Cuomo's Not-So-Secret Deal To Keep The State Senate In Republican Hands

Another double cross from Governor Cuomo for New York Dems:

Gov. Cuomo’s “fantastic’’ candidate in the important Nov. 3 special state Senate election will be “crushed’’ by her Republican opponent because Cuomo reneged on his pledge to go all out to help, senior Democrats have told The Post.

“Cuomo’s great candidate, Barbara Fiala, is going to get crushed on Election Day, and we all know why — he hardly lifted a finger,’’ said a prominent Democratic strategist, referring to Cuomo’s former Motor Vehicles commissioner, whom the governor picked in July to run for the Binghamton-area seat left vacant by the corruption conviction of Deputy Senate Majority Leader Tom Libous, a Republican.
...

Cuomo’s selection of Fiala — who he claimed “would be fantastic as a candidate” — was widely seen as significant because of the widespread view among Democrats that the governor has worked for years to keep the GOP in control of the Senate in order to strengthen his overall control of the Legislature.

Senate Democrats had been told to expect Cuomo to raise at least $100,000 for Fiala’s campaign — a drop in the bucket for Cuomo’s cash-rich campaign machine — but as of the weekend, nothing approaching that amount had arrived, a source close to the campaign said.

 ...


Cuomo faced a surprisingly strong Democratic primary challenge from little-known leftist law professor Zephyr Teachout last year partly because he was seen by Democratic activists as having kept Republicans in narrow control of the Senate.

Many Republicans also believe Cuomo has long had a peace pact with Senate Republicans, but few, besides Assemblyman Bill Nojay (R-Rochester) have been willing to discuss the arrangement publicly.

“Fiala’s clueless and underfunded campaign is clearly part of a deal between Cuomo, Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan [R-Suffolk] and the GOP senators to protect the former Libous seat,’’ said Nojay, who has watched the special Senate race closely.

“This is consistent with Cuomo’s strategy going back to 2011-2012 with the redistricting deals that ensure GOP control of the Senate in exchange for GOP senators rolling over on key Cuomo initiatives such as the 2012 tax hikes, gay marriage, the SAFE [gun-control] Act, and budget deals.

“So once again Cuomo has double-crossed the Working Families Party and his own Democratic Party by tacitly supporting continued GOP control of the Senate rather than turning the leadership of the body over to Senate liberals who might embarrass him or go rogue by teaming up with the New York City Democrats who run the Assembly,’’ Nojay continued.

Fiala's been a disaster as a candidate, but let's remember that it was Cuomo who touted her before she even announced a run and it was Cuomo who promised to help her win the Libous seat, then reneged on the promise.

Another example, as if we needed it, of how Governor Cuomo is a member of a party of one - the Cuomo Party.

Michael Mulgrew "Bitching" About Working Families Party Discussion Of Bernie Sanders Endorsement

Ken Lovett at the Daily News:

The head of the powerful city teachers union is trying to quell talk by some in the labor-backed Working Families Party about backing Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton in the presidential primary, insiders say.

United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew has been contacting heads of the building trade unions who help make up the Working Families Party, a source said. He’s “complaining and bitching” about the party and the discussions on whether to endorse Sanders, the self-proclaimed socialist US senator from Vermont, the source said.

Mulgrew, who declined comment through a spokeswoman, is also a vice president of the American Federation of Teachers, which already has endorsed Clinton.

While the state Working Families Party does not have a presidential primary and does not have to set its ballot until September of 2016, its leaders have not ruled out publicly backing Sanders during the primary season to send a message to Clinton that she needs to go farther to the left.

Considering the damage Governor Cuomo has done to teachers and UFT rank and file, the end of the Lovett column is quite interesting:

The WFP, which was already feuding with Gov. Cuomo, isn’t doing its doing itself any favors alienating a major party player like Mulgrew and the potential Democratic nominee in Clinton, one source said.

In the analysis of this "source," we have Working Families Party and Sanders on one side of the political equation and Mulgrew, Clinton and Cuomo on the other.

That would seem odd, given how Cuomo has declared he wants to "break" teachers and public schools, until you remember that Mulgrew was said to have threatened WFP with financial dissolution if the party endorsed challenger Zephyr Teachout over Cuomo in 2014.

Just another sign that the "fight" between Cuomo and the UFT/AFT/Mulgrew/Weingarten crew is as "real" as something from professional wrestling.

That said, I don't particularly care whether WFP endorses Sanders or not.

Quite frankly, I don't "feel the Bern" after Sanders voted to continue the Endless Testing regime in NCLB Jr.

From my vantage point, Sanders is as full of shit as every other Democratic politician when it comes to the issue that matters most to me - education.

I will be voting Green come 2016 because I cannot and will not support a candidate who supports Endless Testing as a "civil right."

De Blasio Returns Fire On Cuomo

Governor Cuomo criticized Mayor de Blasio in a thinly disguised but anonymous interview with Ken Lovett last week.

Today, Bill de Blasio returned fire - only unlike Cuomo, he did it without the anonymity jive:

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio blasted Gov. Andrew Cuomo in an exclusive interview with NY1’s Errol Louis and took the governor to task for being consumed with “transactional” politics.

“What I found was he engaged in his own sense of strategies, his own political machinations and what we’ve often seen is if someone disagrees with him openly, some kind of revenge or vendetta follows,” de Blasio said of the governor.

The broadsides against Cuomo are the culmination of an increasingly tenuous relationship between the state’s top elected official and the more liberal Democrat who was elected with a wave of progressive support in the city.

...

In the interview, de Blasio knocked Cuomo for working to closely with Republican-led Senate at the expense of the Assembly, which is dominated by Democrats from New York City.

“I don’t believe the Assembly had a real working partner in the governor or the Senate in terms of getting things done for the people of this city and in many cases the people of this state,” de Blasio said.

In one stinging rejoinder during the interview, de Blasio took aim at the Cuomo administration’s habit of conducting background briefings and providing anonymous jabs at the mayor and his policies.

“And I want to hasten to say there was some interesting back and forth last week and some unnamed sources well-placed in the Cuomo administration had a few things to say. I’m here in front of you on record saying what I believe,” he said.

Good for de Blasio to finally come out and call Cuomo what he is - a transactional politician interested only in his own power and career, a vindictive manipulative scumbag and a coward for his pattern of criticizing others anonymously through background interviews and anonymous jabs.

