March 1, 2010
Paterson Is Said to Have Ordered Calls in Abuse Case
By DANNY HAKIM and WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM, NY TIMES

ALBANY — Gov. David A. Paterson personally directed two state employees to contact the woman who had accused his close aide of assaulting her, according to two people with direct knowledge of the governor’s actions.

Mr. Paterson instructed his press secretary, Marissa Shorenstein, to ask the woman to publicly describe the episode as nonviolent, according to a third person, who was briefed on the matter. That description would contradict the woman’s accounts to the police and in court.

Mr. Paterson also enlisted another state employee, Deneane Brown, a friend of both the governor and the accuser, to make contact with the woman before she was due in court to finalize an order of protection against the aide, David W. Johnson, the two people with direct knowledge said. Ms. Brown, an employee of the Division of Housing and Community Renewal, reached out to the woman on more than one occasion over a period of several days and arranged a phone call between the governor and the woman, Mr. Johnson’s companion.

After the calls from Ms. Brown and the conversation with the governor, the woman failed to appear for the court hearing on Feb. 8, and the case was dropped.

These accounts provide the first evidence that Mr. Paterson helped direct an effort to influence the accuser.

Of Ms. Shorenstein’s call, the person briefed on the matter described it as an effort to “reconfirm what the governor had said before, that it was not an acrimonious — it was not a friendly breakup but it wasn’t acrimonious, that the allegation itself was not true.”

In an interview with The New York Times, the governor had characterized the fight as being “like breakups you hear about all the time.”

The call from Ms. Shorenstein to the woman came on the evening The Times was preparing to publish an article about Mr. Johnson, his past episodes with women and the police, and his ascent to the top ranks of the Paterson administration.

The person briefed on the matter said that at the time of the call, Ms. Shorenstein was not aware of the severity of the alleged assault, and that she did not believe that Mr. Paterson was aware of it either. Ms. Shorenstein failed to reach the woman, who has never spoken publicly about the episode.

Last Friday, Mr. Paterson ended his campaign for election, after The Times first disclosed that he and his State Police detail had intervened in a domestic abuse case involving Mr. Johnson, one of his closest aides.

Mr. Johnson’s girlfriend had accused him of choking her, smashing her into a mirrored dresser and preventing her from calling for help during a Halloween altercation in the Bronx apartment they shared.

Mr. Paterson has stated that he was unaware of the details of the case until The Times reported them, and has said he did nothing improper. After the news reports, he suspended Mr. Johnson and asked Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo to begin an investigation.

Mr. Paterson’s office declined to comment on Monday, citing the pending investigation. John Milgrim, a spokesman for Mr. Cuomo, also declined to comment.

The descriptions of the governor’s actions come from two people close to him.

The latest revelations came as Mr. Paterson spent much of Monday vowing to remain in office despite pressure on him to resign and distancing himself from the controversy over the domestic violence case.

“This is a separate issue that really involves the problems of someone that worked for us and not me,” Mr. Paterson said at a Midtown breakfast forum.

To date, the administration has conceded that the State Police contacted the woman in the hours and days after the Oct. 31 alleged assault in the Bronx, and she has said under oath in family court that they harassed and pressured her not to pursue charges.

But the governor’s state of knowledge about the alleged assault and personal involvement in the administration’s handling of it have remained murky.

He has acknowledged having a conversation with the woman on Feb. 7, the day before she was due back in court to seek the final order. But the two people close to the governor also described a more concerted effort to contact the woman before the court date, one involving Ms. Brown.

The nature of those contacts and what Ms. Brown was seeking to achieve remain unclear. She has not responded to numerous phone calls and visits to her home. Her husband, in a brief telephone interview on Monday, said he knew nothing about the events and would not comment.

A lawyer for the alleged victim has confirmed the conversation with the governor on Feb. 7 and said that Mr. Paterson had asked if the woman was all right and reassured her that “if you need me, I’m there for you.”

Ms. Brown had also played a role on the administration’s behalf in characterizing one of Mr. Johnson’s prior disputes with a woman. Mr. Johnson, according to his girlfriend at the time, punched her in the face outside Mr. Paterson’s Harlem office in 2001, when the governor was a state senator from Upper Manhattan.

