Gov. Cuomo, center, with Sens. Stewart-Cousins, left, & Klein (photo: The Governor's Office)
Governor Andrew Cuomo says he wants Democrats to take control of the state Senate and, in reunifying two factions to be able to focus on flipping Republican seats, he publicly offered support for senators who once made up the Independent Democratic Conference, a group of breakaway Democrats that until April held a years-long power-sharing agreement with Republicans.
Cuomo and the leaders of the two Senate groups -- mainline conference leader Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins and IDC leader Senator Jeff Klein -- said at their “unity” news conference at the governor’s Manhattan office that none of the parties would support primary challengers to the other.
Yet with only five weeks till the September 13 primary, Cuomo has not formally endorsed, or been endorsed by, any of the eight senators that made up the IDC. Stewart-Cousins, by contrast, has offered her endorsement of Klein and the other seven members of what was the IDC, each of whom faces a primary challenge.
The now-defunct conference led by Klein agreed last November to disband his breakaway group that had caucused with Republican senators for seven years and to rejoin the mainline Democrats, pending certain developments. Cuomo brokered the deal, which was announced in April (just after a new state budget was announced), after years of saying he was helpless to force the IDC back into the fold. His critics, including his Democratic primary challenger, Cynthia Nixon, say he enabled and benefited from the odd arrangement and that the reunification came too little too late.
Four years ago while also facing primary challenges, Cuomo and Klein endorsed each other for reelection, but this year, amid heightened awareness and criticism of the IDC’s role in the Senate, the two have thus far decided to forego a mutual endorsement that could potentially give their opponents ammunition to criticize them. The same goes with the other seven former IDC members, all of whom face primary challengers that are backed to varying degrees by a number of liberal activist groups -- including some that sprung up in direct opposition to the existence of the IDC and a local senator’s membership in the group -- and elected officials, like city Comptroller Scott Stringer and City Council Speaker Corey Johnson.
At the April news conference, in a show of bonhomie, Cuomo sat at a table between Klein and Stewart-Cousins, where they announced the reunification deal and Klein’s new position as deputy conference leader. Cuomo sounded the alarm about “the Washington agenda” under a Republican-led Congress and President Donald Trump as he emphasized in lofty terms the need for Democrats to take the state Senate and the House of Representatives. “We’re all going to, within legal limits, pool our resources, pool our strategy because it’s a different type of election this year. It’s about getting Democrats energized and getting Democrats out. So I’m all in,” Cuomo said.
He later added, “All the Senators agree to support each other. So there will be no primaries supported by one senator against another senator and we agree that we’re all gonna work in a coordinated way.”
As part of the deal, the State Democratic Party, elected officials and several prominent labor unions vowed to support the former IDC Senators while refusing aid to their challengers. “Together under Governor Cuomo’s leadership, we’re on the right path, the necessary path to demonstrate to our nation what New Yorkers are made of and the values that we all stand for,” Klein said at the news conference.
But that camaraderie doesn’t seem to extend to the campaign trail. Asked if the governor planned on endorsing Klein or the other former IDC members, a Cuomo campaign spokesperson, Abbey Collins, did not answer directly but instead emphasized that the governor is more focused on protecting Democrat-held seats.
“For over a decade the Senate Democratic Conference has been dysfunctional and fractured,” Collins said in a statement. “The governor supports democratic unity and is focused on growing the Democratic majority in the senate by picking up seats on Long Island and across Upstate to fight Donald Trump and his destructive, ultra-conservative agenda. We stand alongside Andrea Stewart Cousins in supporting all members of the senate Democratic conference.”
A Klein spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Stewart-Cousins has indeed formally announced her endorsement of Klein and the other former IDC members, in individual news releases to the press. She has not campaigned alongside Klein or any of the other senators: Sens. Tony Avella, Diane Savino, Marisol Alcantara, Jesse Hamilton, David Carlucci, and David Valesky.
They face challenges from, respectively, Alessandra Biaggi, John Liu, Jasmine Robinson, Robert Jackson, Zellnor Myrie, Julie Goldberg, and Rachel May.