Alas, all this was apparent last year when de Blasio was pushing Working Families Party to support Cuomo.

I understand at the time de Blasio thought he was counting up some chits that could be cashed later with Cuomo - but as many of us pointed out at the time, Cuomo is a liar and his word is worthless.

That immediately became apparent when Cuomo began wrangling out of the promises he made to WFP in exchange for their ballot nod almost immediately after he made the hostage video for them.

Still, nice to see de Blasio come out firing publicly now, and unlike Cuomo, put his name to it.

Cuomo is sufficiently weakened at this point that de Blasio sees no more reason to make believe like his "friend" Cuomo is on the same side as him or his fellow Democrats.

And this will have repercussions not only for de Blasio, who clearly will get increased hostility from Cuomo from now on (get ready to be treated like a teacher, Mr. Mayor!), but for Cuomo too:

.@gracerauh @GloriaPazmino mayor crossing a line that is hard 2 imagine retreating from. will more Dems feel emboldened to attack Cuomo now?

— Azi (@Azi) June 30, 2015

Dunno if Cuomo still harbors delusions about running as a Democrat in a future presidential race, but between the tenant activists and now de Blasio publicly calling him a Republican, that delusion ought to be put to rest for good.

Working Families Party Sellouts Serve Up Some Self-Serving Jive

From the "Oh, please!" file:

At the time of its annual gala last year, the Working Families Party was agonizing over whether to deny Governor Andrew Cuomo its ballot line.

Ultimately the party endorsed him. But at this year's gala, members sounded regretful.

"This unsavory alliance between our governor and a Senate Republican conference propped up by real estate and hedge fund billionaires must be broken," said W.F.P. president Bill Lipton during his remarks. "We will hold the governor accountable for the promises he made last year. We have not forgotten those hard-won commitments."

"We made a decision [to endorse him] at the time because we believed that it was more important to flip the State Senate," he elaborated later to a few reporters. "We fell short, the governor did not do what we hoped—what he said—he was going to do to help us. He's admitted that. Obviously we're deeply disappointed and frustrated with that. I think us going forward, we don't forget these things. We're committed next year to actually flipping the Senate and picking up that agenda right where it left and pressuring the governor to work with us."

One of the "promises" WFP extracted from Cuomo in return for the WFP ballot nod was that Cuomo would work toward flipping the state Senate to Democrats.

It was clear even as Cuomo was making that promise that he had no intention of keeping it and did not want Republicans to lose control of the state Senate.

Cuomo worked closely with Senate Republicans during his first term on many of his proposals, including the SAFE Act, the property tax cap, and education reforms.

There was little doubt he wanted the Senate to remain in the hands of the GOP and would do little or nothing to fulfill his promise to WFP and de Blasio (who helped seal the deal between Cuomo and WFP.)

And of course that is exactly how things played out - Cuomo did nothing to help Dems, the GOP won the Senate outright (though the sellout Dems in the IDC continued to caucus with the GOP) and Cuomo continued to work very closely with Senate Republicans this legislative session - especially on rent regulation and education reform.

Lipton and the rest of the WFP elders (and their union funders who pushed for the Cuomo nod) are full of shit when they criticize Cuomo for selling out their interests.

It was clear this would happen last year when WFP was agonizing over whether to endorse Cuomo or not and their union funders were threatening the party with dissolution if they didn't.

If they wanted to stop Cuomo from screwing them, they should have done damage to him last May by putting Zephyr Teachout on their ballot and forcing Cuomo to take on both a GOP challenger and a challenger from the left in the general election in November.

So spare me when I hear the WFP sellouts talk about holding Cuomo accountable for the promises he made to them and broke.

It's self-serving bullshit from the WFP sellouts, nothing more, and Cuomo's laughing at it and them.

Tenant Advocates Decry Cuomo's Betrayal, Threaten Him With 2018 Opponent

From the "Would've Been Nice To Understand This In 2014" file:

ALBANY - Angry tenant activists and other liberals are threatening to find a primary challenge to Gov. Cuomo in 2018 if he doesn't deliver on his promises to strengthen the expiring rent regulation law.

"We basically have had it with Andrew Cuomo, with his total phony double talking, who clearly is siding with the landlords despite his rhetoric," said longtime activist Michael McKee, treasure of Tenants PAC. "We are looking for a Democratic candidate to challenge him if he runs for a third term.

Katie Goldstein, director of Tenants & Neighbors, also spoke of a potential primary for Cuomo unless he can "strengthen the rent laws in a meaningful way."

"New York tenants are the ones who got him elected," Goldstein said, noting his strong showing in the city.

The tenant advocates are incensed at what they say is Cuomo's quick retreat from his June 6 guest column in the Daily News in which he called for a strengthening of the rent laws.

Among the changes he said he is pushing is ending vacancy decontrol, which lets apartments out of rent regulation when the rent goes over $2,500 and a tenant moves out, and scrapping the 20% rent hike landlords are allowed to make every time a tenant leaves.

Cuomo has since said he expects the current law might simply be extended and is trying to tie the issue to passage of an education investment tax credit designed to mainly benefit parochial and private schools and their donors.

Were tenant advocates and liberals unaware that Cuomo's M.O. is betrayal, that he takes a lot of money from the landlords, that he was likely to make it look like he was going to "reform" the rent regulation laws, then do as much as he could to simply leave things alone?

I dunno, I'm not that smart, but watching Cuomo the last four+ years, that's how I would've gamed this out.

And lo and behold, that's how it's playing out.

Not all that different from how he made all those promises to the Working Families Party in 2014, then ignored them (e.g., to take back the state Senate for the Dems.)

Or the way he claimed he was "friend" to Bill de Blasio, then did everything he could behind the scenes (and sometimes in front of the scenes) to screw his "friend".

This is classic Cuomo, paying lip service to progressive values while really pushing to pay back his wealthy donors.

