Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is hit ting back at Gov. Paterson for attacking the Legislature as a pack of political cowards afraid to cut key spending programs despite a runaway budget deficit.
“Yes, I’m critical that the governor is being critical of the Legislature and not being practical about what just happened,” the Manhattan-based, normally tight-lipped Silver told The Post.
“I’m also being critical that the governor is not distinguishing between the Assembly and the Senate,” he continued.
Silver, the state’s second-most-powerful Democrat, was furious with Paterson’s repeated attacks during the Legislature’s monthlong budget battle.
“Shelly understands that Paterson is trying to get himself elected by attacking the Legislature,” said a Silver intimate.
Even as Assembly Democrats stood ready to pass many cuts, Senate Democrats under the “leadership” of Sen. John Sampson of Brooklyn couldn’t muster the votes.
“It drove Shelly crazy that Paterson kept blaming the entire Legislature when the real problem . . . was in the Senate,” said the source.
Sampson has told associates he can barely stomach Paterson. Relations have gotten so bad that Silver and Sampson are likely to support Attorney General Andrew Cuomo for governor next year, according to associates of both men.
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Top state agency commissioners, battered by several rounds of budget cuts and facing an increasingly surly, attrition-wracked workforce, are increasingly upset with what they say is Paterson’s hyper-political focus.
“Not only can’t commissioners get to speak with the governor, they can’t even get people on the second floor [the governor’s suite at the Capitol] to talk to them,” a senior state official told The Post.
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Senate Republicans got an earful during a meeting Friday with 12 GOP county executives, who, facing deteriorating economies and cuts in state aid, came to the Capitol for a meeting of the state Association of Counties.
Sen. Roy McDonald (R-Saratoga), representing Senate Minority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Nassau), told them it was important they help Republicans retake the Senate next year.
“The response was a collective, ‘What have you done for us?’ ” said a Republican activist familiar with the gathering.