As election season unfolds ahead of the September 13 primary vote, Cuomo, Klein, and many other candidates continue to announce endorsements of their candidacies by groups and leaders. The lists put forth by Cuomo and Klein, both heavy on labor unions and elected officials, continue to grow, but with the glaring absence of one another. Some elected officials, like Johnson, the Council speaker, have endorsed Cuomo and IDC challengers, including Biaggi, who is taking on Klein and used to work in the Cuomo administration, in the governor’s counsel’s office. Some, like Stewart-Cousins and Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr., are backing Cuomo and Klein.
Over the course of the last few months, Nixon has repeatedly criticized Cuomo for allowing the IDC to exist unchecked for years and more specifically for his direct support of Klein in this year’s election. Lauren Hitt, a spokesperson for Nixon, pointed to Nixon’s comments last month after a New York Times report noted that Klein was sending out campaign mailers that included a photo of him aside Cuomo.
“The Governor cannot be both a feminist and a supporter of Senator Klein,” Nixon said in a statement at the time, pointing to allegations that Klein forcibly kissed a former staffer outside a bar in Albany in April 2015. “Klein has not only been accused of sexual misconduct by his own staff, but he led the coalition that repeatedly blocked critical protections for New Yorkers’ reproductive rights. Several other New York Democrats have already appreciated what’s at stake for New Yorkers and endorsed against Senator Klein. The Governor can either stand with New York’s women or against us,” Nixon said.
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by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
@samarkhurshid @GothamGazette
Gov. Cuomo in 2013 (photo: The Governor's Office)
As part of the #MeToo movement, a group of women who experienced sexual harassment or abuse while working in New York state government have for months been advocating for public hearings on the culture that enables that misconduct in government, especially the state capital, and in the private sector. Their calls have intensified -- and been echoed by prominent women running for state elected offices this year -- after Governor Andrew Cuomo and state legislative leaders passed new anti-harassment laws without any public hearings and without going far enough, according to the women.
Those calls have fallen on deaf ears from the men who control state government, however, with Cuomo touting the new laws as the “strongest in the nation” as he seeks a third term and leaders of the Assembly and Senate, including one accused of forcibly kissing an aide, largely remaining silent.
The Sexual Harassment Working Group, seven women who launched the #HarassmentFreeAlbany movement, have criticized the Democratic governor and bi-partisan Legislature for passing an inadequate package of anti-sexual harassment legislation in this year’s budget, agreed upon in late March. The policies were negotiated by Cuomo, Democratic Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, Republican Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan, and Senator Jeff Klein, then-leader of the Independent Democratic Conference that has since rejoined the mainline Democrats.
The criticism that the “four men in a room” had for years epitomized the opacity of state budget negotiations was made all the more stark by the fact that they decided how to tackle sexual harassment without hearings, without significant consultation with female legislators -- including the lone woman to lead a legislative conference, Democratic Senate Minority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, who had been promised a seat at the table -- and without those who had been subject to harassment or abuse, as well as the glaring inclusion of Klein, who was accused earlier this year of forcibly kissing a staffer in 2015 outside an Albany bar. Klein’s accuser, Erica Vladimer is among the members of The Sexual Harassment Working Group.
In consultation with experts, the group has issued a set of recommendations for enacting stronger anti-harassment protections and have been joined in their cause by the likes of Fordham Law professor Zephyr Teachout, who is running for the Democratic nomination for attorney general, and actor and activist Cynthia Nixon, who is challenging Cuomo in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, along with rank-and-file state legislators and other advocates.
At a news conference in Manhattan on Wednesday, August 1, Vladimer, other members of the group, and Zenaida Mendez, former President of NOW New York, appeared with Nixon, urging Cuomo to take action.
“It’s time to stop putting politics over human rights,” Vladimer said, “and the first way we can do that is with public hearings...where workers from every industry -- government, retail, food service, hospitality -- can be heard by those we elect to legislatie on our behalf and those who are appointed to enforce those protections.”
Nixon, running to be the first woman elected governor of New York, issued scathing remarks against Cuomo. “New Yorkers deserve better than a governor who ignores victims and chooses instead to protect and sometimes even promote those accused of harassment and worse,” she said. The first-time candidate recently released a video ad that cut back-and-forth between footage of Cuomo and President Donald Trump using similar rhetoric that smacks of ‘toxic masculinity.’