Zephyr Teachout: Angry New York Teachers Can Get Get More Formal Political Power By Running For Office

Alan Chartock in the Daily Freeman:

Cuomo is known and respected up to now as a take-no-prisoners tough guy, but his political antennae seem corrupted. His picking on the teachers in New York state is dumber than dumb. It appears that he fell in with a crowd of rich potential funders who are always yelling about “educational reform.” Maybe he wanted their money and he became a fierce charter school advocate and then adopted positions which then threatened the hell out of the teachers who are underpaid and overworked. Their tenure is one of the few things they do have going for them, and however Cuomo meant it, the teachers saw him as looking to evaluate them with an eye toward firing them. These are usually people who want nothing to do with Albany politics, but they sure got a wakeup call. I talk to them all the time and they are angrier than I have ever seen them.

Zephyr Teachout has an excellent idea how teachers can take that anger and do something productive with it:

Liberal activist Zephyr Teachout is touring New York starting tonight in Syracuse to try to recruit teachers and women to run for public office in New York.


Teachout, the Fordham Law School professor who ran against Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a Democratic primary last year, said the education policy battles at the state Capitol should spur teachers and parents to run for political office so their voice can be better heard.

“The focus is getting more people into the political process, and the focus here is on teachers and women,” Teachout said in an interview with Gannett’s Albany Bureau. “If there’s a central thrust, it’s educators and parents.”

Teachout, who lives in Manhattan, is partnering with the union-backed Working Families Party and the New York State United Teachers union on the effort.

She said the massive testing opt-out movement in New York in April, as well as protests to new teacher evaluations show that education advocates can play an increasingly important role in politics — on the state and local levels.

“I don’t think most people go into teaching in order to run for office, but they didn’t go into teaching to protest either,” Teachout said. “And they’ve become this incredible, powerful political force, and my hope is to engage some of those teachers who are political and hopefully get them elected and have more formal political power.”

Now electing teachers to political office isn't guaranteed to make politics more amenable to public education teachers - after all, former Speaker of the House Denny Hastert (now under indictment for making illegal payments to someone he allegedly molested back in the 70's) and Independent Democratic Caucus head Jeff Klein are both former teachers and neither are what I would term "teacher- or public education-friendly" in their political views.

But in general, having teachers run for political office is a terrific idea and certainly there are many teacher leaders out there who would make excellent candidates.

The same goes for parent activists in the opt-out movement.

Zephyr Teachout and Tim Wu, both professors, ran in 2014 for governor and lieutenant governor respectively and put in very respectable showings.

Had Teachout gotten the Working Families Party ballot line for the general election, she would have done some serious damage to Andrew Cuomo, taking him well under the 50% line in his race against GOP candidate Rob Astorino, but even in the Democratic primary she did serious damage, winning 23 counties to Cuomo's 29.

Cuomo's campaign was so worried that Tim Wu had momentum against Kathy Hochul that they called out Randi Weingarten and Bill de Blasio to robocall for her, turning the contest toward Hochul for good.

Nonetheless, the Teachout/Wu campaigns of 2014 served notice that many Dems were not happy with Andrew Cuomo and his policies and they can serve as models for educator and parent campaigns going forward.

What Was Really Behind The Working Families Party Deal With The Devil/Cuomo Last Year

Blake Zeff at Capital NY has an excellent analysis of the Cuomo/deBlasio/Working Families party deal a year later.

Zeff writes that WFP leaders are now rationalizing Cuomo's sticking them in the back and reneging on the promises he made to gain their ballot nod last year and avoid a third party challenge in the general election.

They're giving all sorts of reasons for why they endorsed him, but the real reason that they made the deal was this:

The party was concerned that if it did not back the governor, he would try to gut their organization. One method would be to empower a new party and convince several key union affiliates of W.F.P.—who had good relationships with the governor and depended on him for key contracts and wages—to join this new party instead. This would deplete W.F.P. of money and ground troops. And also leave its composition disconcertingly white and homogenous.  

They also feared what the toll it would take on the party during the campaign (and likely after the campaign too, given Cuomo’s reputation for vindictiveness) to have to deal with a governor's office in permanent war-room mode.

In the end, they saw the deal as a necessity, and hoped Cuomo’s promises would at least allow them to argue after the fact that they had not given away their endorsement for free.

You do a deal with the devil, you get burnt.

WFP and Bill de Blasio both got burnt.

Cuomo reneged on his promises quicker than you can say Moreland.

Working Families Party Takes On Cuomo's Education Proposals With The Help Of Some Legislators

From State of Politics:

Senate Democratic Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and three Democratic assemblywomen – Addie Russell (North Country), Michelle Schimel (Long Island) and Latrice Walker (NYC) – are featured in a Working Families Party video speaking out against Cuomo’s education proposals.

And the video:



The arguments the legislators make are excellent and I'm glad to see them make them.

Two points of criticism:

It's a shame Stewart-Cousins looks like she was videotaped using a camera from the 1970's.

It's also a shame Working Families Party didn't fight Cuomo BEFORE the election, when they REALLY could have done some damage.

When Will Teachers Union Leaders Stop Trusting Andrew Cuomo?

NYSUT's press release/reaction to Cuomo's veto of the teacher evaluation shield law:

The governor reneged on an agreement. With this veto, the governor has decided that teachers are the only ones who should be held accountable for the state’s failed implementation of the Common Core. We can’t understand why he is refusing to sign his own bill. What has changed? Could it be that the governor is doing the bidding of billionaire hedge fund managers — many of whom, like Paul Tudor Jones, don’t even live in New York state? This governor has to decide whether he’s going to support the goals of students, parents and teachers or those of billionaires who want to destroy public education in order to privatize it and profit from it.”

Meanwhile, educators from across the state — joined by parents, students and community members — will gather outside the Executive Mansion on Eagle Street in downtown Albany beginning at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday to stand together against attacks on public education and teachers, and to call on the governor to listen to all stakeholders before bringing forth another wave of misguided educational policies designed to dismantle public education.

The demonstration coincides with the governor’s annual New Year’s open house and will include an invitation to the governor to attend public forums on public education so that he can hear, unfiltered, the concerns of parents, students and educators about his so-called reforms.

Going forward, there must be no "deals" with Cuomo from teachers union leadership.

It's clear Cuomo's word is worthless.

He reneged on the promises he made to the Working Families Party in return for their ballot nod.

He reneged on his promise to fight for a Democratic State Senate.

He reneged on the teacher evaluation shield bill.

That's three strikes - Cuomo's out.

Do the teachers union leaders understand this?

They're talking a good game for now.

