Stalled

In the last couple of weeks, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and the Riverdale/Kingsbridge area's Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz have both been inundating the media with announcements about bills passed and laws poised to change.

On Tuesday, Mr. Silver's staff issued a statement indicating that the Legislature's lower house convened for 13 hours and 2 minutes on Monday and acted on 202 bills, while holding 15 committee meetings.

None of these bills are going anywhere; they have to pass both the Assembly and the state Senate, and given the state of the Assembly's august companion chamber, it's highly unlikely even the most time-sensitive work will be done this year.

On Tuesday alone, Mr. Dinowitz also issued releases announcing three of those bills: One announcing harsher penalties for those who cause physical injury to someone who is obtaining, providing or assisting someone with reproductive health services; another creating an alert system for missing adults; and a third attempting to curb illegal debt collection practices.

Monday was the last regular day of the legislative session. There was an extraordinary state Senate session yesterday to vote on as many bills critical to the continuance of government in New York as possible, since Albany has been wrought for weeks with a dispute over who is in charge in the Legislature's upper house: the Republicans, the Democrats, or the small cadre of registered Democratic politicians who shuttle or threaten to shuttle between the two depending on the issue of the day and the state of negotiations.

But, as we report in this week's issue of our paper, that session went nowhere because the Republicans refused to acknowledge it and the governor's office may not have provided the documents necessary to vote on bills. In fact, there were two legislative sessions yesterday; the Republicans held their own. It's becoming increasingly apparent that none of the votes held yesterday will count for anything.

While Gov. David Paterson has said he'll call the state Senate to Albany every day until critical bills are passed, Assembly members have all gone home.

I sent Mr. Dinowitz a text message yesterday asking if he would be present upstate for the show.

"In Bx," he replied. "We did our job. No time for the circus."