From all I am hearing Paterson is cleaning house? Supposedly getting rid of Spitzer’s staff and putting in his own people. I hope these things are true. In the midst of the budget battle things have got to move forward.

I don’t think that Paterson was really part of the inner circle of the Eliot clan. I really think he was on the outside looking in. We will have to see how this goes.

The New York Law Journal - Free: Spitzer Announces Resignation
New Governor Has Little Room To Maneuver

ALBANY - Faced with the necessity of negotiating a new budget in a failing economy, Lieutenant Governor David A. Paterson will have only a limited ability, at least in the near term, to set a public policy course different than that of Governor Eliot Spitzer, whom he will replace on Monday.

Mr. Paterson yesterday began to restructure a governor’s office that has all but ceased functioning in the tumultuous last three days, as Mr. Spitzer considered resigning in the wake of revelations that he had patronized high-priced call girls.

Yesterday, Mr. Spitzer finally decided that he could not continue, signaling the wreckage of a once-stellar political career that had once sparked speculation that he could end up as the first Jewish president.

Mr. Spitzer became only the sixth New York governor to resign mid-term and the first to quit in disgrace.

“As I leave public life, I will first do what I need to do to help and heal myself and my family,” Mr. Spitzer said in a brief statement at his mid-town Manhattan office, his wife, Silda Wall Spitzer, at his side. “Then I will try once again, outside of politics, to serve the common good and to move toward the ideals and solutions which I believe can build a future of hope and opportunity for us and for our children.”

Mr. Spitzer, who first acknowledged in the same room on Monday that he had betrayed the trust of his family and his state, again yesterday did not refer to any details of the “private failings” that abruptly ended his governorship. But Mr. Spitzer was identified by law enforcement sources as “Client 9″ in a complaint in the Southern District of New York against the operators of a high-end prostitution ring.

Client 9 was accused of arranging a $4,300 tryst with a call girl in a Washington, D.C., hotel. Later press reports claimed Mr. Spitzer had spent at least $80,000 on prostitutes.

Mr. Spitzer has not been charged with any crimes, but Southern District U.S. Attorney Michael J. Garcia indicated just after Mr. Spitzer read his three-minute statement that prosecutors had not reached any sort of plea agreement with the governor to lessen possible criminal charges in exchange for his resignation.

“There is no agreement between this Office and Governor Eliot Spitzer, relating to his resignation or any other matter,” Mr. Garcia said in a statement.

Mr. Spitzer, 48, said that Mr. Paterson, his lieutenant governor for 14 1/2 difficult months of the governorship that he won with nearly 70 percent of the vote, had requested that Mr. Spitzer make his resignation effective on Monday to give the next governor time to make the transition.

Mr. Paterson released a brief statement urging New Yorkers to pray for Mr. Spitzer’s family. He also declared that “it is now time for Albany to get back to work” after the politically cataclysmic developments of the past two days. The lieutenant governor continued reaching out to prominent legislators yesterday to secure their promises of cooperation and lining up the team that will accompany him as he moves into the governor’s office.

Sources said Mr. Paterson’s father, Basil A. Paterson, a former state senator and secretary of state, and Bill Lynch, a top aide to then-New York City Mayor David Dinkins, were among those aiding the governor-to-be in his transition efforts. David Paterson once worked on Mr. Dinkins’ campaign for Manhattan borough president in the mid-1980s.

Mr. Paterson, a 53-year-old Democrat, will automatically succeed to the governorship. He will fill out the rest of Mr. Spitzer’s term, through 2010.

Mr. Paterson will be New York’s first-ever black governor and its first physically disabled governor since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Mr. Paterson lost most of his eyesight at age 3 months due to an optic nerve infection and is legally blind.

Relieved Legislators

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