But we'll see if they follow up their words with more actions than just press releases and calls for a demonstration outside the governor's mansion one day before hand.

Cuomo Deliberately Widens Rift With Liberal Base In Waning Days Of The Campaign

Since your reading this blog, I know you already know how Andrew Cuomo took deliberate and conscious aim at teachers and public schools in the last week and let us all know he's coming for us in the next term.

Ken Lovett in the Daily News reports that's not the only rift Cuomo has consciously widened with the liberal base as the campaign winds down:

Cuomo in the past two weeks:

— Created a furor among educators by referring to the education system as “one of the last remaining public monopolies.”

— Pressed New Yorkers to vote for him on the Women’s Equality Party ballot line he created — leading many progressives to believe it’s an attempt to kill or weaken the Working Families Party, which party publicly embarrassed him in May before he ended up getting the party’s endorsement after Mayor de Blasio helped broker a deal.

— Did virtually no campaigning for state Senate Democrats who are trying to take control of the chamber. Cuomo had promised to make it a priority.

Working Families Party co-Chairwoman Karen Scharff called the governor's actions “kind of puzzling.”

“Who does that before Election Day?” she asked. “I don’t quite get the goal. The public overwhelmingly supports our public schools, so it’s hard to understand why the governor would attack public education right before the election.”

What's Cuomo's goal?

Perhaps this:

"You would think that this is the time (Cuomo) should be bringing everybody back home," said one Democratic operative. "But this is the reason there is no enthusiasm at the top of the ticket and that can impact the down-ballot races."

Cuomo definitely wants a State Senate run the same way as it currently is - by an amalgam of Republicans and Independent Democrats who govern rightward - so that could be one of the reasons  he's taking on the base here.

Or it's possible that he just can't help himself.

In his memoir, he took on the left as well.

He seems to genuinely despise the base of his own party.

Not that teachers and public schools are "left" in any way for most people.

But for a politician who calls the public schools a "monopoly" that he plans to "break", I guess they just might be.

In any case, you should vote your conscience tomorrow and support candidates you can legitimately support and vote against the ones you can't.

I am supporting Howie Hawkins and Brian Jones for governor and lieutenant governor.

Cowardly Cuomo Refuses To Own Up To Working Families Party Slam

Typical from Governor Narcissist - say something scummy, then make believe he didn't say it:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo today denied identifying the labor-backed Working Families Party as a “fringe” party, despite radio remarks yesterday that seemed to mock and belittle the left-leaning group.

On a Friday interview on the Brian Lehrer Show, Mr. Cuomo seemed to allude to the WFP–with which he has long had a fractious relationship, and which reluctantly endorsed him twice for governor–as a “fringe” party, while pushing the Women’s Equality Party, which he created this year. The WEP purports to promote the anti-discrimination, pro-choice Women’s Equality Agenda, but many critics view it as an effort to lure progressives away from the WFP and deny it the 50,000 votes it needs to keep its ballot line.

“The Women’s Equality Party, the Women’s Equality Agenda, is something that is very important to me. I think it can be a national precedent. And it empowers women in a way that’s never been done. It’s almost amazing when you think about it. We’ve formed every kind of fringe party for every kind of reason. We have Democrat, Republican, Green, Red, White, Blue, Working People, Working Short People, Working Tall People,” Mr. Cuomo said yesterday.

But following a rally in the Bronx today with 1199 SEIU, 32BJ SEIU and the Hotel Trades Council–all components of the WFP’s union-community group alliance –“I don’t think I called them a ‘fringe party,'” Mr. Cuomo said, then clarifying his remarks when the Observer quoted his words from yesterday to him. “I think that I said there are a number of parties, you can vote for me on the Democratic Party, you can vote for me on the Independence Party, you can vote for me on the Working Families Party, you can vote for me on the Women’s Equality Party.”

Clearly he was tweaking WFP yesterday with the "We have Democrat, Republican, Green, Red, White, Blue, Working People, Working Short People, Working Tall People” comment on Lehrer's show.

Too bad he didn't have the guts to admit it in front of working people from 1199 SEIU, 32BJ SEIU and the Hotel Trades Council who were rallying for him.

Too bad the working people from 1199 SEIU, 32BJ SEIU and the Hotel Trades Council who were rallying for him don't realize what an arrogant, anti-union prick he is.

Cuomo Out To Destroy Working Families Party, Keep Senate In Hands Of GOP/IDC

Jon Campbell in Democrat & Chronicle:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo's campaign is boosting its efforts to snag votes on the Women's Equality Party ballot line, airing a new television advertisement in hopes of getting permanent ballot status for the next four years.

The 30-second ad will begin airing Friday through Tuesday, Election Day. It was released the same day Cuomo sent an email to supporters, asking for their vote on the line.

If Cuomo gets 50,000 votes on the WEP line, it will be on New York ballots for the next four years.

...

Cuomo launched the party effort in July, not long after he received the Working Families Party endorsement in late May as part of a last-minute deal in which he backed a variety of liberal-leaning causes.

His push for boosting the Women's Equality Party could have a detrimental impact on the Working Families Party, which currently occupies Row D on New York ballots. Should the Women's Equality Party gain more votes than the Working Families Party, it would push the latter further down the ballot.

Cuomo created the WEP for two reasons:

First, Cuomo polls badly with male voters these days but remains popular with women - pushing the WEP line has seemed to solidify his support among women voters even more

Second, it was payback for the humiliation of having to grovel for the WFP ballot line in May. 

It's not an accident that Cuomo created the WEP not long after the WFP fiasco. 

WFP leaders thought they were getting promises out of Cuomo to push for a Democratic State Senate in return for the WFP endorsement.

Instead what they got was an empty promise from Cuomo to push for Democratic control of the State Senate and a rival third party that now threatens to keep WFP from getting the 50,000 votes it needs to maintain its ballot line.

On Wednesday November 5th, it is very likely that the State Senate will remain in the control of the GOP/IDC and the WFP will no longer have its ballot line.

Quite a coup from Governor Cuomo there, sticking it to the Working Families Party.

Yeah, he had to make the hostage video to get the WFP nod, but in payback, he seeks to ensure the party loses its ballot line and ceases to matter.

Given the sell-out that occurred at the WFP convention in May, maybe that's the best thing that can happen here.

The lesson would be, don't sell your soul to a candidate who doesn't share your values, support what you support or care about you in the least.

