All about guns, legislation and politics in New York
In another of the as yet to be decided races, in AD-100 A-rated Tom Kirwan has widened his lead over D-rated Frank Skartados.
Skartados defeated Kirwan in ’08 by less than 1000 votes and now it appears that Kirwan has reversed things. While they still haven’t counted all the ballots, given that Kirwan won in Newbugh, I believe he’s going to come out ahead in the end.
Despite Democrat loses in the last election, Chuck Schumer has come out ahead. According to The Politico, he’s going to be in charge of a new joint operations effort combining their press, policy and political operations.
Ann Marie Buerkle is maintaining her lead over incumbent antigunner Dan Maffei in CD-25.
I think she’s won it. The Democrats are looking desperate.
The counting and recounting is still not done, but I think it is likely the Republicans will control the State Senate next session. That should help keep antigun legislation bottled up, although I question whether Dean Skelos has the sort of control over his conference the same way Joe Bruno did.
In any event, unless there is a serious effort made by the Republicans to reach out to the grassroots and Joe Citizen, sooner or later the Democrats will take the majority in both houses. There’s no reason they should not have picked up the two seats in Westchester, let alone blowing SD-38 in Rockland.
I find these to be hard to believe.
Cuomo Pledges To Use People Power:
“Democratic Gov.-elect Andrew Cuomo plans to use people power to move his agenda in Albany when he takes office on Jan. 1. Cuomo, speaking on WOR 710 AM in New York City this morning, said that in order to end what he considers to be a strangle hold of special interests on the state Legislature he will wield his voter mandate to achieve spending and tax caps this coming legislative session. …”
Kolb optimistic about Cuomo administration:
“Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb, R-Canandaigua, said today that he’s optimistic about a Cuomo administration …”
First off, Cuomo does not have a mandate. He won in no small part because the the GOP did not put up a serious candidate (Lazio) against him. After their boy lost the primary, the party “leadership” refused to get behind the winner (Paladino).
Second, as for Kolb’s optimism, I’m sure it’s the same sort of optimism I feel whenever I buy a lotto ticket.
Cuomo has been part of the Democrat political machine for decades. He’s not about to change his style or his ambitions. The only question is how much energy he’s going to put into pushing each of his agenda items, including microstamping. He may just leave that one to Eric Schneiderman.
Details on White Plains Mayor Adam Bradley’s domestic abuse trial over at The Journal News site.
Bradly joined Mayors Against Illegal Guns coalition after taking office and is still listed on their website despite the numerous charges against him. He’s not the first member of the Bloomberg bunch to have these sort of problems either.
Daily News op-ed, “New York must modify tough gun laws to make it less vulnerable to legal assault“:
“… New York’s [gun] laws have a fat target on their backs – one that gun-lobby attorneys are sure to exploit. For one, the prices are high enough that they’re sure to be challenged as discriminatory against the poor. Absurd? Perhaps – but it worked in knocking down the Chicago and D.C. laws …”
Translation: We must keep the poor unwashed masses from legally owning guns.
Using their logic, why not have a financial means test for other rights, like voting?
There are a bunch of state races that are still undecided. It appears the Senate will be controlled by the GOP 32-30. As it stands now:
Antigun Republican Frank Padvan was replaced by antigun Democrat Tony Avella in SD-11 while the open seat in SD-38 went to Democrat David Carlucci who does not have a public record on gun issues that I’m aware of. SD-35 and SD-37 have incumbent antigun Democrats leading.
I expect the recounts, absentee ballots, and probable lawsuits will keep the final outcome up in the air for weeks, if not months to come. There is also the possibility that Carl Kruger and/or Ruben Diaz will caucus with the Republicans.
According to Dave Kopel, pro-gunners are up by 6 in the Senate.
Since nationwide reciprocity failed the 60 vote supermajority needed to prevent a filibuster by 2 votes last year, this means that there are now enough votes in Congress to move a nationwide CCW reciprocity bill over the objections of Chuck Schumer, etc.