Free Republic

ALBANY, Feb. 7 — The Democratic-led State Assembly dealt a setback today to Gov. Eliot Spitzer by agreeing to elect Assemblyman Thomas P. DiNapoli as the next state comptroller, reneging on a deal it made with the governor to choose only from candidates deemed qualified by an outside screening panel. The full Legislature voted to make Mr. DiNapoli comptroller this afternoon. The Legislature was in the unusual position of choosing a comptroller for a nearly full four-year term because the popularly elected comptroller, Alan G. Hevesi, resigned in disgrace after he pleaded guilty to a felony late last year. Instead...

SACRAMENTO– Orange County lawmaker Jose Solorio raised some eyebrows in December when he was named chairman of the Assembly Public Safety Committee. A rookie legislator, Solorio lacks the sort of background you might expect of the law enforcement chairman. He ran this fall on an education platform, touting his public policy degree from Harvard and encouraging Latinos to learn English. His slogan was "The Education Candidate." "The only qualification that I see is that he had a lot of money to spread around," said political watchdog Doug Heller of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights. Indeed, Solorio, D-Santa Ana,...

<p>After meeting with Assembly Democrats for an hour Tuesday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he was optimistic his budget package would be approved eventually.</p> <p>"We had a terrific meeting," Schwarzenegger said after the closed-door meeting. But he left unanswered whether the Legislature would be able to make a Friday deadline for placing a bond financing plan and a spending cap proposal on the March ballot.</p>