Cuomo Sticks The Shiv Into De Blasio Before Election Day

Last spring, Governor Andrew Cuomo beat Mayor Bill de Blasio badly in fights over charter school co-locations and tax increases on wealthy New Yorkers to pay for NYC's universal pre-K plan.

De Blasio had been in a showdown with charter school entrepreneur Eva Moskowitz over co-locations of three of her schools when Cuomo helped co-ordinate a pro-charter rally in Albany and pushed through new rules in the state budget that forced New York City (and only New York City) to either find space for all charter schools or pay rent for space in privately-owned buildings.

Moskowitz and her charter school supporters are major donors to Cuomo and while the governor and the mayor were supposed to be friends going back to the days when they were both in the Clinton administration, Cuomo didn't think twice about screwing his old friend over for his wealthy charter school friends.

Cuomo also rolled de Blasio over the mayor's push for a tax on the wealthy to pay for universal pre-K in New York City.  The governor provided state money for de Blasio's pre-K plan (though not as much as the tax plan would have raised) but made sure that money did not come from increased taxes on wealthy people, many of whom are also Cuomo donors.

Again Cuomo didn't think twice about sticking it to old friend de Blasio and making sure his donors got what they wanted - no new taxes.

Cuomo was riding high after his twin showdowns with de Blasio during the budget negotiations, but that ride didn't last for long.

A challenge from the left flank of his party arose in the figure of Fordham professor Zephyr Teachout late in the spring.

Teachout attempted to get the Working Families Party ballot line during the WFP convention last May and present Cuomo with a problem for the general election - he would have had two opponents to take on, one from the right in GOP candidate Rob Astorino, one from the left in Zephry Teachout.

A Sienna poll showed Cuomo would have trouble breaking 50% if a challenge from the left emerged for the general election, so he and his campaign pulled out all the stops to make sure Teachout didn't get the ballot line.

First they had their union friends, major supporters of WFP, threaten the party with dissolution if the ballot line for the general election was given to Teachout.

Then Cuomo had his old friend Bill de Blasio intervene with the party faithful and negotiate an agreement between the governor and the party in which Cuomo would receive the ballot line in return for agreeing to work for a Democratic takeover of the State Senate.

De Blasio was supposed to be riding high after this intervention, since Cuomo had needed his help to secure the WFP line, but I thought at the time de Blasio was acting the fool for helping his old friend Andrew Cuomo in the negotiations.

On May 30, I wrote:

Is de Blasio suffering from Stockholm Syndrome or did he get something in return for mediating negotiations between Cuomo and WFP?

If you remember, it was just a short while ago that Cuomo took every opportunity to stick it to de Blasio over not just charter schools but issue after issue.

Anthony Weiner even noted how putzy Cuomo was to de Blasio in a DN piece.

Now de Blasio helps save the day for Sheriff Andy.

My guess is, seconds after the election is over, Cuomo starts sticking it to de Blasio and the unions again.

Hard to know if this is Stockholm Syndrome, stupidity or a sell-out, but whatever the hell it is, it sucks.

De Blasio's aid for Cuomo didn't stop in May at the Working Families Party convnetion.

Polls showed late in the summer that Cuomo's pro-gun, anti-abortion running mate, Kathy Hochul, could lose her primary challenge to Teachout's running mate, Tim Wu.

Cuomo again reached out to de Blasio and had the mayor (along with union buddy Randi Weingarten) issue robocalls throughout the city in support of  the"liberal" Hochul.

After the election, Wu said that internal campaign polling showed him with the momentum going into the primary, but the de Blasio robocalls essentially stopped that momentum cold and Hochul won the race.

In short, Cuomo's running mate won her primary challenge because de Blasio helped her do it.

Again I wrote at the time that de Blasio was a fool for helping Cuomo, that Cuomo wouldn't think twice about screwing his "old friend" - and Ken Lovett and Jennifer Fermino at the Daily News reported the same thing:

“For good or bad, the governor is not a person who views the world as 'I owe you one.' If someone came to him and said, ‘I was there for you and I took care of you — you owe me,’ you don’t get a good reaction,” the insider said.

A second source who has had dealings with de Blasio and Cuomo agrees.

“Andrew appreciates what Bill has done for him. But if he needed to f--k over the mayor tomorrow, he's going to do it. That’s just how he operates.”

Even I thought Cuomo would wait until after the election to "fuck over" de Blasio, but it turns out Cuomo, worried that his GOP challenger Rob Astorino is making inroads over the first reported Ebola case in the city, decided post-Election Day was too late to screw de Blasio over.

So he did it yesterday instead.

On Thursday, Cuomo and de Basio made a joint appearance to reassure city residents after it was reported a doctor who had worked with Ebola patients in West Africa had tested positive for the virus here in the city.

Both Cuomo and de Blasio took pains on Thursday to tamp down hysteria over the incident and assure New Yorkers that the chances of getting infected by Ebola on the subway or in a cab were slim.

That was Thursday.

On Friday Cuomo changed course and suddenly decided hysteria over Ebola was exactly what was needed:

On Thursday night, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo sat beside Mayor Bill de Blasio at Bellevue Hospital Center as they offered soothing words to worried New Yorkers: New York City’s first case of Ebola, they said, was no reason for panic.

Less than 19 hours later, Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, joined the Republican governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, and struck a starkly different tone. The governors announced Friday that medical personnel returning to New York after treating Ebola patients in West Africa would be automatically subject to a 21-day quarantine.

The risk, Mr. Cuomo said, was grave. Offering an ominous hypothetical, he raised the precise situation that the mayor and the city’s health commissioner had tried to play down the night before: the danger of Ebola spreading through the subway system.

“In a region like this,” Mr. Cuomo said, “you go out one, two or three times, you ride the subway, you ride a bus, you could affect hundreds and hundreds of people.”

...

Within the city, an unexpected policy shift by Mr. Cuomo on Friday appeared to open up a public divide between the governor and the administration of Mr. de Blasio, a fellow Democrat. The city’s health commissioner, Dr. Mary T. Bassett, was not informed in advance of the Cuomo-Christie mandatory quarantine order and was “furious,” a senior city official who spoke to her said.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Cuomo, Melissa DeRosa, said city officials were not consulted about the quarantine policy because it pertained to airports that are run by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Mr. Cuomo’s shift came just 11 days before he will be on the ballot seeking a second term, and on a day when his long-shot Republican challenger, Rob Astorino, seized on the city’s Ebola case to assail the governor for not closing the New York airports to travelers from affected West African nations.