In an editorial for the Albany Times Union on Friday, two members of the group, Leah Hebert and Rita Pasarell, who were subjected to harassment by former Assemblymember Vito Lopez when they worked in his office, criticized Cuomo for his “strongest in the nation” claim about New York’s new anti-sexual harassment laws.
“[E]ven after accounting for rhetorical hyperbole in an election year, the new measures fall far short of what's needed,” Hebert and Pasarell wrote. “They lack teeth for enforcement. They fail to address many obstacles that prevent victims from seeking redress in court. They do nothing to fix the pervasive abuse in Albany, highlighted by more than 100 current and former state employees in an open letter. These new measures were passed in the same way gender-based harassment and discrimination often happen: behind closed doors.”
They noted how the New York City Council recently passed its own set of bills on sexual harassment after holding hearings to solicit testimony from those affected by it and from experts. The Stop Sexual Harassment in NYC Act included almost a dozen bills that were crafted after multiple hours-long hearings of the Council’s Committee on Women and the Committee on Civil and Human Rights. The bills, signed into law by the mayor, mandated, among other things, anti-sexual harassment trainings at city agencies and in private businesses, increased transparency from agencies on harassment complaints, stronger protections under the city’s human rights law, and added reporting requirements for city contractors.
Besides the open and very public process compared with how the new state policies were created, the city laws appear to be somewhat more expansive. The state policies require state contractors to provide anti-harassment training to all employees, prohibit mandatory arbitration for sexual harassment complaints, ban non-disclosure agreements unless a victim demands one, and extend harassment protections to non-traditional employees such as freelanders, contractors, and vendors. A broader model policy is still due from the state Division of Human Rights, which is meant to apply across the public and private sectors.
Cuomo, Heastie, and Flanagan, on the other hand, have shown no indication that they are listening. Spokespeople for all three officials did not respond to, or even acknowledge, requests for comment from Gotham Gazette about why there have been no public hearings, whether they are open to the idea, or if they had reviewed the recommendations put out by the Sexual Harassment Working Group. A Cuomo spokesperson told Gotham Gazette in late June that the administrations did “look forward to reviewing these recommendations,” but there’s no indication that has happened.
Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro, the Republican nominee for governor, also backed the call for public hearings on Thursday. “I pledge to insist on such hearings in Albany next year, should I be honored to be elected governor in November,” he said. “Albany’s culture will change. The coverups we have seen under Andrew Cuomo’s tenure are inexcusable and wrong.”
Molinaro, Nixon, and other Cuomo opponents and critics have also been seizing on recent revelations reported by the Albany Times Union around how victims of sexual harassment have been treated within the broader executive branch.
In the attorney general race, Teachout has been vocal about using the office’s power, if she is elected, to investigate sexual harassment, even in the private sector if it happens under her jurisdiction. Teachout also joined the Sexual Harassment Working Group when they were in Albany last month pressing their demands.
“The idea that New York State — in the middle of a national #TimesUp movement, after the Harvey Weinstein scandal, after all these scandals — that New York has not fixed its own problem is a total shame and disaster and suggests that our old boys club isn’t only covering up corruption but also covering up sexual misconduct,” Teachout said at the news conference, Politico New York reported. She urged her three Democratic primary opponents to join the calls for hearings and improved laws.
Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, also running for attorney general, has called for a “full-scale investigation” into harassment in state government. Leecia Eve, a former Cuomo and Hillary Clinton aide now running for attorney general, also supports holding hearings, according to a campaign spokesperson.
Delaney Kempner, a campaign spokesperson for Public Advocate Letitia James, who is the State Democratic Party’s preferred candidate for attorney general and has cross-endorsed with Cuomo, sent a statement to Gotham Gazette that touted work James has done co-sponsoring legislation on mandatory sexual harassment training and reporting, and advocating against forced arbitration clauses in employment contracts.
But the statement did not indicate whether James supports the call for hearings on sexual harassment in state government and beyond or believes that the new state laws passed are sufficient. “It is clear that our laws have not protected women in the workforce from harassment and abuse, both in Albany and across the state…,” Kempner said. “We must improve our laws and change our culture. As Attorney General, Tish will continue to stand up for the women of New York and investigate anyone who seeks to abuse or harass us. That is how we make lasting change.”
