Spitzer, in a Historic Landslide, Vows ‘A New Brand of Politics’

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The New York Sun

New York’s newly elected governor, Eliot Spitzer, plans to spend his first 100 days in office making campaign finance laws more restrictive, settling a multi billion-dollar school-funding lawsuit, and extending health insurance coverage to thousands more children.

Before a jubilant crowd of supporters at the Sheraton Hotel in Manhattan, Mr. Spitzer, who was leading his Republican challenger, John Faso, 69% to 29% with 95% of precincts reporting, claimed a powerful mandate for his policies, pledging to restore confidence in a state government that has become a model of dysfunction.

In a speech that stressed a theme of unity and shared interests, Mr. Spitzer called for a state government that is “finally open and accountable.”

“The New York we seek will require a new brand of politics — a break from the days when progress was measured by the partisan points you scored or the opponents you beat,” Mr. Spitzer said, standing beside his parents and his wife, Silda Wall. “From here on out we need a politics that binds us together, a politics that’s forward-looking, a politics that asks not what it’s in it for me, but always what’s in it for us.”

Having built up expectations with an ambitious campaign slogan — “Day 1: everything changes” — Mr. Spitzer is sharpening his agenda, aiming to score a quick succession of victories on issues like campaign finance, education funding, and health care, sources close to the governor-elect said.

Mr. Spitzer, who spent $33 million in this election, will start his administration calling for a campaign finance overhaul, including a reduction in campaign contribution limits. In New York, statewide candidates who face primaries can receive up to $50,100 from individuals and L.L.C.’s., the highest amount among the 37 states that impose limits. Corporations are barred from giving more than $5,000 in aggregate to state political activity. Mr. Spitzer, who has decried what he calls the “pay to play” culture in Albany, is also set to propose new restrictions on lobbying and the awarding of government contracts, sources said. Mr. Spitzer is said to be planning to outline the proposals in a speech this month.

Mr. Spitzer’s first executive budget, which he will unveil in mid-January, will include a major hike in funding for New York City schools that is intended to resolve the landmark Campaign for Fiscal Equity case, which has been tied up in courts for more than 12 years.

A source close to Mr. Spitzer said the extra money for city schools would be tied to “accountability and reform” measures but wouldn’t disclose specifics.

In a series of rulings that have been appealed by Governor Pataki, state courts have ordered the state and the city to increase annual operating aid to city schools by at least $4 billion over several years. Mr. Spitzer has said the state would contribute at least 75% of a settlement figure and has called on Mayor Bloomberg to cover the rest. A settlement hinges on a deal with Mr. Bloomberg, who has said the city will not contribute money toward the case.

In his first 100 days in office, Mr. Spitzer is also planning to make good on his promise of “guaranteeing” health insurance to New York’s estimated 500,000 uninsured children. The plan also includes streamlining enrollment to get more eligible adults covered by Medicaid.

While expanding the Medicaid program, Mr. Spitzer is also expected to announce closures of hospitals in the state, a move that is likely to provoke an outcry from the health care industry.

Mr. Spitzer’s landslide victory was the capstone of a political triumph for the Democratic Party, which achieved a sweep of statewide offices for the first time in more than 60 years.

The momentum achieved by the Democratic Party was not enough to loosen the Republicans’ hold on the state Senate, whose 77-year-old majority leader, Joseph Bruno, has become the de facto leader of the state party. While falling short of picking up the four seats they needed to take over the house, Democrats were threatening to inch a little closer, with Westchester Republican incumbent, Nicholas Spano, trailing Democrat Andrew Stewart-Cousins by two percentage points with 75% of precincts reporting.

Democrats fielded a slate of statewide candidates who outmatched their Republican challengers in star power and fund-raising. While Democrats unified behind their candidates, Republicans found themselves struggling to fill the power void left by the departure of George Pataki, a three-term governor who has been occupied by his plans to run for president.

Democratic successes even extended to the scandal-tarred comptroller, Alan Hevesi, who was leading his Republican opponent, J. Christopher Callaghan 57% to 39% with 94% of precincts reporting, a far wider margin that polls had predicted.