As Lovett and Fermino had reported in the Daily News in September, Cuomo wouldn't think twice about having to "fuck over" de Blasio if political expediency necessitated the screw job.

Apparently between Thursday night and Friday morning, political expediency necessitated Cuomo "fuck over" Bill de Blasio on the Ebola crisis.

In the same Times story on the "public rift" between Cuomo and de Blasio over Cuomo's sudden shift in policy, this is said about past health crises:

The partisan divide over how to respond to Ebola stands in stark contrast to previous public health threats over the last decade, including the anthrax attacks after Sept. 11, 2001, the West Nile virus, the avian flu and the tuberculosis outbreaks in the 1980s and 1990s. In those cases, public health officials worked largely in concert with elected ones to maintain calm and disseminate consistent information.

This time around politicians - including Cuomo and Christie, but certainly not limited to these two - are hyping the crisis for political gain.

Caught flat-footed once again by his old pal, Andrew Cuomo, it remains to be seen how de Blasio responds to the pre-election screw job by the governor.

But clearly Cuomo was showing de Blasio up yesterday at his press conference with Christie, big-timing the mayor by not alerting anybody in the de Blasio administration about the change in policy and protocol Cuomo was going to put into place with Christie at the Port Authority airports.

Much of this is de Blasio's own fault, of course.

De Blasio spent much political capital helping Cuomo in the spring with the Working Families Party and in the fall with the Hochul robocalls.

If Cuomo wins re-election with over 50% of the vote, that will happen because Bill de Blasio ensured Cuomo would not have a challenger from the left on the WFP ballot line taking double digits away from Cuomo in the general election.

Now Cuomo pays de Blasio back by sticking the shiv in him less than two weeks before Election Day.

I see two takeaways here:

One, De Blasio was a fool for expending so much political capital to help a "friend" who everybody knew would screw him over at the first opportunity.

And two, Andrew Cuomo is a sociopath, a man with no moral center who will literally do and say anything to promote himself and his career.

Neither of these takeaways are surprises, of course - we knew this stuff long before yesterday.

And indeed, Cuomo had already broken his promise to de Blasio and WFP that he would work for a Democratic takeover of the State Senate.

One thing I am surprised at, however.

I really thought Cuomo would wait until Wednesday November 5th to stick the shiv into de Blasio.

But he shoved the shiv in nearly two weeks earlier - that just shows you how desperate Cuomo is to not only win re-election but run up the score.

Cuomo Breaks Working Families Party Promises

Gee, here's a surprise:

It has been more than four months since the fragile marriage between the governor and the Working Families Party was consummated: The group endorsed Mr. Cuomo, over many of its members’ objections, after he agreed to pursue a long list of liberal goals, as part of a deal that Mr. de Blasio helped broker.

The top priority was an effort to tilt the balance of power in the State Senate, where Republicans currently share leadership with a group of breakaway Democrats.

Less than a month before Election Day, with polls showing some key Senate races leaning in Republicans’ favor, the arrangement with the governor appears increasingly fraught. Despite his pledge to push for Democratic control of the Senate, Mr. Cuomo has at times seemed not to have a strong opinion about the outcome of the November elections.

“You can’t say, ‘Well, I can work well if they elect this party,’ ” he told reporters last month. “They elect a legislature: Democratic, Republican, whatever they elect. I think the job of the governor is to figure out how to make it work.”

Some of the governor’s grudging supporters say he has already faltered on his promise: Mr. Cuomo has not ruled out endorsing a Republican incumbent from Buffalo, Mark J. Grisanti, calling the decision “personally difficult.” Mr. Grisanti, who lost the Republican primary to a right-leaning challenger but is staying in the race as the candidate of the Independence Party, backed the governor’s push to legalize same-sex marriage.

... 

Democrats hoped that with the support of Mr. de Blasio and Mr. Cuomo, they would be able to win enough seats this year to take control of the Senate. But those efforts are not going so well. A promising candidate running on Long Island ended his candidacy in September after his former law firm accused him of fraud, and a series of polls conducted last week offered a bleak outlook in several other contests.

The polls, by Siena College, found three incumbent Democrats trailing Republican challengers by double-digit margins. And in two Republican-controlled districts on Long Island that Democrats had hoped to capture, the polls showed the Republican candidates holding wide leads.

City officials have framed the fate of the State Senate as crucial to their agenda. A shift in the balance of power, they say, could help advance legislation related to the minimum wage, campaign-finance reform and immigration, among other issues.

Cuomo doesn't want any of those things - an increase in the minimum wage, campaign-finance reform, immigration reform - so he doesn't really want a Democratic State Senate.

What he wants is for things to remain the same, with Republicans in control, an Independent Democratic Caucus backing Republicans and the rightward lean of the State Senate remaining as it is.

His book, out soon, says it all:

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo , whose center-right policies have alienated him from much of his party’s progressive base, attacks the “extreme left of the Democratic Party” in his new memoir, according to a report in the New York Times.

While his father Mario Cuomo’s 1984 address at the Democratic National Convention served as a liberal rallying cry, Andrew Cuomo has repeatedly found himself starkly at odds with the liberal wing of the party. Although the governor signed marriage equality and gun safety legislation into law and has staked out a robustly pro-choice position, he has also slashed corporate taxes, capped property taxes, maneuvered to keep his own party from controlling the New York State Senate, lent conditional support to fracking, and earned plaudits from the right-wing National Review for his conservative economic agenda. There’s also the federal probe into Cuomo’s disbanding of his much-heralded anti-corruption commission, which Cuomo had touted as evidence of his commitment to good government.

...

 Given his center-right track record, it’s hardly unsurprising that Cuomo is no fonder of the left than the left is of him. According to the Times – which got its hands on a copy of his new memoir, All Things Possible: Setbacks and Success in Politics and Life – Cuomo rips the “extreme left” in the book, particularly for what he depicts as its hostility to the rich. Leftists, Cuomo writes, “speak of punitively raising taxes on the rich and transferring the money to the poor” and seek to “demonize those who are very wealthy.”