[Read: Pointing to Deficiencies, Victims Call for Changes to State’s New Sexual Harassment Policies]
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by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
@samarkhurshid @GothamGazette
Gov. Cuomo at a broadband event (photo: The Governor's Office)
The revocation of Charter Communications’ ability to do business in New York State may be seen by many as a win for consumers and for striking workers, but several key questions remain unanswered, including what cable operator will replace it, and if the company will really be forced to relinquish its assets in the first place.
Charter is the largest cable operator in the state, with its umbrella including most of New York City (the Bronx and parts of Brooklyn are dominated by Cablevision) and large swaths of upstate New York. Cable companies are sometimes described as “cartels,” divvying up territory where each can be the only operator, enabling higher prices and poorer customer service. Some have accused cable companies of explicit collusion.
When Charter acquired Time Warner Cable, New York City’s previous main cable operator, in 2016, the state’s Public Service Commission (PSC) approved the merger on the condition that Charter provide statewide broadband at 100 megabits per second (mbps) by the end of 2018 and 300 mbps by the end of 2019, and to provide broadband access to 145,000 unserved or underserved households in rural parts of the state.
The state says that Charter failed to live up to its promises and attempted to deceive the public into thinking that it had fulfilled them, via advertising campaigns. As such, the state revoked its approval of the Charter-TWC merger on July 27 in a hastily called meeting without one of its most vocal members, and banned Charter from operating in the state.
The PSC ordered Charter to “file within 60 days a plan with the Commission to ensure an orderly transition to a successor provider(s).” Charter can appeal or sue to block the decision, but as of yet has not done so.
As it was for Charter, approval from the PSC of a franchise agreement for the replacement provider is potentially extremely lucrative. It is not clear which company will become the successor, though the list of potential suitors includes large donors to Governor Andrew Cuomo’s campaigns.
Cablevision, the regional behemoth that operates in the Bronx and upstate, has donated $617,500 to Cuomo’s gubernatorial campaigns since 2008, with $92,500 coming since July of 2017. The donations have come from various LLCs affiliated with local affiliates (e.g. Cablevision of New Jersey, Cablevision of Rockland/Ramapo, etc.) as well as from a corporate PAC, though all donations list the address of its headquarters in Bethpage on Long Island.
Cablevision is now a subsidiary of European telecom giant Altice, which is not listed as having ever donated to Cuomo under its name.
Comcast, which has a limited presence in New York State, has given Cuomo $164,700 since 2009, with $55,180 coming on November 27 of last year. With Charter being evicted from the state, Comcast, the largest cable provider in the United States despite being routinely criticized for poor customer service and anticompetitive business practices, may attempt to gain a foothold in the Empire State and the single largest media market in the country.
AT&T and Verizon, both of which compete with cable companies with fiber optic offerings, have donated $137,900 and $72,815.89, respectively, to Cuomo’s gubernatorial campaigns. AT&T donated $20,100 on May 28. Cuomo received $187,800 from Time Warner, whose parent company his administration banned from the state.
Asked whether the campaign contributions could influence the process to replace Charter, Cuomo spokesperson Tyrone Stevens called any such notion "baseless" and noted that the replacement process is controlled by PSC without interference from the governor.
“The Governor believes the PSC should not back down to a media giant that has failed to live up to its promises and violated its obligation to build out our broadband system," Stevens said. "The PSC stepped up and took aggressive action to enforce the law, and the Governor stands with New York consumers who deserve the broadband service Charter-Spectrum promised, but has failed to provide."
The PSC, which regulates public utilities in the state such as gas, electricity, water, and telecommunications, is made up of five commissioners, each appointed by the governor. The PSC fined Charter $2 million in June for failing to adequately expand its network.
Charter has 60 days to present to the PSC a six-month transition plan to another cable operator. Charter is entitled to make its preference known as to which company it wants to replace it, but any new operator must prove to the PSC that it intends to serve the public interest in order to be approved to conduct business, and the actual broadband contracts are with localities, not the state.
“The properties that are owned by Charter/Time Warner in New York State are very profitable, and they’re essentially a known entity,” said Richard Berkley, the executive director of the Public Utility Law Project, a non-profit representing low-income and rural consumers seeking better service and consumer protection by public utilities, in an interview with Gotham Gazette. “So I think you’d see a lot of private entities interested in that.”
