We recognize that in the high-stakes, often take-no-prisoners budget negotiations in Albany, leverage is at a premium. And we also appreciate the particularly exquisite dilemma now facing Governor George Pataki with the advent of both houses of the legislature having united against him and their probable ability to override his vetoes of their budget proposals. This plainly has the potential of relegating the Governor to “lame duck” status and to diminish his attractiveness in Washington. But, having said this we are sorely disappointed that in making his public case against the legislature last week, he chastised Jewish legislators for their impending absences over the Passover holidays. “[I]n the face of a fiscal crisis you set aside some of those personal things and get the job done,” he said in part.
The governor was just wrong in his statements about availability. But in any event, his current problem with members of the legislature does not lie in any absence from Albany. Rather it is their sharp disagreement with him when they have been present.
The governor had no cause to inject our beliefs into a political battle of which they are no proper part.
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