The woman did not file a police report, and Mr. Paterson’s chief of staff at the time, Woody Pascal, said he had intervened and counseled the woman.

Shortly before the article on Mr. Johnson was published, Mr. Paterson’s press office informed a reporter for The Times that it had unearthed a witness, Ms. Brown, who characterized the incident as nothing more than a verbal argument.

On Feb. 16, Ms. Brown was interviewed and said she had been working as a volunteer in Assemblyman Keith L. T. Wright’s office, next door to Mr. Paterson’s Senate office, one day in 2001 when she walked out into the hall and encountered Mr. Johnson and a woman whom he had been dating in the midst of a heated argument. Ms. Brown said she witnessed no physical violence during the portion of the argument she saw. She said she felt certain that no physical violence had occurred.

“To me, it was more of a lover’s spat,” she said.

Mr. Cuomo’s investigators appear to be moving quickly in their inquiry. On Monday, they interviewed the two most senior officials in the state police, Superintendent Harry J. Corbitt and his second-in-command, Pedro J. Perez.

A lawyer for Mr. Perez, Stephen C. Worth, said he could not comment on what was discussed.

The investigators also were scheduled to interview the New York City police officer who first responded to the call at the woman’s Bronx apartment on Oct. 31.

Last week, after Mr. Paterson suspended Mr. Johnson without pay, his top criminal justice adviser, Denise E. O’Donnell, resigned, saying it was “unacceptable” that Mr. Paterson and the State Police had made contact with the woman and that she could not “in good conscience” remain in the administration.

On Monday, speaking at the breakfast in Manhattan, he emphasized that he would not resign. “I think there is an hysteria that I’ve been the victim of over the past couple of months,” he said. “I’ve been resigning about five times before this weekend.”

Danny Hakim reported from Albany, and William K. Rashbaum from New York. Reporting was contributed by Nicholas Confessore, David Kocieniewski, Jeremy W. Peters and Serge F. Kovaleski from New York.

February 26, 2010
Under Fire, Paterson Ends His Campaign for Governor
By DANNY HAKIM and JEREMY W. PETERS, NY TIMES

Gov. David A. Paterson ended his campaign for election on Friday amid crumbling support from his party and an uproar over his administration’s intervention in a domestic violence case involving a close aide.

The announcement came less than a week after Mr. Paterson formally announced his candidacy.

The governor acknowledged that the episode involving his longtime aide David W. Johnson had become a distraction, but he vowed to serve out the remaining 308 days of his term and remain focused on his work.

“There are times in politics when you have to know not to strive for service, but to step back, and that moment has come for me,” Mr. Paterson told a room full of reporters in an afternoon news conference.

In the most dramatic moment, the governor raised his right hand and offered what he called a “personal oath,” stressing that he had not abused his power in his response to the domestic violence case.

“I have never abused my office, not now, not ever,” said Mr. Paterson, his wife, Michelle Paige Paterson, by his side.

“I believe that when the facts are reviewed, the truth will prevail,” he added.

Even as the governor was speaking, however, new calls emerged for him to resign, amid a criminal investigation by the office of Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo. Moments after the governor’s news conference ended, the New York City comptroller, John C. Liu, became the latest fellow Democrat to call for the governor to step down.

And some Democrats expressed skepticism that the politically wounded Mr. Paterson could effectively lead a state facing a deficit of more than $8 billion.

The White House, which had tried to nudge Mr. Paterson out of the race, said he was right to end his candidacy. The reports of his administration’s intervention in the domestic abuse case were “disturbing,” said Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary.

“Anybody that read these articles believes at a minimum he made the right decision about his re-election,” Mr. Gibbs said.

State Democrats were moving to anoint Mr. Cuomo, who has been quietly preparing his own campaign for governor, as their candidate.

The governor’s withdrawal came less than two days after The New York Times reported that his administration had intervened in the episode involving Mr. Johnson, 37, who was accused by a longtime companion of assaulting her on Halloween.

The woman was twice granted a temporary order of protection against Mr. Johnson, but she complained in court that the State Police had been harassing her to drop the matter. In addition, the governor talked to the woman himself only a day before she was scheduled to appear in court to seek a final order of protection. She failed to show up for that appearance, and the case was dropped. The woman, saying she fears retaliation, has requested that her identity be withheld.