Charter can seek a “temporary restraining order” from a court, which Berkley had expected the company to do, but as of Monday afternoon, August 6, Charter does not appear to have filed any motions for a restraining order, or filed an appeal or lawsuit.
“In the same way that the state had a role in deciding whether or not Charter could buy Time Warner, or for that matter Comcast could buy Time Warner, whoever is proposed by the company will have to go through that same process,” Berkley said of PSC approval.
A large and profitable network of infrastructure suddenly being up-for-grabs may lead to intense lobbying of the PSC for the franchise.
“I would assume to the extent that they’re interested in stepping into the shoes of Charter that they have probably started checking in with the department or the state,” Berkley said.
“It’s a very profitable enterprise, and there are any number of large telecom firms that would want to step forward and try to buy it. The thing which is gonna make it more difficult still is that they have to be responsible. They have to be able to run the operation.”
A spokesperson for Altice declined to comment. Spokespeople for AT&T and Verizon did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for Comcast told Gotham Gazette, “at this time we aren’t commenting on this issue.”
A spokesperson for the PSC told Gotham Gazette, “The final decision as to who succeeds Charter is up to the PSC.” The spokesperson did not respond when asked whether telecom companies had been lobbying the PSC, or whether they were expected to. Cuomo told reporters Auburn on July 27 that the PSC is “talking to a number of companies.”
Cuomo has repeatedly publicly criticized Charter in the wake of its failure to live up to the terms of the merger deal. On July 31 in Queens, in response to a question about the Crystal Run straw donor scandal by NY1 reporter Zack Fink, Cuomo said that Charter/Spectrum had been “defrauding” the state. NY1’s future in a Spectrum-less New York is uncertain.
“You are defrauding the people of this state,” Cuomo told Fink. “That’s a fraud.”
A Cuomo spokesperson has insisted the governor was discussing Spectrum and has no ill-will toward Fink, a veteran reporter who has covered Cuomo for several years. Still, many noted Cuomo's response to legitimate questions about a campaign finance scandal that is being investigated by federal authorities.
In Auburn, where Cuomo was announcing a $10 million economic development initiative, the governor said that he asked the Attorney General to investigate advertisements making potentially false claims about Charter’s adherence to the conditions.
“They have breached their franchise agreement by being behind schedule in their build-out, even though their ads state the exact opposite, and they have not been forthright with the consumers in this state,” Cuomo said. “If you watch Spectrum-Charter, this issue has been going on for months. They haven’t even reported on it. Meanwhile, they’re running advertising that says the exact opposite. So, that’s why the PSC took that action today, and I support it.” Last Thursday, Charter halted its ad campaign touting its expanded broadband network, described by Cuomo and the PSC as misleading, a month after being ordered by the PSC to do so.
Berkley is skeptical that the donations to Cuomo’s campaigns by cable companies would significantly influence the PSC’s decision. “In the end, the Public Service Commission is an independent entity,” he said, despite the fact that Cuomo has a history of interfering in purportedly independent entities. “The governor doesn’t sit on the board. Yes, he gets to pick the people who come before the Senate to be vetted and confirmed. But, you know, the Senate has the ability to say ‘no’ to people.”
Berkley said that, rather than looking at large donations to Cuomo’s campaign coffers, the greater political influence lies in how much money companies have invested in state and local economic development initiatives. The cable infrastructure is privately owned and constructed, but built on public land, which is what makes it a public utility. Time Warner had, as a public utility, invested in local economic development initiatives such as the governor’s now-tarnished Buffalo Billion, announcing in 2013 that it would build a new call center in Buffalo. The larger Buffalo Billion program was at the center of a major public corruption trial earlier this year, which resulted in the conviction of a top Cuomo economic development official as well as Cuomo donors.
Berkley is not optimistic about the chances for municipal broadband to take hold in New York over private companies. Democratic State Senate candidate Ross Barkan has higher hopes: he thinks that the state should create a publicly owned internet company to compete with private cable companies and “break these monopolies once and for all.”
“Many New Yorkers are stuck with expensive, slow internet, and can't even shop among companies,” Barkan said in a direct message. “A public option for the internet would force private companies to provide better service, lower their prices, and would guarantee everyone in this city and state has a right to access the internet.”
