Free Republic

The state Senate may be clueless about how to fix New York's fiscal mess, but it's absolutely confident that it knows how to reform the nation's electoral system. It just endorsed the so-called National Popular Vote plan, which would radically alter the nation's presidential election system without bothering to amend the Constitution. The Assembly and the governor should kill this scheme. The idea is to prevent a repeat of the 2000 election, when Al Gore won the popular vote but George W. Bush won the electoral vote and the presidency. Sounds reasonable -- but this "solution" would only bring greater...

Updated, 4:15 p.m. | ALBANY – Democrats appeared to have lost their majority in the New York State Senate on Monday, in a stunning and sudden reversal of fortunes for a party that has controlled the chamber for barely five months.

ALBANY — They have sent microfilm clerks and security guards from their desks in the Capitol to the hustings of eastern Long Island and the Buffalo suburbs. They have brought in a dozen outside consultants, including a firm that produced the Swift Boat campaign against John Kerry, to cut advertisements and raise money. They have spent millions of dollars to fight for seats that were once safely Republican. No effort is being spared by New York Republicans in the final days of this election season, which will determine whether they continue to control the State Senate, their only outpost of...

A mayoral commission that just two months ago granted early release to former State Senator Guy J. Velella has ordered him and four others to surrender by Monday to be returned to jail, the commission's chairman said yesterday. The extraordinary decision by the panel, the Local Conditional Release Commission, came after the board determined that the five inmates it released this year had been let out illegally. But Mr. Velella's lawyer vowed to fight, saying last night that he would seek a temporary restraining order on Monday, adding that Mr. Velella learned this week that he has prostate cancer. "We...

After last month's primary, Democratic leaders in the Bronx grew more hopeful about their chances of capturing the state Senate seat that had long been held by Guy J. Velella, the once-powerful Republican lawmaker who was convicted of felony bribery charges. In the primary, Assemblyman Stephen B. Kaufman, a Democrat, who also had the backing of the Republicans, sought to win both the Democratic and Republican nominations. But he lost both primaries, a defeat that was an embarrassment to the Republicans who had supported him. But any expectations that Democrats would easily capture the prized Republican Senate seat may have...