The governor initially seemed to believe that his campaign could survive the revelations and was seemingly undisturbed for most of Thursday, even as prominent Democrats publicly questioned his political prospects.

He attended two private lunches with donors in Manhattan, at the Four Seasons and the Bryant Park Grill.

But after he returned to his campaign office about 3:30 p.m., his political advisers gave him bad news: they had been canvassing Democrats about whether the campaign should continue, and they found that support for the governor was evaporating.

Some elected officials who had agreed to attend a big homecoming rally, planned for Saturday in Harlem, expressed wariness about appearing.

“It made no political sense to move forward with that kind of announcement in light of the allegations,” said Assemblyman Daniel J. O’Donnell, a Democrat who represents the Upper West Side.

“It really would be unfair to people who have been loyal to the governor to put them in a position like that,” he said, adding, “It was over.”

The governor and his advisers had also become unnerved because the Rev. Al Sharpton, who had been gradually moving away from his embrace of Mr. Paterson’s candidacy, was organizing a major meeting of black political leaders at Sylvia’s in Harlem on Saturday to discuss the governor’s situation.

On Thursday afternoon, the governor and his campaign manager, Richard Fife, began a conversation about his options. About 90 minutes later, they were joined by Jay Jacobs, the state party chairman and a key Paterson ally. Sitting around a conference table in the campaign office, which overlooks Park Avenue, as a snowstorm whirled outside, the governor listened to Mr. Jacobs explain why the race was unwinnable. Perhaps most significant, Mr. Jacobs said it would be extremely difficult for Mr. Paterson to win the 25 percent of delegates needed at the state party convention in May to secure a place on the primary ballot.

After Mr. Jacobs finished speaking, about 5:20, the governor agreed and said he would quit the race.

“It was becoming much bigger and more complicated than could be overcome,” Mr. Jacobs said later. “He said that he agreed. It didn’t require any great lift on my part. He didn’t seem resigned, dejected. He seemed resolute and confident.”

The governor thanked Mr. Jacobs and said he needed a day to call supporters and friends to let them know he would be ending his campaign.

Mr. Paterson then held a brief news conference, telling reporters that he was still a candidate.

He spent the evening and the next morning calling key personal and political supporters, including his father, Basil A. Paterson, former New York secretary of state; Representative Charles B. Rangel of Manhattan; and George Gresham, the leader of the powerful union of hospital workers, 1199 S.E.I.U.

Some old friends told him that he should consider going further. Minutes after his announcement on Friday, the governor called Edward I. Koch, the former mayor of New York City.

“I said I think you should resign,” Mr. Koch recalled of the conversation.

“They’re going to play with you like a dog with a bone, and it won’t be any fun,” he told the governor. “There won’t be any satisfaction, you won’t have any clout and it’ll be agonizing.”

“He said thank you, and that was all,” Mr. Koch said.

Later in the day, the governor called Kathryn S. Wylde, president and chief executive of the Partnership for New York City, a nonprofit group of business executives.

“I asked him if he felt that he had been railroaded out or if he got tired of it, and he said, ‘I just got tired of it,’ “ she recalled. “Then he said, ‘It’s like I’m standing in front of the mirror thinking is there a reason for why I take all this abuse, and that it’s mostly coming from the Democrats.’ “

Mr. Paterson, who is 55, came to office in March 2008 after his predecessor, Eliot Spitzer, resigned amid a prostitution scandal. Before becoming lieutenant governor in January 2007, he served for two decades as a state senator from Harlem, rising to become the leader of the Democratic caucus when it was still the minority.

Mr. Paterson had about $3 million on hand for his campaign, according to a finance report filed last month. Mr. Fife, his campaign manager, said Friday that no decision had been made about whether the money would be returned to donors.

Some Democrats are urging Mr. Paterson to turn over many or all of his duties to Richard Ravitch, the lieutenant governor, a seasoned public servant who once led the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Mr. Ravitch has been working for months on a multiyear fiscal plan that is likely to be released in the next couple of weeks.

“Obviously, I want to be as helpful as I possibly can,” said Mr. Ravitch, who was working on his fiscal plan on Friday afternoon as Mr. Paterson was preparing to announce his withdrawal from the governor’s race. “People have been waiting for me to come up with my ideas, and I’ve been trying to finish that. I’ll be working all weekend on that.”

