NY Gov. David Paterson expects to spend a staggering 29 hours hunkered over state-budget bills, pen in hand, to complete the task of vetoing hundreds of millions of dollars in spending packed into the budget by legislators this week, The NY Post has learned.The legally blind governor was preparing to resume the arduous task — requiring him to personally sign 6,899 budget amendments before an aid can stamp each one “VETO” — after returning from a trip to Washington tomorrow.
Paterson signed the first veto Monday night during a televised event to make clear that he wouldn’t approve the spending bills. He has 10 days from when the Legislature passed the spending bills to finish signing the vetoes.
James Messerschmidt
Gov. Paterson will have to spend 29 hours to keep his vow of vetoing all the extra millions in spending.
The administration estimates that Paterson can issue an average of four vetoes a minute, or 240 an hour, a source close to the governor told The Post. At that rate, Paterson can finally rest his pen after 28.75 hours..
The daunting prospect has administration lawyers scrambling to research whether they can legally use a machine to print the signatures — a shortcut initially thought illegal by Paterson counsel Peter Kiernan.
“We’re working on the mechanics of doing the vetoes,” the source said.
The vetoes follow the defiant decision by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) and Senate Democratic Leader John Sampson of Brooklyn to pass a $136 billion budget Monday that restored $600 million in school aid and included some 6,800 legislative grants over Paterson’s objections.
Paterson must complete the veto process within 10 days. He’ll likely set a record. Former Gov. George Pataki issued scores of vetoes in some of his final budget battles with lawmakers, but he never approached anything close to 6,900.
Any thought of overriding Paterson’s vetoes vanished yesterday after Senate Minority Leader Dean Skelos (R-LI) signaled that his conference wouldn’t give Democrats the two-thirds vote in the narrowly divided Senate.
Meanwhile, the budget fight turned petty yesterday as angry lawmakers retaliated against the veto-happy governor.
Sources close to Paterson said the Legislative Bill Drafting Commission — controlled jointly by Silver and Sampson — twice refused to accept the governor’s legislation.
A spokesman for Silver denied an effort to stonewall the governor’s agenda, while Sampson all but ‘fessed up.
“It’s all about negotiations and you have to use whatever tools you have to negotiate,” Sampson said.
{NY Post/Noam Amdurski-Matzav.com Newscenter}
