Lawmakers Plead Not Guilty to Charges in Bribery Scheme

Michael Appleton for The New York TimesState Senator Malcolm A. Smith, a Democrat, arriving at court in White Plains on Tuesday, is accused of bribing Republican Party leaders to put him on the ballot in New York’s mayoral race.

WHITE PLAINS — A state senator and a New York City councilman pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to charges that they plotted to bribe Republican Party bosses to place the senator on the ballot in the city’s mayoral race.

Councilman Daniel J. Halloran III was charged with Mr. Smith.

Noramie F. Jasmin, the mayor of Spring Valley, N.Y., was accused of accepting money and property.

Four others who were named in the indictment also pleaded not guilty here in Federal District Court.

The plot, outlined in a complaint unsealed on April 2, included fraud charges against State Senator Malcolm A. Smith, a Queens Democrat; City Councilman Daniel J. Halloran III, a Queens Republican; and the Republican Party bosses Joseph J. Savino and Vincent Tabone. Also charged in the complaint were Mayor Noramie F. Jasmin of Spring Valley, in Rockland County, and the deputy mayor, Joseph Desmaret. They were accused of accepting money and property to advance a real estate development there.

Prosecutors said in an indictment last week that Mr. Smith had arranged for $40,000 in cash to be paid by the developer of the Spring Valley project — actually a federal undercover agent — to Mr. Savino, the chairman of the party in the Bronx, and Mr. Tabone, the vice chairman of the party in Queens.

While those officials pledged to help Mr. Smith gain a spot on the Republican ballot, the indictment said, Mr. Smith agreed in return to help obtain about $500,000 in state funds for road work that would benefit the project.

Mr. Halloran received $15,000 to act as an intermediary among the party bosses and Mr. Smith, according to the indictment. He is also accused of accepting payments from the undercover agent and an unnamed associate while agreeing to steer up to $80,000 in City Council discretionary money to them.

The indictment said Mr. Smith had discussed giving money to other state senators to gain their support for a Senate leadership position.

Mr. Tabone was described in an indictment as saying: “I run the Queens County Republican Party. Nobody else runs the party.”

Mr. Tabone, the only defendant to comment to reporters, said he was an “unpaid party volunteer” and added, “I’ll have my day in court.”

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For Three New York Lawmakers, Falls From Grace After an Attempted Coup

They were state senators from New York City, Democrats who threw the upper house of the Legislature into chaos after the 2008 election, at a time when Democrats should have been celebrating winning control of the chamber for the first time in more than four decades. Instead, the amigos — a term they bestowed upon themselves — gleefully posed before camera crews and loudly courted both sides of the aisle for perks, power and patronage.

Two of the amigos, Pedro Espada Jr. and Hiram Monserrate, even briefly allied with the Republican caucus in 2009, orchestrating a coup that for a time paralyzed the state government.

Ah, karma.

Now, two amigos — Mr. Monserrate and Carl Kruger — are headed to prison, and the fate of a third, Mr. Espada, is in the hands of a jury after a federal corruption trial. Jurors said Wednesday that they had reached an impasse, but the judge, Frederic Block, instructed them to continue deliberating.

Few of their fellow Democrats are sorry to see them gone from Albany.

“Three are gone,” Senator Liz Krueger, a Manhattan Democrat, said with a broad smile on Wednesday, before walking into the legislative chamber.

Senator Diane J. Savino, a Staten Island Democrat, said: “You almost want to say, I don’t have any sympathy for you. But I’m human, and I don’t wish anybody ill. It’s so frustrating; we were kneecapped by the four of them after Election Day.”

One amigo remains in office: Senator Rubén Díaz Sr., a Pentecostal minister who is one of the Legislature’s most outspoken social conservatives, is unrepentant about their rebellion.

“Never in the history of New York State has there been something so exciting,” Mr. Díaz said. “Never, never, never. That was history. That will go down in the book of history.”

The amigos stole the spotlight in 2008, right after the Democrats won control of the Senate. Only a day after the election, the four lawmakers shocked their colleagues by refusing to commit to backing a member of their own party to lead the chamber.

Three of the four lawmakers are Hispanic, and their stated reason for rebelling was that Latino lawmakers needed a greater voice in government. “We have a black president, a black governor, and we have a concern that we have to be sharing power,” Mr. Díaz said at the time.

Mr. Espada, with his well-tailored suits and unflappable style, seemed particularly to enjoy playing to the cameras. He would tell reporters he was leaning toward supporting a Democrat for leader, then mention he was having dinner with Senator Dean G. Skelos, leader of the Republicans.

Eventually, the amigos agreed to back a Democrat, but for a price. Mr. Kruger was named head of the Senate Finance Committee, and Mr. Espada was made a vice president of the Senate and given the chamber’s top housing post. That was not enough for him. By the following summer, he and Mr. Monserrate had orchestrated a coup by briefly joining with the Republicans.