Asked about the governor’s predicament, he said, “At some level you have to feel sad.” But, he added, the administration needed to focus on “problems with the government and the budget that have to be addressed.”

Mr. Paterson’s advisers, meanwhile, privately pressed legislative leaders to agree to a public meeting with him on Tuesday to send a message to New Yorkers that he was back at work, and serious about fixing the budget.

“There are 308 days left in my term,” he said. “I will serve every one of them fighting for the people of the State of New York.”

Peter Baker contributed reporting.

February 26, 2010
For Cuomo, Spotlight Suddenly Grows Hotter
By DAVID M. HALBFINGER, NY TIMES

For months, Andrew M. Cuomo has silently inhabited a world of grand assumptions: that he was by far the strongest Democrat to run for governor of New York; that his poll numbers were not merely overwhelming but durable; that his fund-raising prowess would turn his inevitable campaign into a juggernaut.

Those assumptions excited a lot of people, if for no other reason than that they made him seem an infinitely more attractive candidate than the man who happened to be occupying the governor’s office.

Now that Gov. David A. Paterson has abandoned his campaign, however, all those assumptions about Mr. Cuomo — not to mention his record — will be scrutinized and challenged, if and when he does what everyone expects he will in a matter of weeks: quickly wrap up his investigation of Mr. Paterson and officially enter the race.

But Mr. Cuomo, 52, is more than just a poll choice, or the payee on the checks of campaign contributors.

In three decades of public life, including two prior statewide races, he has grappled with how to present himself, and how much to change: whether to be more humble, or less contentious; how to calibrate his legendary aggressiveness to suit a shifting political climate; when to leap to the attack and when to lay low.

On Friday, as Democrats began falling into line behind him, Mr. Cuomo’s supporters pointed to late March or early April as the likeliest moment for him to declare his candidacy. Mr. Cuomo signaled that he would not be hurried into the fray.

“It is in the best interests of all New Yorkers that the state government function through this difficult time and address the pressing budgetary problems we face,” he said in a statement. “This is an election year and I will announce my plans at the appropriate time. In the meantime, I will continue to focus on my job as attorney general and the many important issues we are pursuing.”

Until now, the focus on a potential primary with Mr. Paterson has allowed Mr. Cuomo to skirt questions about the race for governor by saying he was focusing on his job. Attorneys general, after all, do not draft budgets or seek givebacks from union leaders.

“Could you blame him for being coy, and not being available to the press on every issue, on things that aren’t in the purview of the A.G.?” asked the publicist Ken Sunshine, a close friend and longtime Democratic insider. “Obviously he’ll have to start talking about that, and he will. But he doesn’t need to go to school to learn how.”

Mr. Cuomo got his political education managing the campaigns of his father, former Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, while still in his 20s — a precocious age at which to earn the nickname “Prince of Darkness.” Later, he built housing for the homeless, then rose to Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Clinton administration, becoming a confidant of Vice President Al Gore’s.

After Mr. Gore’s 2000 presidential defeat, Mr. Cuomo returned to New York and mounted an ill-advised gubernatorial primary campaign against the widely favored H. Carl McCall, who would have been New York’s first black chief executive. The Democratic establishment united against Mr. Cuomo and he withdrew to avoid a crushing defeat. Mr. Cuomo also showed a capacity for doing damage to himself, as when he derided Gov. George E. Pataki as having merely held Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani’s coat after the Sept. 11 attacks.

In defeat, and after a messy and embarrassing divorce a year later from Kerry Kennedy, Mr. Cuomo showed a capacity not just for rehabilitation, his admirers say, but for evolution. As a candidate for attorney general in 2006, he seldom took the bait dangled before him by opponents who hoped to trigger an uncalculated Cuomo eruption.

Once elected, he reached out to Democrats and to New Yorkers statewide with self-deprecating jokes about his youthful hubris. And as the state’s top law enforcement officer, he managed the feat of grabbing daily headlines without making himself the story. He shunned expansive interviews, though he would speak off the record for hours. NY1 News, the cable-TV channel, taunted him with a “Cuomo clock” showing how long it had been since he appeared on its program “Inside City Hall.”

