Paterson to name lieutentant governor: SFW!?

It looks like Governor David Paterson is taking a step toward becoming the Manuel Zelaya of New York State by widening New York’s political crisis from the legislative to the executive branch:

The office of lieutenant governor has been vacant since Eliot Spitzer resigned last March. The lack of a lieutenant governor — who casts tie-breaking votes in the Senate — has become a particularly pressing issue amid a nearly five-week old stalemate in the State Senate that has halted business in the chamber. The Senate has been deadlocked since Pedro Espada Jr., a Bronx Democrat, sided with the Senate’s 30 Republicans, dividing the 62-member chamber.

But the governor’s move is sure to be highly debated. Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, the state’s top legal officer, said this week that such a step would be unconstitutional and would entangle “the governor in a political ploy that would wind through the courts for many months.”

via Paterson Set to Name a New York Lieutenant Governor – NYTimes.com.

It’s great how instead of using the governor’s bully pulpit to successfully end the stand off in the New York State Senate, Governor Paterson just wants to create the possibility that some time before the 2010 election, another guy we didn’t elect, ex-MTA chairman Richard Ravitch, could become governor of this state.

Furthermore, wouldn’t it be great if by potentially acting outside or beyond the law, Paterson himself would suddenly be subject to a court battle and impeachment proceedings, leaving us with a legislature that can’t pass bills, an executive under a cloud, and judges who are pissed off because no one will give them a pay raise?

And as the end of Jeremy Peters and Danny Hakim’s story points out in the Times, picking a lieutenant governor isn’t really going to get the State Senate unstuck. The gridlock that’s paralyzed the Senate and prevented serious legislative progress will continue because everything will still be cut in half.

All Governor Paterson is doing is reminding us why we probably won’t actually elect you as our governor if and when we get the chance. This All Hat political move on his part won’t be progress for New York. It only calls into question his real leadership skills.