The comptroller’s race, which pitted a veteran, well-financed Democrat against an unknown political novice whose highest office was treasurer of Saratoga County, appeared to take on a sudden competitiveness after Mr. Hevesi, a former New York City comptroller, became embroiled in a scandal involving his use of a employee as a chauffeur and personal servant for his wife. Mr. Callaghan accused Mr. Hevesi of destroying his credibility as the state’s fiscal watchdog by failing to pay the state back for the employee’s services.

The comptroller’s political prospects remain in doubt. An Albany County grand jury is investigating his actions, and Mr. Spitzer has indicated that he is intent on removing the comptroller from office through a formal Senate impeachment trial. Mr. Hevesi’s resounding victory could put pressure on Mr. Spitzer to abandon his effort to replace the comptroller.

In a victory speech, at a different location from the Sheraton celebration, Mr. Hevesi gave no indication that he plans on stepping down: “New Yorkers have said clearly that that mistake should not erase 35 years of public service,” he said.

Senator Clinton, who spent more than $30 million during her re-election campaign, easily defeated her Republican challenger, John Spencer, 67% to 31% with 95% of precincts reporting. In a race that has been described as a dress rehearsal for a 2008 presidential bid, Mrs. Clinton achieved a wider margin of victory than she did in her 2000 race against Rick Lazio, whom she beat by 12 percentage points.

Mr. Spencer, a Vietnam veteran who served two terms as mayor of Yonkers, never gained traction, having raised barely enough money to get himself on television.

In the attorney general’s race, Andrew Cuomo, the elder son of Mario Cuomo, completed his political comeback with a victory over Jeanine Pirro, a feisty former district attorney of Westchester who entered the race earlier in the year after an abortive Senate bid against Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Cuomo was leading Mrs. Pirro by 18 percentage points.

Mr. Cuomo, who served as secretary for Housing and Urban Development under President Clinton but saw his rise come to a halt when he failed to secure his party’s nomination for governor in 2002, has since tried to reinvent himself as a natural successor to Mr. Spitzer.

Mr. Cuomo has signaled that his office wouldn’t carry the torch on prosecuting Wall Street crime but would focus on uncovering Medicaid fraud and enforce environmental regulations. Republicans had turned to Mrs. Pirro, a close ally of Mr. Pataki, as their best shot for a statewide victory but their hopes faded with humiliating disclosures involving her husband, Albert Pirro, a lobbyist who served a federal prison sentence on tax fraud charges. During the campaign, she acknowledged that she was under federal investigation for conspiring to wiretap her husband, whom she feared was having an affair.

Mr. Spitzer, 47, who rose to national prominence in the aftermath of the national recession by using his office’s subpoena power to target Wall Street fraud, had been the overwhelming front-runner in the race since he announced his candidacy almost two years ago.

As governor Mr. Spitzer will have to transition from his role as Wall Street enforcer to a political leader who political success will depend on his ability to build coalitions and rally support for his proposed major initiatives. But most of all, the success of Mr. Spitzer, whom many believe harbors presidential ambitions, will depend on his ability to breathe life into an upstate economy that badly trails the rest of the nation in job growth.

Mr. Spitzer flooded the airwaves with commercials, outspending Mr. Faso by more than a 10 to 1 margin.

Mr. Faso’s campaign was seen as a return to Republican roots after 12 years of a Pataki administration that was faulted by conservative New Yorkers for making expensive concessions to special interest groups who backed the governor’s re-election bids. Mr. Faso is a former minority leader in the Assembly whose middle-class Long Island background contrasted with Mr. Spitzer’s more wealthy upbringing. He accused Mr. Spitzer of plotting to raise taxes and raised questions about the attorney general’s ethics, pointing to rides that Mr. Spitzer took in a Gulfstream corporate jet belonging to a casino lobbyist, Richard Fields, as evidence of Mr. Spitzer’s ethical double standard.

Mr. Faso was never able to persuade donors that he had a realistic chance of beating Mr. Spitzer and never raised his profile to a competitive level.


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