“He’s let his actions talk, and he’s really stayed in the background,” said Doug Muzzio, a professor at Baruch College’s School of Public Affairs.

Just how much Mr. Cuomo has matured as a candidate since 2006 remains to be seen, but Mr. Sunshine acknowledged that his war chest and poll numbers, and the degree to which he benefited from comparisons to Governor Paterson, had made for “enormously high expectations.” He added, “It’s a potential danger.”

Kenneth Sherrill, a political science professor at Hunter College, put it this way: “I’m not sure that God could live up to people’s expectations today.”

Whether he proves a Democratic deus ex machina or not, Mr. Cuomo will be unable to keep quiet for much longer. The presumed Republican nominee for governor, Rick A. Lazio, a former representative, has been trying unsuccessfully to draw him into a debate about issues, demanding to know Mr. Cuomo’s positions on budget deficits, taxes and Medicaid.

The prospect of a Democratic primary made Mr. Lazio seem to be getting slightly ahead of himself. But Mr. Paterson’s withdrawal creates a two-man race.

“He can ignore me all he wants. He just can’t ignore the people of New York,” Mr. Lazio said in an interview on Friday. “It’s very clever to not show your cards, not take positions on issues so you don’t alienate anybody. But the public is at a point where they want a candidate who will treat them with respect, by explaining where you are on the issues regardless of whether it does some political damage.

“Cuomo’s gotten bucketloads of money from some of the most powerful special interests that control Albany,” he said. “How are you going to take them on?”

Of course, Mr. Cuomo’s supporters say that even now, keeping his head down remains the most effective rebuttal to such attacks. While Mr. Lazio assails Mr. Cuomo’s tactics, Mr. Cuomo can continue to press his claims against bailed-out bank executives, gouging retailers, polluters and insider traders.

Behind the scenes, Mr. Cuomo’s advisers say he is likely to alter his message to donors and Democratic allies, who have grown exceedingly anxious in the wake of Republican gains and Mr. Paterson’s problems. Now, they say, he and his advisers can at least begin assuring jittery Democrats that the day they have been waiting for is nearing.

“You sort of see some running room now,” said one adviser, who insisted on anonymity in keeping with Mr. Cuomo’s below-the-radar posture. “There’ll be a not-so-subtle change in the discussion, from this whole ‘Stay cool’ approach to ‘O.K., guys and gals, let’s get ready for a campaign and hopefully we’ll have a candidate in the next month or so.’ ”

February 26, 2010
Under Fire, Paterson Ends His Campaign for Governor
By DANNY HAKIM and JEREMY W. PETERS, NY TIMES

Gov. David A. Paterson ended his campaign for election on Friday amid crumbling support from his party and an uproar over his administration’s intervention in a domestic violence case involving a close aide.

The announcement came less than a week after Mr. Paterson formally announced his candidacy.

The governor acknowledged that the episode involving his longtime aide David W. Johnson had become a distraction, but he vowed to serve out the remaining 308 days of his term and remain focused on his work.

“There are times in politics when you have to know not to strive for service, but to step back, and that moment has come for me,” Mr. Paterson told a room full of reporters in an afternoon news conference.

In the most dramatic moment, the governor raised his right hand and offered what he called a “personal oath,” stressing that he had not abused his power in his response to the domestic violence case.

“I have never abused my office, not now, not ever,” said Mr. Paterson, his wife, Michelle Paige Paterson, by his side.

“I believe that when the facts are reviewed, the truth will prevail,” he added.

Even as the governor was speaking, however, new calls emerged for him to resign, amid a criminal investigation by the office of Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo. Moments after the governor’s news conference ended, the New York City comptroller, John C. Liu, became the latest fellow Democrat to call for the governor to step down.

And some Democrats expressed skepticism that the politically wounded Mr. Paterson could effectively lead a state facing a deficit of more than $8 billion.

The White House, which had tried to nudge Mr. Paterson out of the race, said he was right to end his candidacy. The reports of his administration’s intervention in the domestic abuse case were “disturbing,” said Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary.

“Anybody that read these articles believes at a minimum he made the right decision about his re-election,” Mr. Gibbs said.

State Democrats were moving to anoint Mr. Cuomo, who has been quietly preparing his own campaign for governor, as their candidate.

