Assemblyman Jose Peralta has won Tuesday’s special election for the 13th State Senate District.

He will now represent parts of Jackson Heights, East Elmhurst and Corona.

It was a heated race between Peralta and his main challenger, former State Senator Hiram Monserrate who ran as an Independent hoping to win back his old seat.

Monserrate was expelled from the senate last month following a misdemeanor assault conviction for dragging his girlfriend.

Lost in the shuffle was Republican Robert Beltrani. An Administrative Law Judge, Beltrani billed himself as a political outsider who was not caught up in the dysfunction of Albany.

Source: NY1

Republican gubernatorial hopeful Rick Lazio received a boost of political support Wednesday from former governor George Pataki.

Pataki, a three-term governor, said Lazio is the right choice to clean up the dysfunctional government in Albany.

“I believe the right person, the best person for the party, and more importantly for the state, is Rick Lazio,” Pataki said.

Lazio’s campaign says the one-time Long Island Congressman has the support of many Republican and Conservative leaders across the state.

Pataki, who left politics in 2006, is seen by some as a potential challenger for Kirsten Gillibrand’s U.S. Senate seat.

Source: NY1

Governor David Paterson has pardoned an immigrant slated for deportation for having spent time behind bars for crimes he committed as a teenager.

Qing Hong Wu, 29, was officially pardoned on Saturday but he was released from detainment in a New Jersey correctional facility Tuesday night.

Wu, pictured above center, came to the United States when he was five years old.

When he applied to be married to a U.S. citizen several years ago, he disclosed that had been convicted of robbery in 1995 and 1996. He served three years in a reformatory for those crimes.

Wu had earned his GED in the reformatory and went on to get his associate’s degree and had a career in information technology.

According to immigration laws, Wu’s convictions required deportation. As a result, Wu was taken into federal custody, where he remained from November until Tuesday night.

Source: NY1 continue reading this article here

Westchester County’s new leader says he will lay off hundreds of employees if necessary to avoid raising property taxes.

County Executive Robert Astorino says he inherited a projected $166 million deficit for 2011.

At a news conference Tuesday, Astorino said closing that gap with property taxes would mean a 30 percent increase for Westchester homeowners, but he said he would not raise taxes.

Instead, he proposed several immediate cost-cutting measures just short of layoffs, including letting many vacant jobs go unfilled.

Astorino said more severe measures, including layoffs, are required for the long term. He said he hopes union leaders will consider measures including pay cuts, pay freezes, furloughs and buyouts to limit the number of layoffs.

Source: AP

New York Republican Rick Lazio’s lackluster gubernatorial campaign has propelled some members of his own party to court a Democrat to switch sides and lead the charge against likely Democratic nominee Andrew Cuomo this fall.

Top Republican officials are scheduled to meet Tuesday with Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy in Albany, signaling a lack of confidence in Mr. Lazio’s low-buzz campaign and his anemic fund raising.

“People just don’t see the campaign taking off the way they would hope a Republican campaign would,” said John Graziano, chairman of the Albany County Republican Committee.

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New York Gov. David Paterson is pressing a state spending cap on a reluctant Legislature and pushing back against his lieutenant governor’s reported plan to borrow billions over several years to escape a fiscal crisis.

Paterson says Tuesday that spending is the state’s top problem and it must be curbed or capped before resorting to borrowing. The current deficit is projected at $2 billion.

The state budget due April 1 includes a deficit approaching $9 billion in a $130 billion spending plan.

On Monday, Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch denied a press report that he has developed a multiyear plan to right the state’s finances that includes billions of dollars in borrowing.

Paterson says also negotiations with legislative leaders aren’t being hampered by the two scandals that threaten his job.

Source: AP

Representative Eric J. Massa, a freshman Democrat from upstate New York who faces an investigation after being accused of harassing a male aide, said Friday that he would resign next week.

Mr. Massa was reported to the House ethics committee last month after a member of his Congressional staff accused him of harassment, according to a senior Congressional official who would speak only on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter.

Mr. Massa, who represents New York’s 29th District, abandoned his re-election campaign on Wednesday, after the accusation became public, saying then that he would retire at the end of his term.

Source: NY Times continue reading this article here

A gathering of city safety workers endorsed Queens Assemblyman Jose Peralta for state senator on Friday.

Union officials representing firefighters, emergency medical services and emergency medical technicians gathered in Corona to support Peralta, who is running for Hiram Monserrate’s former 13th District State Senate seat.

“Peralta has been an advocate of keeping fire houses open and fully staffed, not just for the firefighters but for the citizens of Queens,” said Leroy McGinnis of the Uniformed Firefighters’ Association.

“What better endorsement than that from those individuals that risk their lives every day to protect New Yorkers,” said Peralta.

Monserrate is running to recapture his former seat, after the State Senate voted to remove him in response to his conviction for misdemeanor assault.

The former senator dragged his girlfriend, Karla Giraldo, through the lobby of his apartment building in December 2008.

Source: NY1

New York Gov. David Paterson is vowing to serve out his term, in spite of growing calls for him to resign amid two scandals.

Speaking at a Brooklyn church on Sunday, Paterson said he was determined to run the state through the end of the year.

He told congregants at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Brooklyn that he would “not be daunted or distracted by any forces.”

The attorney general’s office is investigating whether the governor, his staff and his state police security detail illegally contacted a woman who had accused one of Paterson’s aides in a domestic violence incident.

Separately, the state’s Public Integrity Commission accused him of lying to investigators about his intention to pay for tickets he got for the 2009 World Series.

Source: AP

Former New York Mayor Edward Koch is putting together a coalition of powerful civic groups to address the state government’s gridlock.

Koch says the coalition will take aim at legislators standing in the way of change.

The state is mired in partisan bickering. There have been calls for scandal-plagued Gov. David Paterson to resign.

Koch and two good government groups – Citizens Union and New York Civic – have invited others to join them.

In outlining their mission, they said the state government “is an embarrassment.”

The group says the incumbents responsible for what it calls “this odious situation” must be defeated. It says they must be replaced by candidates committed to reform.

Source: AP