Few things aid Cuomo's helping of the 1% than ensuring the State Senate continues to run as it has.

And so, Cuomo's promises to WFP were worthless.

Again I say, gee, what a surprise.

Cuomo's Lead Down To Twenty Points, Hawkins Almost In Double Digits

From State of Politics:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo leads his Republican opponent Rob Astorino by 20 percentage points, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday morning.

The poll found Cuomo receives the support of 51 percent of voters polled compared to Astorino’s 31 percent. Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate, received 9 percent.

Without Hawkins in the race, Cuomo leads 55 percent to 34 percent.

Cuomo’s lead in the August Quinnipiac poll was wider, when the governor led Astornio 56 percent to 28 percent. Hawkins was not included in that poll.

Had Teachout been in this race on the Working Families Party ballot line, she would have been garnering over 10% support and Cuomo would have been under 50%.

As it is, Howie Hawkins is near double digits and may end up over 10% when all is said and done.

We'll see if Cuomo can win this election with over 50%.

It's a sign of weakness that he's down near 50% now.

As for Astorino, he's picked up three percentage points in support since the last Q poll while Cuomo has lost five percentage points.

But with less than a month to go now, it's hard for Astorino to close that gap - especially with this:

Cuomo’s favorable rating is at 50 percent, with 39 percent of voters holding an unfavorable opinion of him.

Astorino, meanwhile, is underwater: 27 percent hold a favorable view of him, while 29 percent do not. Forty-three percent of voters don’t know enough about him to form an opinion, the poll found.

I think the best we can hope to do here is hold Cuomo below 50% come next month.

Still, given how this was supposed to be a coronation for Il Duce, with wide support and overwhelming re-election numbers that set him up for a presidential run in the future, that would be a pretty big thing.

Cuomo: No Shift In Treatment Of Teachers In Second Term

From State of Politics:

Asked about whether he’s shifting his tactics post-primary, Cuomo said he wouldn’t change his approach to public workers and teachers labor organizations.

“I knew what I was doing when I did not cater to the teachers union. I didn’t have to take the endorsement of the teachers union the first time, by the way.”

This is the man that Randi Weingarten engineered a putsch for at NYSUT, overthrowing Dick Iannuzzi and the old NYSUT regime when they started to turn on Cuomo and replacing them with the compliant, pro-Cuomo Karen Magee and Revive NYSUT.

This is the man that Michael Mulgrew threatened the Working Families Party for, warning that he would pull UFT funding from the party if they gave their ballot nod to Zephyr Teachout instead of Cuomo.

This is the man that Randi Weingarten helped when she taped a robocall for his right-wing running mate in the waning days of the primary.

What are AFT, UFT and NYSUT leaders getting paid to stick the shiv in their members and work for the corporatist Cuomo?

I hope it's good, whatever it is, because they're selling their members out to a cretin out to destroy teachers, schools, and public education.

Cuomo: Not Every Teacher Can Get An A Rating - But Every Student Had Better Get One

A commenter points out a core contradiction in Governor Cuomo's assertion that his APPR teacher evaluation system needs to be redone to rate more teachers "ineffective":

Cuomo's OWN WORDS:

"...not everybody can get an ‘A,’ it can’t be – I think it’s going to be a very valuable tool..."

Now, of course, he is speaking about teachers--but can't this argument be used to undermine the entire premise behind evaluating teachers?! If not everybody can get an A, then why are teachers expected to have all of their students get As? Why are we being evaluated on this very illogical expectation? Can someone point this out to Cuomo and other reformers?

This is is the same contradiction we have in No Child Left Behind wherein 100% of every student in every demographic in every school must be proficient in ELA and math scores or schools are declared "failing".

Illogical expectation?

Of course.

But that's what's at the core of education reform and the "Blame Teachers/Blame Schools" movement.

Expect to hear a lot more about this stuff in Cuomo's second term - a second term that he will win in part because the UFT and NYSUT helped him win the Working Families Party ballot line (keeping a daunting third party candidate challenge from the left off the November ballot) and because AFT President Randi Weingarten lent her support to him via robocalls for his right-wing running mate, Kathy Hochul.

UFT Decides Not To Challenge The "Stop Common Core" Ballot Line

Looks like UFT President Michael Mulgrew wanted to punch GOP gubernatorial candidate Rob Astorino in the face over the "Stop Common Core" ballot line but decided not to:

ALBANY – The major New York City teachers union considered challenging Republican gubernatorial candidate Rob Astorino’s attempt to create a Stop Common Core ballot line, but decided against it.

...

“We challenge petitions all the time -- especially in an election year – about all sorts of things,” said Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, which filed a general objection to the Astorino campaign’s effort but ultimately didn’t proceed.

State law allows candidates for office to hold multiple spots on the election ballot.

It takes 15,000 valid signatures from New York voters to create a new line on statewide ballots. But once those signatures are filed with the state Board of Elections, anyone can file an objection within three days. Six days after that, the objector has to lay out specifics -- what they object to, and why they object to it.

The deadline to turn in the signatures was Aug. 19. Astorino’s campaign turned in the Stop Common Core party petitions a week before that, and two employees of the teachers union filed a general objection three days later.

...

Mulgrew said the teachers union takes issue with Astorino taking an educational issue like Common Core -- tougher education standards being rolled out in New York and much of the country -- and using it “for clear political purposes.”

But the union ultimately decided against moving forward with the challenge; the deadline to file specifics was Thursday.

Interesting to see that UFT leadership started to go ahead with the challenge to the "Stop Common Core" ballot line, then pulled back.

Clearly they didn't pull back because they've had a sudden epiphany on Common Core - Mulgrew says the UFT loves Common Core and thinks Astorino is politicizing an issue that shouldn't be politicized.

So what made them pull back?

Did they think the challenge would ultimately be unsuccessful?

Could be - Astorino filed well over the 15,000 signatures needed for the ballot line.

Did they decide they didn't want to be the face of the pro-Common Core fight in the election battle?

I'm skeptical of that -  Mulgrew was quite vociferous over his Common Core support at the AFT Convention in July.

Are they worried about the growing parent revolt over Common Core in the state and decided it was best not to do Cuomo's pro-Common Core dirty work for him?

I'm skeptical of that too.

