NY State Repuke Senators Caught Revealing Selves as Immature

[UTUSN]

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http://www.nypost.com/gossip/pagesix_u.htm

REPUBLICAN lawmakers are accusing the New York Times of "unethical and potentially criminal tactics" because a Times reporter made monkeys of them after secretly eavesdropping on a conference call between them and Gov. Pataki.

In the resulting article, published Thursday, the Republican state Senate leaders came off as disrespectful, two-faced and immature, and more interested in "guffaws, political scheming and fraternity-style horseplay" than in Pataki's announcement he would not seek a fourth term as governor.

Times reporter Al Baker described in the story how he was invited to listen in to the conference call by an unnamed "Republican operative." Pataki's decision had already been leaked to the press, and Baker reported that just before Pataki got on the line, one of the senators asked, to an eruption of laughter, "What are we going to hear, what we read in the paper this morning?"

Other choice quotes Baker extracted from the conversation included a senator asking who was going to the Saratoga races that afternoon, and one unidentified "colleague" of Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno asking him, "Did you get that Mercedes I had delivered to your house?" That presumably was a joke. Bruno also thanked another senator he called "Billy" for a tie. ....



http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/28/nyregion/28phone.html?

Conference Call
Pipe Down, Senators; Governor Is on the Line
By AL BAKER
Published: July 28, 2005

.... During the call, the senators mimicked and poked fun at one another. And there were insights into what was really on their mind this July weekday: "Who's going to the races this afternoon?" one asked, in a reference to opening day at Saratoga Race Course. ....

But when the governor hung up, an air of mischief returned.

"Hey, Joe, was it a good time for me to ask him to sign the E.C. bill?" asked Senator Nicholas A. Spano, a Republican from Westchester County who has sponsored the bill to make the emergency contraception pill available to women and girls without a prescription. ....

One senator asked Mr. Bruno if the state would steam ahead on Medicaid reform with a governor who was now a lame duck. Another: "More casinos." Another: "Maybe we can do our fall session" on conference calls. ....

The talk soon turned to who would succeed Mr. Pataki. One senator said that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg was "the guy, Joe." Many agreed. There were more jokes about senators past and present. ....

In the end, one of the Republican senators suggested doing "a call like this once a week. This is good therapy."

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[Nite Owl]

1. All I want to know is

did Spano ever get the answer to the E.C. bill. It finally got passed in the Republican Senate all he needs to do is sign the damned thing.