richard Fields, a major donor to the Spitzer campaign who is under investigation by the state lobbying commission for providing Mr. Spitzer rides on his private jet for a price that may have been illegally discounted.

“It’s an outrage that he takes hundred of thousands of dollars from a casino developer who wants to bring out-of-state tribes into New York,” Mr. Faso said. “Why don’t you tell us where you stand on out-of-state Indian tribes?” Mr. Faso asked.

Mr. Spitzer replied: “I don’t believe they should be here and they won’t be here.”

On the policy end, Mr. Faso accused Mr. Spitzer of proposing a property tax plan that “isn’t going to do a thing,” and said his proposed restrictions to the state’s Wicks law, which mandates separate contracts for electrical, plumbing, and heating, ventilation and air conditioning in public projects, didn’t go far enough. “Talking about timid, his proposal on the Wicks law, will do virtually nothing,” Mr. Faso said. Mr. Faso said he would like to abolish the law.

A couple of new positions from Mr. Spitzer also emerged during the debate. He said he would push for the state to take over the entire local share of Medicaid funding, which is capped at around 18% of the total cost. And he said his three-year $11 billion savings plan would pay for a $6 billion property tax cut over three years under the state’s School Tax Relief Program and would also allow the state to invest in the “SUNY system, to invest in transportation, the energy systems we need to drive our economy.” He has previously said the remainder would be used to pay off the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit.

Mr. Faso also criticized Mr. Spitzer last night for financing his earlier campaigns with “$9 million in loans from his family.”

Said Mr. Faso, “It wasn’t appropriate.”

Mr. Spitzer, who began the debate referring to his opponent as “John” but by the end of the debate was calling him “Mr. Faso,” responded, “The anger from the other side is extremely unfortunate.”

Last night’s debate, which took place in Buffalo, was one of the last opportunities for John Faso to speak directly to large numbers of New Yorkers before the November 7 election. His latest campaign filing released late last week showed that he had just under $1 million in the bank, about eight times less than Mr. Spitzer’s total and not enough to mount a major television advertising campaign.


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