Free Republic

In separate federal courthouses in Lower Manhattan this month, two of the most powerful men in New York are about to go on trial, an extraordinary spectacle centering on allegations of corruption, bribery and nepotism in the highest chambers of political power. Stories from Our Advertisers But even as the men, Assemblyman Sheldon Silver, the former speaker, and Senator Dean G. Skelos, the former majority leader, fight the charges and attempt to restore their reputations, something else will also be on trial: the culture of Albany, the state capital. Court papers in the two cases suggest that testimony in Federal...

<p>Rob Bennett for The New York Times; Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times Two state senators — Pedro Espada Jr. of the Bronx and Hiram Monserrate of Queens — moved to defect to the Republican side, which would end Democratic control of the chamber.</p>

Gov. David A. Paterson and legislative leaders failed to reach a resolution on the state’s deepening financial crisis on Sunday, throwing into doubt the chances that an agreement could be reached before an emergency legislative session scheduled for Tuesday. Mr. Paterson met with the Senate majority leader, Dean G. Skelos, and the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, in his Midtown Manhattan office on Sunday afternoon. But by the time the meeting ended, after about an hour, it was not clear that the Legislature would even vote on Mr. Paterson’s plan to close the state’s budget deficit. In a statement issued after...

For years, when Republican state senators met privately in their elegant, high-ceilinged conference room in the Capitol, most senior members clustered around the room’s center table, close to Joseph L. Bruno, the majority leader. But Dean G. Skelos, the hard-driving Long Island Republican and deputy majority leader, sat in a back corner. From there, he studied the scene, taking in members’ facial expressions, their tones of voice and their reactions to other senators’ ideas. “My grandfather taught me a long time ago, be a buyer, not a seller,” said Mr. Skelos in an interview on Thursday. He added: “I like...