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Albany watchers thought last year's legislative session was slow. Not so fast! This year has been even slower. 

Bill Mahoney of the New York Public Interest Research Group has provided us with a breakdown of bills passed this year and at this point last year. Keep in mind that Mahoney has previously noted that 2012 was a year "when they passed the fewest two-house bills since at least 1914." 

Mahoney also notes, "Of course, the total number of bills is only one way to measure a session’s success. The session will ultimately be judged by what they do on the biggest issues, including their response to the crime wave rocking the Capitol." 

Passed Senate: 295
2012 passed Senate through 5/19: 475

Passed Assembly: 235
2012 passed Assembly through 5/19: 366

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Gov. Andrew Cuomo says the ugly sexual harassment scandal surrounding Assemblyman Vito Lopez is the perfect example of why legislators need to pass his 10-point women's agenda.

“I think it would be the height of hypocrisy for a body that just recognized the problem up close and personal within their own colleagues and to not take action,” Cuomo told reporters yesterday.

Cuomo has yet to issue a bill encapsulating all 10 points of the agenda, but it is known to include stiffer penalties for sexual harassment; anti-human trafficking measures; pay equality laws; and a more controversial provision that would encode a women's right to an abortion in state health law rather than in the criminal code. 

Barbara Bartoletti of the League of Women Voters echoed Cuomo's sentiments earlier yesterday. "If anyone should be the poster boy for the women's agenda legislation Vito Lopez is it," Bartoletti said. 

Bartoletti wants legislators back in Albany next week ready to pass the women's legislation as well as campaign finance reform. Otherwise she said all they will have from this session is "a legacy of scandal." 

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Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has faced a chorus of calls for his resignation for his handling of the Assemblyman Vito Lopez sexual harassment scandal. Editorial boards, good government groups and Republican legislators have either demanded Silver step down or hold a leadership vote in the Assembly. A broader chorus is calling for Lopez's resignation.

Silver seems to be paying attention as his spokesman Michael Wyland issued a statement tonight saying that Silver, "intends to draft and introduce a resolution tomorrow, to be voted on Monday, to ask the Ethics & Guidance Committee to consider the full JCOPE report and to recommend appropriate sanctions including expulsion of Assemblymember Lopez."

Silver has called for Lopez to step down several times. 

Earlier today Gov. Andrew Cuomo told reporters that if Lopez continues to refuse to resign, "I think the body should expel him. I think they should make a statement that says we do not tolerate this in our house." 

Cuomo defended Silver. "I don’t see any comparison between what Vito Lopez and what Shelly Silver did,” Cuomo said. “There is a magnitude of difference," Cuomo said. 

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Gov. Andrew Cuomo wants everyone to stop staring at the car crash that has been the string of federal indictments against sitting Albany legislators and get back to their jobs. 

"We got most of our work done in the budget and before the budget, which is usually the way, but there items that we have left for this session and on top of it because of the charges of the prosecutors we’re using it as an opportunity to pass the reform agenda. The reform agenda is new and is complicated,” Cuomo told Susan Arbetter on Capitol Pressroom this morning. ”The Republicans made their point again they’re against public financing, but there are other points of the reform agenda aslo." 

But talk around legislative circles is that the Senate is loathe to be in Albany because it doesn't want to be pressured into doing Cuomo's bidding.

A number of legislators and advocates think this year could be less productive than last year which was the least-productive in recent Albany history. 

Today's Senate session was cancelled in honor of the Jewish holiday of Shavuot and, according to Republican spokesman Scott Reif, to save taxpayers money. 

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Tagged in: Andrew Cuomo

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“I am confident that the authorities will find, if they have not already done so, that I have engaged in no wrongdoing whatsoever,” state Sen. Jose Peralta said in a statement in response to revelations that he was one of nine people wiretapped by convicted Sen. Shirley Huntley.  

Sen. Eric Adams and Councilman Ruben Wills both made statements saying they were not being investigated or not aware of any investigations.

Peralta's statement does not make the same claim.

“I have not been contacted about any investigation. I believe deeply in transparency and the pursuit of justice — and that is why I committed 20 years of my life to law enforcement,” Adams said in a statement. “I am more than willing to help with any investigation.”

You can see video of Wills' statement here

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Sen. Shirley Huntley was having trouble with the FBI so she called up her colleagues and had them over to her house — to wiretap them.

According to court documents, Huntley was hoping to win favor with prosecutors when it came to her corruption case. 

Today a judge unsealed Huntley's sentencing document unveiling a list of those she helped record for the FBI. They include several sitting Democratic Senators, a couple political consultants and a sitting Council member. Prosecutors have indicated that at least one of the people named on the list is not under investigation. 

