Weld Challenges Spitzer To Take a Stand on Transit Strike
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

A top Republican contender for governor in 2006, William Weld, challenged Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, the Democratic front-runner, to take a stand in the transit strike.
Firing one of the first salvos in the early stages of the gubernatorial race, Mr. Weld said that if he were governor, he would deal more harshly with the city’s transit union, which brought public transportation to a halt yesterday with its first strike in a quarter century.
A governor of Massachusetts in the 1990s and a Manhattan resident, the lanky Yankee said he would fire union leaders and questioned whether Mr. Spitzer as governor would mete out such a stiff punishment.
“If he were governor, I don’t think he would be as aggressive as I would be,” Mr. Weld told The New York Sun. “Mr. Spitzer should be asked whether if he were governor, would he fire the members of the executive board and any leaders publicly advocating a strike.”
As the lawyer for the state of New York, Mr. Spitzer has sought to enforce the state law prohibiting public employees from striking and has pressed for heavy fines against the union. Yet while he is of the most recognizable faces in politics, Mr. Spitzer has kept himself largely out of the headlines during the transit crisis. He also has yet to call for more severe penalties, such as firing labor leaders or jailing Roger Toussaint, who is not a city government employee.
Last week, Mr. Spitzer’s office was granted a preliminary injunction against the union, barring it from striking. Yesterday, a state judge, in response to a lawsuit brought by Mr. Spitzer’s office, levied against the union a fine of $1 million a day, a relatively scanty penalty compared to the damage the strike is inflicting on city businesses. It was appealed by the union nonetheless.
Mr. Weld’s comments on Mr. Spitzer’s handling of the union could propel the strike, which is costing the city an estimated $400 million a day, to the forefront of a governor’s race in which, at least in the case of Republicans, partisan skirmishes have taken a backseat to the more immediate challenge of sorting out the contenders.
His criticism of Mr. Spitzer also hints at the strategy Mr. Weld would likely use to confront the attorney general, whose strength with voters is derived in large part from his reputation as a protector of consumers and a crusader against Wall Street corruption and white-collar crime.
Mr. Weld, in his interview with the Sun, also belittled Mr. Spitzer’s accomplishments as a prosecutor, calling his own record as a United States attorney in Massachusetts in the 1980s “deeper and longer” than the attorney general’s.
“I was a U.S. attorney for five years and prosecuted 111 public corruption cases and got convictions in 109 of them,” he said. “Has Mr. Spitzer prosecuted public corruption cases? I’m not really aware that he has.” Mr. Spitzer’s most high profile cases have targeted the private sector, going after the mutual fund industry for illegal trading and the insurance industry for rigging bids.
Officials at Mr. Spitzer’s office and his campaign refused to comment on Mr. Weld’s criticisms or whether the attorney general would seek to impose tougher penalties against the union.
Before he takes on Mr. Spitzer, who also may face a primary challenge from Nassau County executive Thomas Suozzi, Mr. Weld has to clear the hurdle of receiving his party’s nomination, whose leadership has split its support among Mr. Weld, a former Assembly minority leader, John Faso, and billionaire Thomas Golisano, a Rochester businessman, who is mulling a fourth run for governor.
The party signaled some support for Mr. Weld when Republican county chairmen voted in favor of his candidacy in a nonbinding straw poll last week. Mr. Weld also has received the endorsement of the chairman of the state Republican Party, Stephen Minarik.
Several chairmen in key Republican counties did not participate in the vote, which diminished its significance. Many party leaders anticipate that the Republican nomination will have to be decided through a primary next year, with Mr. Weld facing Mr. Faso and Randy Daniels, a former secretary of state of New York, or Mr. Golisano, who may enter the race as a petition candidate after the party convention.
Mr. Weld is also seeking the endorsement of the Conservative Party of New York, which is in line with his fiscal policies but wary of his views on social issues, including abortion, gay marriage, the death penalty, and gun control. Mr. Weld told the Sun he supports a ban on partial-birth abortion and rules requiring that a minor seeking an abortion notify at least one of her parents.