Cuomo To Be On Defensive This Legislative Session

Fred Dicker tells us Cuomo plans to stroke himself in his State of the State speech on Wednesday:

Expect an “orgy of self-congratulation and promise-making’’ in Gov. Cuomo’s election-year State of the State Address Wednesday, including pledges of tax relief, job creation, medical marijuana and some funding for new Mayor de Blasio’s pet pre-K program, Democratic insiders have told The Post.

Cuomo, who hopes to win re-election with a landslide total that tops the 64 percent received when his father, Gov. Mario Cuomo, first won re-election in 1986, plans to use much of a projected $2 billion budget surplus for a property-tax “circuit breaker’’ that will reduce the tax burden on hard-pressed middle- and upper-middle-class homeowners.

At the same time, he’ll propose using some of the surplus to kick up the state’s commitment to subsidizing universal pre-K school programs of the sort de Blasio is hoping to fund with a new tax on New York City’s wealthy, a plan Cuomo opposes, sources at the Capitol said.

“Cuomo is nervous about de Blasio and the Democratic Party’s left wing, and he’s going to make a strong gesture related to that in the speech,’’ said a prominent state Democrat.

A legislative Democrat said lawmakers expect Cuomo to deliver “a campaign speech’’ that will “brag about how he’s supposedly growing education and jobs and how he’s going to increase the state’s commitment to improving health care, as well as cutting taxes.’’

A senior legislative Democrat predicted an “orgy of self-congratulation and promise-making’’ from the governor, who, he said, “wants us to believe that he’s either solved all of the state’s problems or is on the verge of doing so.’’

Ken Lovett tells us this may be the most contentious legislative session of the Sheriff Andy Years:

After six months away, the Legislature is set to return to Albany this week to begin an election-year legislative session that some say could be the most acrimonious of Gov. Cuomo’s term. The starting point will be Wednesday when Cuomo gives is fourth state-of-the-state address. Questions hanging over the session include the ongoing investigation by Cuomo’s anti-corruption commission, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s standing after a number of sex harassment and other scandals rocked his house the past year, and whether the Senate can get anything done run again by a bipartisan coalition of Republicans and a breakaway group of four Democrats who have been pushing a more liberal agenda heading into the new year. Oh yeah, and progressives are feeling emboldened with the election of Mayor de Blasio. It’s going to get interesting.

One theme throughout the pre-State of the State stories is that Cuomo is desperate to run up the score for his re-election this year so he can run a viable 2016 presidential campaign if Hillary Clinton chooses not to run.

Another one is that the legislature is pissed at Cuomo's treatment and is looking to extract some measure of revenge.

A third is that Cuomo is worried about progressive Dems doing some damage to his re-election campaign this year by casting him as a sell-out to the 1%.

Andrew Cuomo is on the defensive these days and this is fertile ground for a substantial attack against his education reform agenda.

Starting this week, we put him on the defensive over the Endless Testing regime, the Common Core State (sic) Standards, the APPR teacher evaluation system that puts so much testing into place, and the inBloom data project.

Make no mistake - Sheriff Andy is worried about just this sort of thing.

We can get substantial changes to Cuomo's ed deform agenda this year.