So who are these lawmakers and political operatives? 

Lets start with the usual suspects: Sens. John Sampson of Brooklyn and Malcolm Smith of Queens.

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The State Legislature seems to be a in rush to get out of town. 

Assembly Speaker Sheldon SIlver has cancelled today's scheduled session. "Why?" you ask. Well, for ethics training of course! 

Sort of. The Assembly has been scheduled to undergo ethics training today for sometime but the session was going to go on later in the day.

However, it was decided the ethics training could run late. 

Meanwhile, the Senate has called off session for Monday and Tuesday citing the Jewish Holiday Pesach Sheni. 

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A judge has ruled that the names of eight people who spoke on wiretaps with former state Sen. Shirley Huntley can be made public tomorrow. 

Huntley, who pleaded guilty to funnelling tens of thousands of dollars in public money to a bogus charity that she operated, wore a wire for federal prosecutors for several months last year. 

What makes Huntley's case so interesting is that prosecutors are arguing that the names should not be released because doing so could compromise ongoing investigations. Six of the eight people Huntley spoke to while wearing a wire are elected officials.

Judge Jack Weinstein wrote in his ruling that he isn't worried that revealing these names will ruin any cases. 

"Every legislator who has conversed with this defendant will necessarily assume that he or she wasrecorded under the supervision of the FBI," he wrote. "There will be no surprises to the potentially accused by the revelations of their names. Interference with ongoing investigations will be of almost no significance."

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The Senate elections committee will hold hearings on corruption in the New York City public campaign finance system at 11 a.m. tomorrow. Oral testimony is by invite-only, and it just so happens that a good number of campaign finance experts from New York are not welcome to speak.

Bill Mahoney, New York Public Interest Research Group's number-cruncher extraordinare, just happens to be one of those campaign finance experts.

"Oral testimony is by invitation only," Mahoney said. "I suppose they are not interested in hearing from actual New Yorkers who have been effected by the system. They just want to hear people criticize a system that works better than ours."

Members of some of the state's largest government watchdog groups wrote the committe chairs — Sens. Thomas O'Mara and Diane Savino — to ask to be allowed to testify but they were not allowed to give oral testimony. The groups include Common Cause/NY, The Brennan Center, Citizen Action New York and Center For Working Families. 

When asked about why good government groups were not allowed to give oral testimony, Senate Republican spokesman Scott Reif replied:"I don't believe that is accurate. Dick Dadey, from Citizens Union, is on our confirmed speaker list."

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Who is state Sen. John Sampson? This morning, everyone knows Sampson as the man who turned himself in to the Federal Bureau of Investigation to face multiple charges for embezzling money he was in charge of as a lawyer to fund his ill-fated run for Brooklyn District Attorney.

But Samspon has long been a player in Albany, and rumors of corruption have swirled around him for years.

Elected to his seat in 1996, Sampson has worked as an attorney for Alter & Barbaro, Esqs., since 1994. For a while Sampson was the answer for all the Senate Democrats' problems and became one of the most powerful men in Albany.

In 2009, during the Senate coup, the Democratic conference elevated Sampson to conference leader (a position that had previously not existed) in a bid to return Sens. Hiram Monserrate and Pedro Espada to the fold.

Sampson's time as a leader of a majority conference was brief; Democrats lost their majority in 2010.

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The 14-month wait for a new state inspector general is over.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo appointed Catherine Leahy Scott to the position today. Scott had been acting inspector general.

The vacancy at the IG's office was created when Cuomo appointed then-IG Ellen Biben as executive director of the Joint Commission on Public Ethics — a move that cause some to question whether JCOPE was actually independent of the executive branch. Biben worked for Cuomo during his time as attorney general.

It just so happens that Biben is now officially stepping down in her position at JCOPE to pursue work in the private sector. Biben's departure from JCOPE comes on the heels of the resignation of JCOPE Chair and Westchester County District Attorney Janet DiFiore. DiFiore left to pursue her reelection bid. 

JCOPE has had more than its share of troubles since coming into existence last year. Its biggest case so far has languished as its report about the Assemblyman Vito Lopez scandal has remained out of public sight thanks to a request from the Staten Island district attorney, who is reviewing whether to bring criminal charges against Lopez.

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Gov. Andrew Cuomo's open.gov.ny just got a major data dump. The transparency section of the site has been updated with campaign contribtuion and expenditure records dating back to 1999, lobbying and enforcement data from the Joint commission on Public Ethics, attorney registrations as far back as 1898 as well as a log of state employee phone numbers. 