The governor’s withdrawal came less than two days after The New York Times reported that his administration had intervened in the episode involving Mr. Johnson, 37, who was accused by a longtime companion of assaulting her on Halloween.

The woman was twice granted a temporary order of protection against Mr. Johnson, but she complained in court that the State Police had been harassing her to drop the matter. In addition, the governor talked to the woman himself only a day before she was scheduled to appear in court to seek a final order of protection. She failed to show up for that appearance, and the case was dropped. The woman, saying she fears retaliation, has requested that her identity be withheld.

The governor initially seemed to believe that his campaign could survive the revelations and was seemingly undisturbed for most of Thursday, even as prominent Democrats publicly questioned his political prospects.

He attended two private lunches with donors in Manhattan, at the Four Seasons and the Bryant Park Grill.

But after he returned to his campaign office about 3:30 p.m., his political advisers gave him bad news: they had been canvassing Democrats about whether the campaign should continue, and they found that support for the governor was evaporating.

Some elected officials who had agreed to attend a big homecoming rally, planned for Saturday in Harlem, expressed wariness about appearing.

“It made no political sense to move forward with that kind of announcement in light of the allegations,” said Assemblyman Daniel J. O’Donnell, a Democrat who represents the Upper West Side.

“It really would be unfair to people who have been loyal to the governor to put them in a position like that,” he said, adding, “It was over.”

The governor and his advisers had also become unnerved because the Rev. Al Sharpton, who had been gradually moving away from his embrace of Mr. Paterson’s candidacy, was organizing a major meeting of black political leaders at Sylvia’s in Harlem on Saturday to discuss the governor’s situation.

On Thursday afternoon, the governor and his campaign manager, Richard Fife, began a conversation about his options. About 90 minutes later, they were joined by Jay Jacobs, the state party chairman and a key Paterson ally. Sitting around a conference table in the campaign office, which overlooks Park Avenue, as a snowstorm whirled outside, the governor listened to Mr. Jacobs explain why the race was unwinnable. Perhaps most significant, Mr. Jacobs said it would be extremely difficult for Mr. Paterson to win the 25 percent of delegates needed at the state party convention in May to secure a place on the primary ballot.

After Mr. Jacobs finished speaking, about 5:20, the governor agreed and said he would quit the race.

“It was becoming much bigger and more complicated than could be overcome,” Mr. Jacobs said later. “He said that he agreed. It didn’t require any great lift on my part. He didn’t seem resigned, dejected. He seemed resolute and confident.”

The governor thanked Mr. Jacobs and said he needed a day to call supporters and friends to let them know he would be ending his campaign.

Mr. Paterson then held a brief news conference, telling reporters that he was still a candidate.

He spent the evening and the next morning calling key personal and political supporters, including his father, Basil A. Paterson, former New York secretary of state; Representative Charles B. Rangel of Manhattan; and George Gresham, the leader of the powerful union of hospital workers, 1199 S.E.I.U.

Some old friends told him that he should consider going further. Minutes after his announcement on Friday, the governor called Edward I. Koch, the former mayor of New York City.

“I said I think you should resign,” Mr. Koch recalled of the conversation.

“They’re going to play with you like a dog with a bone, and it won’t be any fun,” he told the governor. “There won’t be any satisfaction, you won’t have any clout and it’ll be agonizing.”

“He said thank you, and that was all,” Mr. Koch said.

Later in the day, the governor called Kathryn S. Wylde, president and chief executive of the Partnership for New York City, a nonprofit group of business executives.

“I asked him if he felt that he had been railroaded out or if he got tired of it, and he said, ‘I just got tired of it,’ “ she recalled. “Then he said, ‘It’s like I’m standing in front of the mirror thinking is there a reason for why I take all this abuse, and that it’s mostly coming from the Democrats.’ “

Mr. Paterson, who is 55, came to office in March 2008 after his predecessor, Eliot Spitzer, resigned amid a prostitution scandal. Before becoming lieutenant governor in January 2007, he served for two decades as a state senator from Harlem, rising to become the leader of the Democratic caucus when it was still the minority.

Mr. Paterson had about $3 million on hand for his campaign, according to a finance report filed last month. Mr. Fife, his campaign manager, said Friday that no decision had been made about whether the money would be returned to donors.