After Mr. Monserrate returned to the Democrats, the chamber was evenly split and rudderless, culminating with both sides holding dueling sessions at the same time, in the same chamber. Mr. Espada eventually returned to the Democratic fold and claimed the lofty title of majority leader, if not all of that title’s traditional powers.

“What they did is take what should have been a real moment of celebration and turned it on its head, and quite frankly we never recovered from it,” said Ms. Savino, now part of a new splinter group, the Independent Democratic Conference, that has allied with Republican lawmakers.

The fate of the amigos has taken a considerable turn in recent weeks. This month, Mr. Monserrate pleaded guilty to improperly using public money to finance a failed political campaign, acknowledging that he was guilty of mail fraud and mail fraud conspiracy. He was ousted from the Senate in 2010 after a conviction for domestic assault.

In April, Mr. Kruger was sentenced to seven years in prison by a federal judge; he had been accused of accepting more than $1 million in bribes from two hospital executives, a lobbyist and a health care consultant.

Mr. Espada faces charges of embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from a nonprofit health care network to support his lavish lifestyle. And he was recently ordered to pay $80,000 worth of fines and restitution by a legislative ethics commission, which said he had violated state law by hiring his uncle to join his official staff.

Mr. Díaz remains bitter about Mr. Espada’s fate. He says he believes that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, when he was still attorney general, overreached in corruption cases that he brought against Mr. Espada.

“I think that Pedro Espada was targeted,” Mr. Díaz said. “Why would Andrew Cuomo accuse him of stealing $14 million? Why? Because it was a vendetta.”

Of the other two amigos, he said, “I will continue being a friend and praying for them, and anything that they need, I will be there for them.”

Senator Neil D. Breslin, an Albany Democrat, said: “Neither Democrats nor Republicans should have embraced Pedro Espada and Hiram Monserrate. We all share in the guilt of doing that. Shame on us.”

But Senator Eric L. Adams, a Brooklyn Democrat, was more forgiving. “Our caucus, unlike the Republican caucus, we don’t look alike, sound alike; it’s extremely diverse,” he said, alluding to the fact that the Republican caucus is exclusively white. “I don’t think they hurt our conference; they added flavor to our conference, a flavor that’s missing from the guys across the aisle.”

Mosi Secret contributed reporting.

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Democrats hear from woman snubbed by GOP lawmakers - msnbc.com

Washington — Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke was given her chance to talk to Congress Thursday, even though lawmakers were on a break and just a few Democratic allies were there to cheer her on.

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But what a difference a week makes.

Last Thursday the Republican-controlled House Oversight and Government Reform Committee rejected Democrats' request that Fluke testify on the Obama administration's policy requiring that employees of religion-affiliated institutions have access to health insurance that covers birth control.

This week she received almost rock-star treatment as the lone witness at an unofficial Democratic-sponsored hearing. While the rest of the Capitol was mostly empty, Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, three other Democrats and dozens of mainly young women supporters crowded into a House office building room to applaud Fluke as she spoke of the importance of reproductive health care to women.

Prominently displayed by Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., was a photo of five religious leaders, all men and all appearing at the invitation of the Republican majority, testifying last week with Fluke visible in the background, sitting in the visitors' section.

Democrats pounced on that image of a hearing discussing contraceptive rights being dominated by men while the one person Democrats had asked to appear on the witness stand, a woman, was turned away. Pelosi, D-Calif., said they had since heard from 300,000 people urging that women's voices be heard on the issue.

"We almost ought to thank the chairman for the lack of judgment he had," in denying a seat to Fluke, Pelosi said.

Committee chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., had said at last week's hearing that the panel's focus was on whether the administration policy was a violation of religious freedom. He said at the time that Fluke, invited by Democrats in her capacity as former head of Georgetown Law Students for Reproductive Justice, was not qualified to speak on the religious rights question.

"I'm an American woman who uses contraceptives," Fluke said, when asked Thursday by Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., about her qualifications to speak on the issue.

The Health and Human Services Department ruled earlier this year that, under the new health care law, religious-affiliated institutions such as hospitals and universities must include free birth control coverage in their employee health plans.

That raised a storm of protests from Catholic leaders and other groups that disapprove of contraception on religious grounds. Two weeks ago President Barack Obama modified that policy so that insurance companies, and not the organization affiliated with a church, would pay for birth control coverage.

The religious leaders at last week's hearing said that Obama's concession was too little. Republicans in the House and Senate are pushing legislation to let insurance plans opt out of any mandate on contraception coverage if they have moral objections.

Fluke, a third-year law student, said that Georgetown Law, a Jesuit institution, does not provide contraception coverage in its student health plan and that contraception can cost a woman more than $3,000 during law school. She spoke of a friend who had an ovary removed because the insurance company wouldn't cover the prescription birth control she needed to stop the growth of cysts.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Indiana union bill: Even with Dems AWOL, lawmakers move closer to vote (The Christian Science Monitor)

Chicago – Most Indiana Democrats were absent from the House floor in Indianapolis Friday, the third day of session they skipped to protest a proposed bill they say is harmful to unions.