"Today, we have added millions of records on campaign finance, lobbying, ethics enforcement, the state budget, and other information related to public integrity," said Cuomo in a statement. "It is another example of how the State is using technology to bring the people back into government – empowering voters, strengthening our democracy and promoting transparency and accountability in the Empire State.”

Cuomo touted his new open-date tool in his State of the State Address in January of this year and officially launched it in March. The Cuomo administration has been criticized for a lack of transparency. Cuomo officials have fought to keep some records from his time as Attorney General secret and Cuomo's promise to make his schedules public has been seen as incomplete by many in the press. The administration also keeps close tabs on press calls

But a number of open data enthusiasts trumpted the latest data push from the administration. 

"Credit Governor Cuomo for using the state's powerful open data website, Open NY, to make it easier for New Yorkers to find and use the state's wealth of information. Data set by data set, Open NY is giving New Yorkers a more complete picture of how our government works," said John Kaehny, executive director of Reinvent Albany, in a statement. 

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The State Assembly has again passed legislation that would protect transgender New Yorkers under the state's human rights law by a vote of 85-46.

The Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act expands the definition of hate crimes in the state to explicitly include transgender people. The Assembly has passed the bill annually since 2003 but the Senate has failed to do so.

Debate on the Assembly floor yesterday mostly focused on theoretical bathroom situations — something Assemblyman Daniel O'Donnell of Manhattan was not amused by. "Spare me your arguments about godamned bathrooms!" he told the chamber. 

The bill's sponsor, Assemblyman Richard Gottfrfied of Manhattan, read a statement from Albany Police Cheif Steven Krokoff to the chamber on how Albany's GENDA legislation has not caused any major problems in the city.

Krokoff addressed a group of GENDA lobbyists earlier in the day saying, "I'm proud to be here today! Thank you for allowing me to come here and champion this cause." Gender expression non-discrimination has been law in Albany since 2004. 

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The Joint Commission on Public Ethics released a statement threatening to make the findings of their investigation into disgraced Brooklyn powerbroker and Assemblyman Vito Lopez public. 

JCOPE has been looking into the scandal involving sexual harassment allegations against Lopez that led Speaker Sheldon Silver to pay out a settlement to Lopez's accusers and eventually strip Lopez of his legislative perks. JCOPE finished its investigation and forwarded it to the Legislative Ethics Commission according to the law so that they can measure punishment for Lopez and possibly Silver. 

But Staten Island District Attorney Dan Donovan requested earlier this year that the Legislative Ethics Commission refrain from releasing the report as he continues a criminal investigation into Lopez. But JCOPE isn't interested in waiting. JCOPE has been accused of being a toothless watchdog in the past weeks as legislative corruption scandals have bloomed.  

The ethics panel says it will go ahead and release its findings if the Legislative Ethics Commission doesn't.

Here is JCOPE's statement: 

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The state has reimbursed New York City $47 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency-approved funds for the costs of a program that helped homeowners recover from Hurricane Sandy. 

The Rapid Repairs program assessed damage to properties and provided eligible repairs such as restoring heat, hot water and electricity. 

"I am pleased to direct these funds back to the Department of Environment Protection for the work that was carried out under the Rapid Repair Program, which was then developed by the State and FEMA into the Sheltering and Temporary Essential Power (STEP) Pilot Program for similar needs beyond New York City," Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a statement. 

Mayor Michael Bloomberg used his statement on the reimbursement to rebuff criticism that the city should have provided temporary housing for people whose homes were too devastated to live in or whose homes were infested with mold. Rapid Repairs did not deal with mold infestation

“Rapid Repairs – which restored heat, hot water and electricity free-of-charge – provided homeowners with an important head-start in the recovery process, which is still far from over," Bloomberg said in a statement. "As we continue the hard work of recovery and rebuilding, there is no doubt that helping people get back into their housing via Rapid Repairs was a better use of taxpayer money than a massive temporary housing program. I want to thank the entire team at FEMA who worked with us to make the program possible, and these reimbursements, along with the first round of Federal aid, will ensure the City can continue to address housing, business and infrastructure needs in the hardest hit communities.”

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State Sen. Joe Addabbo, who represents some of the hardest hit parts of Queens including Breezy Point and Howard Beach, saw his own office destroyed by flooding caused by Hurricane Sandy.

As the New York Daily news pointed out this morning, Breezy Point remains a ghost town after being ravaged by fire and flooding and the expedited help promised by officials has yet to appear.