Some Democrats are urging Mr. Paterson to turn over many or all of his duties to Richard Ravitch, the lieutenant governor, a seasoned public servant who once led the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Mr. Ravitch has been working for months on a multiyear fiscal plan that is likely to be released in the next couple of weeks.

“Obviously, I want to be as helpful as I possibly can,” said Mr. Ravitch, who was working on his fiscal plan on Friday afternoon as Mr. Paterson was preparing to announce his withdrawal from the governor’s race. “People have been waiting for me to come up with my ideas, and I’ve been trying to finish that. I’ll be working all weekend on that.”

Asked about the governor’s predicament, he said, “At some level you have to feel sad.” But, he added, the administration needed to focus on “problems with the government and the budget that have to be addressed.”

Mr. Paterson’s advisers, meanwhile, privately pressed legislative leaders to agree to a public meeting with him on Tuesday to send a message to New Yorkers that he was back at work, and serious about fixing the budget.

“There are 308 days left in my term,” he said. “I will serve every one of them fighting for the people of the State of New York.”

Peter Baker contributed reporting.


February 27, 2010
Editorial
Gov. Paterson’s Next Steps, NY TIMES,

Gov. David Paterson of New York served up one of the great political understatements on Friday when he talked about the “accumulation of obstacles” to his campaign for election. He did the right thing — the only thing — by dropping out of the race, but that is not going to make his troubles go away.

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is investigating the intervention by Mr. Paterson’s administration in a domestic altercation involving one of the governor’s aides. And there are many other things Mr. Paterson should be doing instead of running a quixotic campaign.

Mr. Paterson has 308 more days at the helm of a big state in the midst of disruptive and tough times. There is an $8 billion hole in the state budget, which must be balanced by March 31. And the abysmal ethical culture in Albany is still desperately in need of reforming — from a freewheeling Legislature that lives by its own twisted rules, to a State Police force that clearly needs a housecleaning, to, apparently, the governor’s office itself.

Mr. Paterson’s highest priority must be the budget. It has to be cut carefully, sensibly and fairly to make sure that those who can least afford it do not bear an unequal burden. Now, at least, Mr. Paterson does not have to worry about union television ads or special-interest lobbying. He should make certain that Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch is his top adviser on the budget and a participant in every important budget meeting. Mr. Ravitch is a seasoned public official who helped New York City through its rough patch in the 1970s. He has the knowledge and gravitas to deal with these times.

The governor is losing clout by the day, but he still has a chance to use the political levers available to any New York governor. He can threaten to pluck lawmakers’ favorite items out of the budget, for example, and he still has the power of the veto. Those powers, plus the freedom from political blocs and their agendas that dropping out of the race provides, could help him push through a real ethics reform package.

Mr. Paterson is not the only elected leader in New York who should be worrying about something other than the election. Sheldon Silver, a leading Democrat and the Assembly speaker, and the leading Republican in Albany, Dean Skelos, the Senate minority leader, both need to recognize that the state is in a real emergency. John Sampson, the Democratic conference leader in the Senate, and others should not use this time for more of the mischief they got up to last year. New Yorkers are watching as never before.

Another thing that needs watching is the State Police. Mr. Paterson’s withdrawal from the campaign came after news of his involvement in the handling of accusations of domestic violence against David Johnson, who once was the governor’s closest aide. It was inappropriate enough that Mr. Paterson spoke to the victim, but there are even more disturbing questions about the involvement of the State Police, and especially the unit protecting the governor.

Members of the governor’s security detail acknowledged meeting with the woman after the altercation. They said they wanted to offer counseling and talk about her “options.” If that’s true, it’s impossible to imagine how it could have been appropriate. But the woman testified in court that state troopers were “hounding” and “harassing” her to drop the charges.

Mr. Cuomo investigated the State Police last September and found political interference at the highest levels going back to George Pataki’s administration. The job of the governor’s security detail is security, not public relations or, worse, cover-ups.

With all these challenges, it’s hard to see how Mr. Paterson can redeem himself, but at least he has time to show political courage, instead of weakness, or worse.

New York Governor David Paterson Announces That He Will Not Seek a Four-Year Term in The Next Election

New York State Governor David Patterson's 'Drivergate'