But their absence Friday did not prevent a House committee from hearing more than five hours of testimony on the bill in question, which would ban negotiations between a union and company if workers are forced to pay fees for representation.

The committee ended the day by voting to send the bill to the House for a full vote, which Republicans say will happen next week. However, a quorum in that chamber is needed for the vote. Actions by Democrats suggest they are not worried about the fines, at $1,000 per day per lawmaker, that they face for not showing up.

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Republicans will get their vote, but it’s a matter of when, says Brian Vargus, a political scientist at Indiana University in Indianapolis. Democrats are reluctant to give the Republican majority a victory because it may weaken union support.

“Unions are big contributors to the Democrats, and they feel with the decline of unionization, it would solidify Republicans. It simply comes down to that,” Mr. Vargus says.

The area’s diminished role in the steel and automotive industries has resulted in declining membership for Indiana unions. In 2010, the share of workers in Indiana who were unionized was 10.9 percent, lower than the national average of 11.9 percent, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Last year, Indiana’s Republican leadership passed a collective-bargaining law that weakens the negotiating power of public unions in the state. The so-called right-to-work bill being contemplated this session would further clamp down on union activity.

Collective-bargaining legislation has been a bumpier road for neighboring states in the Midwest. For example, although Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) saw his collective-bargaining bill become law, it was not without a major fight that continues today with a recall effort to remove him from office. In Ohio, voters repudiated a collective-bargaining law in November. And in Michigan, Gov. Rick Snyder (R) is on record as saying it is not the time to push for such legislation, which he called “divisive” last month.

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) and House Speaker Brian Bosma (R) are ignoring the potential backlash because they probably see it as an opportunity “to weaken the Democrats in the state” in an election year, says Vargus. “If they can limit union power and union strength, they will feel it will benefit their candidates,” he says of the state Republican leadership.

Friday’s testimony came from both sides of the issue. Keith Busse, a former chief executive officer of Steel Dynamics in Fort Wayne, Ind., described the bill as a “jobs boon” because it would convince companies outside the state that Indiana is business-friendly and prepared to help create job opportunities.

The NFL Players Association also weighed in, most likely because this year’s Super Bowl is set in Indianapolis on Feb. 5. In a statement, the organization, which is based in Washington D.C., criticized the legislation, calling it “a political ploy designed to destroy basic workers’ rights.” The statement added, “it’s the wrong priority for Indiana.”

Democrats say they will not return for a vote until Republicans agree to hold a series of public hearings around the state to justify the bill’s passage to voters. Republicans say they will probably start enforcing the $1,000 penalty next week.

That threat has already been enough for three Democrats to show up since Wednesday, which was the first day of the session. One of those Democrats, Vanessa Summers of Indianapolis, told reporters Thursday that she “cannot stand the fine” because she is a single mother with a son in college.

“I’m on the right side of history. So whatever happens is going to bless me,” Representative Summers said.

Online fundraising efforts via ActBlue, a Democratic political-action committee, launched Friday to help offset costs for the Indiana Democrats still staying away.

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Lawmakers make another run at immigration bill (AP)

WASHINGTON – Senate Democrats renewed an uphill push Tuesday for legislation that would give young illegal immigrants a shot at legal status by arguing that the hundreds of thousands affected would improve the nation's economy and security.

The legislation known as the DREAM Act would allow students who came to the United States as children to gain permanent residency if they go to college or serve in the military, plus meet other conditions such as passing a criminal background check. The bill's sponsors are unlikely to gain the votes necessary to pass it, but the hearing gave lawmakers a chance to show Hispanics and other immigrant communities their support for the legislation before next year's elections.

Several dozen students in their cap and gowns attended the hearing, despite their status as illegal immigrants. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., introduced several who had demonstrated excellence in many facets of life but were unable to gain employment in their chosen field.

"They want to serve the country they love," Durbin said. "All they want is a chance."

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said that lawmakers from both parties have compassion for the students that would be helped by the legislation, but he said it was important to get the details right, and he pointed to changes that he believes are necessary for the bill before it can gain more Republican support. For example, he noted that students could eventually gain citizenship even if they committed serious misdemeanors, such as driving while intoxicated or certain drug offenses. The biggest stumbling block, he said, was the federal government's failure to do what it has promised to do in securing the borders and enforcing illegal hiring practices in the workplace.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., countered that the nation's borders are the most secure they've been over the past decade and that there are no longer thousands of illegal immigrants coming across the Mexican border on a daily basis.

"To use border security as a reason not to give these young people a chance makes no sense to me," Feinstein said.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan told the Senate subcommittee hearing that the students helped would help fill millions of science and engineering jobs that are critical to sustaining the economy.

"They can be the fuel to our economic engine," Duncan said.

Janet Napolitano, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, argued that the students who would be helped through the legislation pose no threat to public safety or the nation's security. Indeed, granting them legal status would help the department devote more of its resources to removing those who are a threat.

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