Barkan, who is running in a competitive Brooklyn primary to try to unseat Republican Senator Marty Golden, said that if the proposal could be done through the legislative, rather than executive, process, he would be on the front lines for it.
“Either way, we need it. If it came down to introducing and passing a bill, I would do it,” he said.
In contrast to Cuomo and the PSC, who blame Charter, the Empire Center, a think tank, has laid blame for the situation on the cozy relationship between Cuomo and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 3, which represents Spectrum workers who have been striking for over a year. Just one day before the PSC announced Charter’s banishment, New York City launched its own probe into whether Spectrum was fulfilling the conditions of its franchise with the city, namely whether their “cable techs” were local union workers; the IBEW told the Daily News that Spectrum had begun utilizing out-of-state staffers. And on July 31, 23 New York City Council Members called for Charter to not be considered for any future contracts in New York City.
Ken Girardin, a policy analyst at the Empire Center, cited a speech by Cuomo at a rally for striking IBEW workers, where he questioned how Charter could “improve customer service without the workforce that knows how to provide customer service” in the wake of the merger and its attached conditions.
“Cuomo’s rhetoric makes it impossible to separate the PSC’s actions from the Charter-IBEW dispute,” Girardin said. He doubted that Charter would even be kicked out of the state at all, asserting instead that the PSC would revise the merger’s conditional deadlines if Charter acquiesced to the demands of the striking workers. Charter can seek a restraining order and settlement to block the state’s actions, but has not filed motions to do so at this time.
A spokesperson for IBEW did not respond to a request for comment from Gotham Gazette. The union and its affiliates have also donated generously to Cuomo’s campaign accounts.
In an interview, Girardin described the PSC as a “kangaroo commission,” an institution that is operating on Cuomo’s behalf unchecked by the state Legislature, and said that if the Charter decision stands it would allow the governor to extort favorable outcomes out of companies lest they be kicked out of the state, too.
“The governor makes no illusion about the control he exercises over the PSC,” Girardin said. “The PSC has done mental and legal backflips to implement policy on the governor’s behalf. And that ranges from inventing a way to subsidize nuclear power plants to creating a basis for expelling Charter out of the state. The PSC’s core mission is to ensure the reliability of utilities and to regulate the rates that they charge. Governors going back to Pataki have exploited the PSC’s statutory authority.”
Girardin is also more suspicious of the cable companies’ donations to Cuomo’s campaign.
“I can't speak to how contributions influence decision-making,” he told Gotham Gazette in an email, “but if the governor were to let the PSC operate as intended -- as an independent panel of experts focused on rates and reliability -- there would be less incentive for regulated utilities to contribute to his campaign.”
Cuomo has been a regular target of pay-to-play allegations given the state’s porous campaign finance laws, his acceptance of campaign contributions from entities with or seeking state business, and policy decisions that have favored donors. Cuomo’s office has consistently said that government decisions are based on the merits, not influenced by campaign donations of any size.
Nevertheless, Girardin said that, despite some seemingly political decisions such as the seizure of the Fitzpatrick Power Plant when the operator wished to close it, and bailouts for nuclear plants lacking in transparency, the banishment of Charter would be without precedent in the state.
“Nothing that the PSC has done in the past rises to this level,” Girardin said. Girardin said that the PSC, in normal circumstances, would simply levy a fine and lay out an enforcement plan against Charter, and that it should attempt to foster competition in the market instead of simply choosing a replacement for Charter’s franchise.
Republican gubernatorial nominee Marc Molinaro also claimed that the revocation of Charter’s franchise was politically motivated, in order to punish NY1, which is owned by Charter/Spectrum.
Molinaro called on the state’s Inspector General to look into the decision to revoke Charter’s franchise, to determine if the Cuomo administration had “orchestrated” the action for political purposes.
“I’ll come right out and say it: It looks to me like Andrew Cuomo is trying to send a chilling message to the news media—’don’t mess with me’—and I hope the Inspector General can prove me wrong,” Molinaro said.
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by Ben Brachfeld, Gotham Gazette
@GothamGazette
Note: this story has been updated to reflect additional comments from the governor's office.