The AFT/UFT/NYSUT leadership doesn't care what anybody outside of Bill Gates and their corporate buddies think about anything.

Not their rank and file members, not parents, not students.

Did the UFT leadership decide that helping a weakened Cuomo by going after Astorino's anti-Common Core line doesn't help them much at this point?

That's possible.

Cuomo's Democratic Primary opponent Zephyr Teachout has been endorsed by PEF, NOW and the Sierra Club in the last few days.

There is clear opposition to Cuomo from the left bubbling up, there is clear opposition within the rank and file to Cuomo too, and while the UFT leadership still supports Cuomo behind the scenes (please note the work they did for him during the Working Families Party convention in May), political expediency may dictate that going out on a public limb for him at this time doesn't help the leadership much.

In any case, the UFT decided no to challenge the "Stop Common Core" ballot line.

And so it stands.

Remember, Union Leaders Did Their "Endorsement" Work During Working Families Party Convention

I keep hearing some NYSUT people brag how NYSUT refused to endorse Andrew Cuomo for governor and am hearing from the same people that NYSUT is making sure the AFL-CIO does not endorse him either.

All of this is fine, dandy and absolutely meaningless.

I want to remind everybody that when it mattered, when Andrew Cuomo absolutely needed the union leadership - including the newly minted NYSUT leadership - to back him, they did.

That was during the weekend when it looked like Working Families Party might actually endorse Zephyr Teachout over Cuomo for the general election.

Polls had shown that Cuomo was running away with the race against his GOP opponent Rob Astorino - unless a third party candidate from the left entered the general election.

Then polls showed this:

Major elections in the United States are almost always two-party affairs. Yes, third-party candidates run, but they’re rarely competitive, and they almost never win. Still, there are exceptions, and the 2014 New York governor’s race may be one of them.

The progressive Working Families Party perceives Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo to be too centrist, and it will decide this weekend whether to field its own candidate instead of cross-endorsing Cuomo. (New York allows candidates to appear on multiple ballot lines.) An opponent from his left could put Cuomo’s re-election bid in at least some danger.

An average of early polls by Quinnipiac University and Siena College shows the governor garnering 38 percent support, Republican Rob Astorino 24 percent and an unnamed Working Families Party candidate 23 percent. That’s down from Cuomo’s average lead of about 30 percentage points over Astorino in a two-way affair.

As I detailed earlier this week, early gubernatorial polling of two-way matchups is pretty reliable — 30 percentage point leads are nearly impossible to overcome. But an early-stage 14 percentage point lead in a three-way contest may be a different story.

Cuomo was desperate to avoid that third party candidate from the left and his union allies were happy to oblige by threatening WFP activists that if the party nominated Zephyr Teachout over Andrew Cuomo, they would defund the party:

When Working Families Party state committee members gather at their convention tomorrow, far more than the endorsement for governor will be at stake.

The very future of the labor-backed party will be on the line, and according to one labor source, the damage done by the disagreement over whether or not to back Gov. Andrew Cuomo again may very well be irreparable.

“Regardless of what happens now, the way the party has conducted itself has done lasting damage to relationships with key (union) affiliates,” the source said. “It’s unclear if the party will ever be the same.”

Union leaders were burning up the phone lines this morning, discussing whether the time had finally come to pull their support of the party they helped create and have financially sustained since 1998.

According to another labor source involved in these talks, a number of the largest and most significant unions – including 1199 SEIU, HTC, the laborers, RWDSU, and the UFT – were prepared to call it quits with the WFP, knowing that their withdrawal could very well lead to the party’s “collapse.”

The Teamsters and TWU were also involved in these discussions, which were far enough along to warrant talk of drafting of a joint statement, although one was never actually released.

The UFT controls NYSUT - it was the UFT leadership, backed by Randi Weingarten, who instituted the Spring Time Putsch that dethroned the previous NYSUT leadership and replaced them with pro-Cuomo shills.

The Spring Time Putsch was all about making sure that the suddenly aggressive old NYSUT leadership would be replaced by a more compliant Cuomo-friendly leadership - which is exactly what happened.

That the UFT was part of the union leadership that threatened WFP if Teachout was endorsed and was behind the NYSUT putsch to get rid of the old regime that had turned on Cuomo tells you all you need to know about how much they've already helped Andrew Cuomo.

An endorsement by the UFT, the NYSUT or the AFL-CIO is not needed at this time because all the help Cuomo needed to win re-election - keeping a third party candidate from the left out of the general election race - was engineered by the unions, including the UFT and the NYSUT, last spring.

NYSUT Backs Indicted Senate Republican

Your union in action:

There was also no consensus among union leaders about the effort to flip the Senate into Democratic hands – a push that largely originated with unions during the labor-backed Working Families Party’s debate over whether to endorse Gov. Andrew Cuomo or Fordham Law Prof. Zephyr Teachout. In a deal brokered by NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio, Cuomo ended up endorsing a Democrat-controlled Senate as well as the return of IDC members to the so-called regular Democratic conference.

But NYSUT members feel strongly that individual senators – both Republicans and Democrats – have been very supportive of their issues over the years, and they wanted to repay that loyalty with endorsements, Pallotta said. For example, NYSUT threw its support behind GOP Sen. Ken LaValle, longtime chair of the Senate Higher Education Committee; and another Long Island Republican, Jack Martins, who is among the Democrats’ top targets this year, even through it opted to take a pass in many of the Long Island districts – including the one represented by Senate GOP Leader Dean Skelos.

NYSUT also remained loyal to the Senate Republicans’ second-in-command, Sen. Tom Libous, of the Southern Tier, despite his indictment on charges that he lied to federal agents about helping his son get a job with a politically-connected law firm.

Okay, I get paying back Republicans like Martins, who has been good on education issues.

But why back the indicted Libous?

And the next time you hear jive about Working Families Party backing Cuomo so that the State Senate could be taken back by Dems, remember this sentence from Liz Benjamin:

There was also no consensus among union leaders about the effort to flip the Senate into Democratic hands – a push that largely originated with unions during the labor-backed Working Families Party’s debate over whether to endorse Gov. Andrew Cuomo or Fordham Law Prof. Zephyr Teachout.

I'm agnostic these days about Dems taking back the Senate - many of them are ed deformers and pro-Common Core, after all.

But I do want to point out the jive around the WFP endorsement.