Addabbo issued the following statement on the six-month anniversary of Hurricane Sandy this morning: 

As I reflect on the progress made six months after Sandy, I see it as a tale of two worlds. One world is just about back to normal. There are parts of my district where stores have returned, residents are back in their homes and back to work, while their children are back to their normal lives. Then there is the other world, which is far from being back to normal. In that world, the stores are still closed and possibly never coming back due to the damage from Sandy. Some of those residents who worked at those stores are out of work and some are out of their homes. I also know that there are children, and adults, who continue to have emotional issues caused by Sandy. Two totally different worlds, which six months after Sandy, still need a lot of attention, because while there has been much progress made, there is still so much work to do. As for working on Sandy-related issues, my work as an elected official will not be done until both of these worlds are one again. Over the coming months, I am hopeful that the federal funding filtering through our state and city will be able to help our neighbors, businesses and nonprofits. I continue to explore all possible means necessary to assist my residents in their time of difficulty. "My thoughts and prayers go out to all of my constituents in Howard Beach, Hamilton Beach, Broad Channel, Rockaway and Breezy Point who continue to suffer through the ravages of Sandy."

Addabbo told the Gazette earlier this month that very few of his constituents are interested in home buyouts because of their deep roots in the community but that they need more support to reestablish businesses and return to a normal existence.

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The federal government has approved the state's plan for spending $1.7 billion in funds to help communities rebuild from Superstorm Sandy. 

New York City is covered by a separate plan that officials say was submitted this week and will be approved soon. 

Congress approved a plan setting aside $50.5 billion in Sandy relief for all impacted states. New York is expected to get around $30 billion of those funds eventually.  

The state's plan provides block grant funds that are designed to be more flexible than other FEMA loans and insurance plans. "We got to communities and we say, 'You tell us what you need to restore your community,'" Gov. Andrew Cuomo said at a press conference earlier today announcing the federal government's approval of the state plan. 

He was joined at the press conference by Shaun Donovan, the secretaroy of Housing and Urban Development, and Sen. Chuck Schumer.  

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Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb and his conference presented a package of reform legislation last week that includes creating a system to recall state officials. One thing that is not on the Republican's to-do list is public financing of campaigns. 

"It is the same old, same old public financing pitch" Kolb said of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver's plan for a public campaign finance system. "That idea is not going to happen upstate beause people don't want tax dollars going to campaigns." 

Senate Republicans are also against public funding of campaigns and are holding a hearing in New York City in May to look at corruption in the system. The city's public finance system has been held up as a more ideal system by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Democrats. 

When asked if he expected to hear stories about political corruption, Kolb responded: "I would hope so. This keeps being used as a model for reform, but we've seen that there have been problems. Look at John Liu and the irregularities with his fundraising, and he is using the public system. You also have the problem of having only rich people being able to run for public office. Bloomberg can write a check and go after a legisaltor who did something he didn't like. He can take the regular guy right out of the mix. So, I think we should have public hearings." 

As for a recall system, Kolb says he does not think being able to recall officials will create instability in Albany or the need for more campaign cash. Kolb points out that 19 other states have the ability to recall officials, and around 12 legislators have been recalled in 36 recall elections that have taken place. The New York law would require a pettition with signatures equaling 20 percent of the voters in the official's last election.

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It has been three months since Gov. Andrew Cuomo gave his State of the State Address and announced a 10-point plan to address injustices facing women in today's society.

Since then, Cuomo has successfully passed major gun law changes and enacted a state budget. 

Supporters of the plan expectthe legislation will resemble the already-proposed Reproductive Health Act that would take abortion out of New York's penal code and make it part of health law. But the wide-ranging proposal was also supposed to deal with human trafficking, pay discrepency and sexual harassment.

Cuomo indicated earlier this week on Susan Arbetter's The Capitol Pressroom radio show that he is in no hurry to introduce precise bill language on the issue. 

“Oftentimes they don’t want the bill to come to the floor for a vote because they don’t want to take the position,” Cuomo told Arbetter, adding, “What we need to do is strip away the devil is in the details as just an excuse.”

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The state ethics panel tasked with policing corruption in Albany has a new chairman.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has appointed Daniel J. Horowitz as chair of the Joint Commission On Public Ethics. He replaces Westchester County District Attorney Janet DiFiore, who resigned and is preparing for her relection campaign in November. 

The apointment of DiFiore, an elected official who raised compaign cash, as JCOPE chair, created a fair bit of controversy. 

Politics on the Hudson pointed out that DiFiore's fundraising took off after her appointment as JCOPE chair. A number of those contributions came from elected officials.

A JCOPE spokesman told Politics on the Hudson at the time that they were vigilant about who they accepted cash from and that DiFiore would return money. “If someone raises something that gets by and it’s appropriate, then the money would be returned," the spokesman said. 

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