ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - New York Gov. David Paterson is taking on
the fight of his political life.
He's promising to stand up to public worker unions in Albany,
where their hundreds of thousands of votes and millions of dollars
donated to campaigns and spent on lobbyists have given them
unmatched power.
The question now is not just whether Paterson is up to the
challenge, but whether it's too late.
"It can't be business as usual," Paterson said Thursday in
casting doubt on unions' effort to boost benefits through the
Legislature. "This is not the time to sweeten the pot because
we're about to lose the whole pot."
It was a reference to what Paterson calls "the terrible truth"
of New York's fiscal health. That includes locked-in benefits and
other spending in state budgets over the last several years that
prompt his projection of $21 billion in budget gaps over the next
three years.
Even in a cynical place like Albany, where governors for years
have made other dire predictions only to embrace bloated budgets as
good compromises, Paterson is raising expectations.
On Thursday, Paterson appeared to side with fiscally tight New
York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg who is opposing a union lobbying
effort to provide a second chance for employees to buy into a
lucrative early retirement plan. Bloomberg says it would cost the
city $200 million, an estimate disputed by lawmakers and union
leaders.
Now, Paterson is facing his own tests.
The Democrat is starting to see the annual string of pro-labor
measures to improve pension and other benefits for unionized public
workers and retirees. Those efforts have passed with overwhelming
or unanimous support in the Legislature, only to be vetoed by
former governors George Pataki and Eliot Spitzer.
But Paterson, in office just three months after 20 years in the
Senate's Democratic minority where he benefited from the bales of
campaign contributions spread about by unions, lacks the public
mandate of those who were elected to the office. And he lacks
Bloomberg's billions that would help him fight off the kind of
nasty union TV ad campaign that hurt Spitzer early in his brief
time in office.
Paterson, who rose from lieutenant governor when Spitzer
resigned March 17 over a prostitution investigation, has also
sought to rebuild bridges between the executive and legislative
branches. That, however, can be seen as a sign of weakness in the
Capitol's brand of power politics.
So far, his record is mixed.
Despite forecasting a falling sky in March, he eventually
supported an even greater increase in the record amount of school
aid. He also allowed the teachers' unions to attach a measure that
will make it easier to get tenure, although in a slightly weakened
form. The measure prohibits school districts from using student
performance on standardized tests as a measure of whether a teacher
should get tenure, which provides almost lifelong job security.
But more recently, Paterson angered the United University
Professions union, part of the powerful New York State United
Teachers union, by giving the State University of New York about
$140 million less of an increase than was sought.
University workers rallied outside the Capitol chanting, "Hey,
hey, ho, ho, SUNY cuts have got to go." They said the cut put SUNY
on the road to being "dismantled."
But as with most lobbyists and activists in Albany, the
demonstrators had a better sense of outrage than math.
Paterson didn't "cut" SUNY funding, which will still increase
by $20 million to $4.53 billion. That doesn't include the $3.75
billion more in capital funding and another $6 billion in capital
cash committed for coming years. And Paterson plans more as he
commits to fulfilling Spitzer's promise to bring SUNY to the
national fore in higher education.
The "cut" to which the unions referred was the 3.5 percent
spending reduction Paterson is requiring of all agencies as
revenues decline. He said the 2009-10 budget must result in a true
cut of 5 percent to 10 percent.
Paterson has another test headed his way.
The Legislature will soon send to his desk a bill that would
prohibit state and local governments from trying to change generous
health benefits provided to retirees. That would take the costly
item off the table in collective bargaining for at least a year
while a panel considers the future of health care for retirees.
That panel, created by the Legislature, is heavily represented by
labor, whose members could eventually collect the benefit. There
are no seats on the panel for representatives of local government.
So the accidental governor's trial by fire will get hotter in
June, because these measures are often slipped into the final, late
hours of the legislative session when few are watching.
Paterson so far hasn't let up on legislators, who would rather
not be known as the people who have been raising your taxes, in one
form or another, for years.
That's the cycle Paterson said he must end, this "trying to cut
the same the same piece out of the pie.
"They don't understand," he said, "that there is no pie."
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Michael Gormley is the Albany, N.Y., Capitol editor for The
Associated Press. He can be reached by e-mail at
mgormley(at)ap.org.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)