Eliot Spitzer’s In the Arena was cancelled on CNN last week. Chris Rovzar at Daily Intel sums up why we begin to feel bad for him. I’d always thought it was just time and the elements, but the ex-boyfriend (girlfriend) theory makes sense.

Our relationships with the people we vote for are by necessity romances, about which I subscribe to a theory: It’s impossible to be friends with your most recent ex. In order to feel comfortable around a person with whom you’ve shared a relationship, you need to put a new ­relationship between you and the old flame. This is why, for example, a groom’s last girlfriend is rarely invited to the wedding, but a childhood or college love might get to give a toast at the rehearsal dinner.

(Source: New York Magazine)

Will voters says “no” to Republicans who said “yes”?

When New York’s state Senate voted to legalize same-sex marriage last week, the number of gay Americans legally allowed to marry in the country doubled, from 16 million to 32 million. The Empire State Building lit up like a rainbow, there was dancing in the streets and the bill became an excuse for pundits to speculate about the possibility of Gov. Andrew Cuomo as a presidential candidate in 2016.

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What senators passed before same-sex marriage

By LAURA NAHMIAS

While the Senate stalled on momentous issues like rent regulations, property taxes and gay marriage last week, it still pursued the people’s business. Here are some of the bills senators passed instead:

—Thinking of buying that Edsel? Get ready to pony up an extra Benjamin. The Senate voted on a bill to require an additional $100 registration fee for any antique car.

—Queens Sen. Joe Addabbo Jr. sponsored and passed a bill to outlaw flashy LED license plates. They’re distracting, apparently—more so than all of the other flashy things one can see while driving in Queens.

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The longest night of the legislative year ended up being abruptly cut short – leaving New York hanging not just on the open question of gay marriage, but also on questions that were thought to have been settled long ago.

The Senate adjourned after 10 p.m., despite senators’ repeated assertions they intended to debate into the wee hours of the morning. But it was clear by 9:30 p.m. that there was no agreement on the exact language for several major bills, including an omnibus bill that included rent regulations and a property tax cap, SUNY 2020 tuition increases – or same-sex marriage.

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(Source: nycapitolnews.com)

“You haven’t got any whistles in there, have you?” a security guard at the Capitol entrance asked three same-sex marriage advocates as they emptied their pockets to walk through the metal detectors.

“No, we’re very quiet,” said one, who was carrying both ChapStick and posterboard signs.

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(Source: nycapitolnews.com)

The fate of same-sex marriage in New York hinges on the fate of negotiations between Senate Republicans and Gov. Andrew Cuomo over protections for religious institutions – after similar changes were able to win three “yes” votes from former opponents in the Assembly.

Assemblyman Nelson Castro was one of three religious Democrats who changed their position last week as the Assembly passed a gay marriage bill 80-63 and sent it to the Senate, where it remains one vote shy of approval.

“I think marriage should be between a man and a woman, but I don’t have the right to prohibit others to have the right to get married,” said Castro, 39.

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(Source: nycapitolnews.com)

Course Correction

With prison closures, Cuomo confronts economic challenges, and his father’s legacy

Crime used to be a formidable political force in New York State. In the ’80s and ’90s, the prison population boomed from 21,000 inmates to 71,000, filling gymnasiums and rented spaces faster than the state could build prisons to house them.

But in the last 15 years, momentum has shifted in the opposite direction. The War on Terror has largely supplanted the War on Drugs.

Reform of the Rockefeller-era drug laws and increased reliance on alternative rehabilitation strategies have helped shrink the prison population to 58,000. A governor’s stance on the death penalty is no longer a make-or-break position. The outrage has dissipated.

The shift is what makes it politically possible for Gov. Andrew Cuomo to attempt to dismantle, brick by brick, his father’s legacy of prison expansion in New York.

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